A Labor of Love

This week we studied the last hours of Christ's life, finished on the cross on Calvary. In a lot of ways, it was a difficult week. We talked about the kind of torture and cruelty, emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually that He endured on our behalf. I love my Savior so much, and although I am grateful for the opportunity I had to learn more about His suffering for me, I really cannot dwell on His pain very long because it breaks my heart.

To finish this series of posts, I want to dwell instead on who Jesus Christ really is. I've spent a semester reading and learning about His earthly ministry. It is no surprise that at the top of the list of His characteristics are love and service. I want to talk about just one example from the night before He died for all of us.

He was celebrating the Passover with the Twelve Apostles. Before beginning the supper, He knelt on the ground before each of them and washed their feet. Just before this the apostles had been bickering about who was the greatest and had the highest rank among them. Christ, knowing that His hour was close, took this time to try and underline as best as He could this lesson:

"Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." (John 13:12-17, 34-35) 

Most teachers try to make their most important points to you the last day of class before a test, or at the end of the semester. Effectively, this supper was the disciples' "last day of class" with their Teacher. Although Jesus Christ knew at least in part the suffering that awaited Him just hours from that moment, He was concerned at that time for the well being of those He loved. 

I know from my mortal experience, not yet having had children of my own, that when I leave my family for long periods of time, I don't focus so much on the unknown trials ahead of me. Instead, all I can think about is how much I am going to miss my family, and how much I hope and pray that they will be taken care of. Those feelings always intensify as the time of departure grows closer. If that is how I react as a young mortal with a limited capacity to love, I can only imagine how much Jesus Christ was swallowed up in His love and desire to protect His dear disciples. Sadly, at this moment, He seemed most concerned with protecting them from each other.

I am sure that it is our Heavenly Father's desire, as shown by His Son Jesus Christ, that we focus our efforts in caring for one another, especially within our own families. They cannot physically be here with us, to mediate and to love, to protect and to understand. The best that They can do to help us is to show perfect love and service by example. It has to be our choice. 

I love both of Them so much. I am far from perfect, however this semester has given me added hope of my potential. I have seen a little bit of how much Jesus is willing to invest in seemingly hopeless cases. If He is that willing to work with those who are willing to work, then there is indeed hope for all of us to live with Him in heaven someday.

Jesus of Galilee

This week in my class we talked about the time that Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane before he was capture and tried, and then crucified. This is one of my favorite parts of the New Testament for many reasons, but there is one that I want to focus on now.

There is a very well known section in Mark that says “And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy; And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch… And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thous wilt." (Mark 14:33-34, 36)

The reason that this section hit me so hard was because even though Jesus knew that he would have to suffer incredible pain and guilt and sorrow in order to atone for our sins and mistakes, he couldn’t fully understand what that would feel like until it was happening to him. In these moments before stepping into the garden to pray to our Heavenly Father on our behalf and to suffer for all the unfair and wrong things of the world, he started to be afraid. He realized that this was going to be an incredibly difficult and painful task, and he started to look for other options.

In my own small and mortal way, there have definitely been days that I have felt so burdened down by the consequences of my own mistakes and sins, and sometimes by my inability to understand the mistakes and sins of others around me, that I felt as if that sorrow and pain would crush me, and that I wouldn’t be able to survive through it. I’m sure we have all felt this way to some degree. Our Savior felt this way as he entered into the garden, but on a much larger scale. If I imagine my most painful and sorrowful moments of my life, I feel like I can almost understand what it would mean to be “exceedingly sorrowful unto death”, although I know that even my most unbearable moments cannot compare to the night that the Savior suffered for not only my unbearable moments, but of all the unbearable moments of all the people who have ever lived upon the Earth.

As comforting to know it is that Jesus Christ has felt this human suffering, and to know that he knows how I feel, it is even more comforting to know that he chose to go through with that suffering even though he didn’t want to do it at that moment. The only reason that he could go through that experience for all of us is because he loved (and still loves) each one of us completely. If he had backed out in that moment, he may have been able to return to our Heavenly Father anyways. He had never committed any sin, and therefore didn’t need a Savior. He was the only one qualified to enter on his own. And yet the rest of the human race depended on those few hours of intense suffering if we were ever to return home.

