Note: A talk I helped Brian write.
I’ll start with a story by Tad R. Callister:
“One Sunday morning our teenaged son stood with two other priests to administer the sacrament, as they had done on many prior occasions. They pulled back the white cloth, but to their dismay there was no bread. One of them slipped out to the preparation room in hopes some could be found. There was none. Finally, our trouble son made his way to the bishop and shared the concern with him. A wise bishop then stood, explained the situation to the congregation, and asked, ‘How would it be if the sacrament table were empty today because there were no Atonement?’ I have thought of that often—what would it be like if there were no bread because there had been no crucifixion; no water because there had been no shedding of blood? Of course, the question is now moot, but it does put in perspective our total dependence on the Lord.”
Without the Atoning Sacrifice, there would be no hope for me or for anyone else. But with it, all of us have the opportunity to erase our past mistakes and become worthy to re-enter the Father’s presence.
The Atonement is the central part of the Plan of Happiness. Imagine if you will a moment that occurred in the pre-existence. The Father had just read His plan, he laid out how we could become as He is. The key moment in that plan was a Sacrifice to be made by a perfect Atoner. At the conclusion of explaining that plan, the Father looked at his assembled children and asked: “Whom shall I send?”
Think of that moment. Who would be our Savior? Who could do it?
Surely, we all must have thought of just one name: Jesus. Can you imagine how you must have felt at that moment when you heard Jesus volunteer to perform the Atonement, when he said, “Here am I; send me”?
Christ knew that such a sacrifice would require Him to descend below the pains and sufferings of all mankind. His suffering in working out the Atonement for us is immeasurable. As Stephen E. Robinson taught: “Human nature makes us want to quantify, to measure the Atonement of Christ. But his ordeal is off any scale. It is beyond our comprehension. Jesus bore not just the sins of the world, but the sorrows, pains, and sicknesses of the world as well.
“All the negative aspects of human existence brought about by the Fall, Jesus Christ absorbed into himself. He experienced vicariously in Gethsemane all the private griefs and heartaches, all the physical pains and handicaps, all the emotional burdens and depressions of the human family. He knows the loneliness of those who don’t fit in or who aren’t handsome or pretty. … He knows all things personally and intimately because He lived them in the Gethsemane experience. Having personally lived a perfect life, He then chose to experience our imperfect lives. In that infinite Gethsemane experience, the meridian of time, the Center of eternity, He lived a billion billion lifetimes of sin, pain, disease and sorrow.”
This description gives us a barely an inkling of How painful Christ sacrifice was for us. And in reading about the pains He suffered for us, we realize how deeply He loves us. For these things he suffered because He loved us. As he said in John 15:13: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