This is one reason why I love my Savior so much. He never asked why it had to be him that saved everyone else. He never complained that the whole plan was unfair because it depended completely on him dying for all of us. He never belittled others for not carrying a load like his. He simply spent his whole, overqualified life wandering in the countryside, healing people both spiritually and physically. His life was ended prematurely by murders, a death he could have easily prevented just by commanding it to be so. But he didn’t, because he loved us, and he loved our God who had sent him to fulfill this role.

I hope at the end of my life I can stand before Him and show Him that I am completely clean because I used His sacrifice to the fullest in order to change myself from a sinful mortal into a celestial and holy being like Him.

Honestly Tough Questions

As you have learned if you have read any other posts in this blog, I have a lot of questions that roll around in my mind. Often times it is difficult for me to find real answers to some of my questions. One of my questions has been about the people who seem to have gotten the “necessary evil” roles. For example, what would this world be like without a Satan? Or a Judas to betray Jesus?

To me, these two roles seemed very necessary. How could Jesus be truly as good, or at least how would we know he was so good, unless he had an evil counterpart? And how could Jesus atone for us unless someone had betrayed him, like Judas? I’ve thought about their fate, and to me it just didn’t seem fair that these extremely evil roles were seemingly needed in order to bring about the rest of the good in God’s plan. Why, then, would the people that filled those roles be so severely punished?

I still don’t have a full answer to those questions, but my mind has been put more at ease by understanding the greater picture of God’s plan of happiness for us. Our Heavenly Father loves us, and so he has given each of us the gift of agency, or the ability to chose for ourselves how we will act. That means that none of us are damned nor saved without our consent. When you look at God’s plan from an eternal perspective, it seems as if evil is a force somewhat similar to gravity. It is eternal in its realm and has no beginning or end. Neither does good in its realm. We live in a world that has both good and evil in it. That means that both of those forces will work to achieve their ends. We know that good is a stronger force and will always win. This seems like a simple principle, but it helps when thinking about the roles of Satan and Judas. We would be tempted by evil without Satan, because evil would still exist. And the Pharisees and Sadducees would have found a way to capture Jesus and crucify him without Judas.

It is important to note that I am simply sharing my own thoughts and conclusions based on my current knowledge and these thoughts are in no way conclusive. My overall point is that we all have tough questions that seem to negate things we have already learned. In this case, I have always known that Heavenly Father is kind and loving and wants his children to succeed. However, I have seen some things that make me question how this can be so. Instead of throwing away everything that I have been taught and felt personally about God, I have learned to be patient, to study the scriptures, and to listen to the Spirit teach me how good and evil can exist at the same time. This is one example of a hard question with an answer that is beautifully simple and entirely supports everything I know to be true about my Heavenly Father. I have found peace and pure happiness in my life by exploring my questions and holding fast to the things I know to be true in my heart, and more than anything this peace and happiness is proof to me that God wants me to understand him and to not be afraid or easily shaken by things that I do not understand.

The Parable of the Talents

This week I learned to be grateful for the things that Heavenly Father does not give me. In class we studied the parable of the talents.

Generally, the story goes as follows. There were three servants to a rich man. He gave each of these men an asset to care for while he was away on other business. He gave one five of these assets, one two, and the final servant received one. While the master was gone, the first two servants used their assets to create more, always planning on returning both the principal and the interest to the master. The third was paralyzed by fear of his responsibility, and decided to only hide his asset.

When the master returned, the three servants gave a report of their stewardship over these assets. The first had doubled his assets, now having ten talents instead of five. The second servant did likewise, now having four instead of two. The master was pleased with the dedication and planning of the first two servants, and rewarded them both with more than they had been previously entrusted. The third servant, however, brought forth only the asset that he had originally been given. The master asked him why he hadn’t done anything with the talent that he had been given. The servant told his master that he knew his master to be a tough and ambitious man, and had thought it best to only give his master the original principle safe, rather than to risk anything else. He was punished by having his asset taken away from him and given to the first servant.

So, there are a lot of things we can learn from this story. One that I liked is that we are limiting our application of the story if we only think of the talents as literal talents and abilities. While this is a really good application, I have learned a lot more by replacing “talent” with the word “asset”. This can include our educational opportunities, employment, and even our children! What a broader application!

Finally, there was one lesson that really hit me while my professor was teaching. We create our own God, sometimes regardless of who He truly is, and then we create a world that fits that god. For example, if you asked the first two servants about the characteristics of the master, they would say that he was very fair and generous, and that he had given them great opportunities. The third would probably say that the master was tough and mean and took things that didn’t belong to him. Each was rewarded by the “master” they had created in their minds, and were rewarded by that master. 

So shall it be at the last day. If we believe that God is whimsical, unknowable, or punishing, we may find ourselves in a life that seems to have little direction, with no anchor and much sorrow. If we believe in a God that knows us, is guiding everything in our lives, and wants us to be successful, we will feel greater peace and order in our lives as we try and trace things back to Him. These reactions are completely separated from what actually happens to us or who God really is, just like even though the master in the story was a person with an actual character, the servants could have completely different perceptions of him. Our reactions to our lives have everything to do with choosing to accept Him or not, and whether to accept the talents (assets) He gives us. Or not.

Too Careful and Troubled?

Three of my favorite people in the New Testament are Mary, Martha and Jesus. Not in that order. Anyways, we meet them all together in Luke chapter 10. 

They seem to be good friends with Jesus. Martha invites him to her house, where Mary lives also. Jesus has been traveling a lot and must have been tired. Martha starts to make food for him and is busy in the kitchen. Meanwhile, Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and listens to Jesus talk. Martha gets annoyed that she has to do all the work instead of having Mary help her quickly so that they could both listen to Jesus. She asks the Master to have her sister Mary help her, and Jesus takes a moment to teach us all through these two wonderful women.

When the average Christian is asked who these two women are, the typical response is that Mary is the sister that knows what’s important and listens to Jesus, and that Martha, although she means well in trying to serve Jesus, is missing the point in life because she doesn’t stop to listen to him. Jesus himself seems to make this point when he says:

“Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:41-42)

I have always assumed that Martha was missing the point by being so busy. What bothered me more is that I identify a lot more with Martha than Mary, and I know a lot of other people that do too. Does that mean that I and others like Martha are typically missing the point?? That doesn’t seem right… service is supposed to be a good thing right?

Luckily, another interpretation of this story was brought to my attention this week that put me more at ease. My professor said to think about these two women in opposite roles. What if Mary had been annoyed with Martha for clanking around in the kitchen, and asked Jesus to make her sit down or at least be quiet so they could focus on their conversation. Is it possible that Jesus would have simply said “Mary, Mary, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Martha hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her”?

This flip in the situation brought so much relief to me. First of all, it means that because I identify with Martha more, I am not inherently busy with the wrong things.

Second of all, the “problem” with Martha here is that she is trying to make her sister more like herself. Our goal should never be to have others conform to our strengths; it should always be to point them to Christ.

The third lesson, and my favorite, is that Jesus is always on the defensive. He never sides with those who point fingers. With the woman caught in adultery, the woman at the well, and with Mary, Jesus is quick to protect the one in the “line of fire”, regardless of actual fault. It is never our place to judge, only to be patient and to help people come closer to Christ through loving example, not accusation.

Balm of Gilead

There are a lot of words and ideas that are commonly used and communicated every day, and yet if you take a moment to stop and think about them you realize that almost everyone has a different meaning tied to that word. “Love” is one of those words. It’s used all the time, but if you ever ask someone what it means to them you’ll likely find it means something different to them than it means to you (I’ve personally conducted that experiment). One similar word is “forgiveness”. We talk about it all the time, daily we encounter situations where we extend, withhold, and seek forgiveness.

I’ve really struggled knowing what forgiveness is in my lifetime. Especially in church settings, it seems a bit over simplified. It sounds as if it is a simple decision, and once that decision has been made all the fall out will magically be resolved and hurt and disappointment will all disappear.

For example, this week in my New Testament class we studied a story in Matthew chapter 18 that has to do with forgiveness. To be very brief, there was a servant that borrowed roughly millions of dollars from his master, and was unable to repay the debt when it came due. The lord forgave him the debt, seemingly without a future date for repayment, or even a percentage of repayment. That same servant who had been forgiven of millions of dollars then went to a peer, a fellow servant, and threw him into prison for the few thousand dollar debt that the second servant owed the first. When the lord heard about it, he revoked his previous forgiveness and threw the first into prison until the debt was repaid.

In this story, the lord of the servants clearly represents our Savior. Each of us carries a massive debt that is impossible for us to repay any meaningful portion. When we repent and try to follow Jesus Christ, we are forgiven of that huge debt. He has paid all our debt to Heavenly Father, and therefore is free to forgive us according to the terms that He sets.

We all also carry debts to our fellow men that we have offended, and have “loaned out debts” to those who have offended us. These are typically possible to have repaid, although some are definitely much larger debts than others. Big or small, they still are not as large as the debt that we owe our Savior. As we see in the story, whatever forgiveness we give to our fellow men is the forgiveness we shall receive.

That is both comforting and scary. If you are good at forgiving everyone, you can feel pretty comfortable in knowing that you will be forgiven of your sins. However, I am not perfect at forgiving others, and I think most of us fall into that category. So if our forgiveness from our sins depends on the forgiveness that we give to others, how can we ever really be successful? How do we know if we’ve truly forgiven someone else?

I have thought and pondered on this question a lot. I try to say the words “I forgive you”, but sometimes I don’t fully mean it when I say it. I often carry hurt for a while after I have tried to verbally grant forgiveness, and sometimes I don’t really like being around those people anymore. Sometimes people really do break trust, and it would be stupid to place them in a place that would result in hurt again and again. Does that mean that I haven’t really forgiven them?

After a lot of prayer and discussions with trusted mentors, I have come to the conclusion that forgiveness happens when you no longer feel a need to “get even” with the person that has wronged you. When you no longer spend time dwelling on what they did and what you wish would happen, or looking forward to the day when their actions catch up to them as a personal vengeance, you can see them as a Child of God who is imperfect. You can open up to feel charity for them, and sorrow that someday they will have to pay for their actions and it will hurt them a lot. This kind of forgiveness is totally possible to achieve, and opens up the blessings of the mercy of our Savior to all people.

I would invite everyone to not take my word about what forgiveness means, but to study and pray about it, and then apply that answer to your life. I have found a much higher level of peace in my life in this application, and I know that peace will follow anyone who tries their best to forgive their fellowmen.

Fair Weather Fans

How do you know if someone is a committed fan? Is it if their Facebook cover photo is their favorite team? Is it how many times they post about the game or the stats? Is it the flag that hangs just under their country’s? Or is it the number of bumper stickers? Although I’m not exactly a professional sports fanatic myself, I’ve heard enough about “fair weathers” to know this behavior tends to infuriate what we may affectionately call the “die hards”.

So what makes a true die hard? These are the guys that never take down the flag, even if the team loses several years in a row. They still watch all of the games, they may have all the flags and the stickers, but to them, their team is much more than that. Basically, when the team is getting thrashed in the media, or maybe even worse, ignored by the media, these die hards stick by the name and wait patiently for better days. There is always the hope of next season.

So this is all a semi-cheesy lead into our relationship with Jesus Christ. Gotcha.

This past week we studied John 6. Picture this. As far as Christ’s popularity goes, this was his prime. All of his miracles had been well-broadcasted throughout the area. He had fed thousands of people twice with just a few loaves and fishes. People came from all over to listen to him, hoping to see his miracles for themselves.

Then we get to the sermon of the Bread of Life. Jesus speaks symbolically of the sacrament, and tells everyone that whoever will eat of his body and drink of his blood will have eternal life.

And guess what happened? Almost everyone left. That was it. It was really cool and interesting when bread was being “magically” mass produced, but as soon as Jesus announced that in order to be saved you would need to eat him… well, no one really paused to think about what that meant. Honestly, to those who were hearing about the symbolism of the sacrament for the first time, it would be surprising if they weren’t alarmed. But to simply get up and leave?

Imagine the thoughts and feelings that Jesus must have felt as he watched the better part of his followers leave without waiting for an explanation. Turning to the apostle Peter, he asked him if Peter too would leave.

Peter answered:  “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.”

So it all boils down to this. Are we fair weather Christians? Do we only show our love for Christ when it is easy, and he’s obviously winning? When it’s comfortable? Or do we follow Him to the end? When He asks us to do seemingly crazy things (like eat His body and drink His blood), do we tell Him that He’s crazy, or do we humbly accept His will, do our best to act upon it, and wait patiently for an explanation?