He is Risen. Let the World Rejoice.

And thus God breaketh the bands of death, having gained the victory over death; giving the Son power to make intercession for the children of men ... being filled with compassion towards the children of men, standing betwixt them and justice; having broken the bands of death, taken upon himself their iniquity and their transgressions, having redeemed them, and satisfied the demands of justice.

Mosiah 15:8-9

This talk, "Easter and What it Means: The Savior's experience in the garden and on the cross" was written for and given in the Grove YSA ward of the Alpine, Utah YSA stake on Sunday 11 April 2021.

My boyfriend and I have been dating for four years. Between our two families, we’ve been in four weddings, welcomed four nieces and nephews (with two more on the way), and attended four funerals. Recently, we realized that the best time for a funeral, if there is such a thing, is Easter time – when Christ’s victory over death is at the forefront of our minds and spirits. 

As we stood beneath the spring sun during the recent graveside service for a beloved grandfather, I found myself captivated by the word “rest,” as in, “We now lay him to rest.” As I’ve been studying Easter and its meaning, I’m familiar with the way we use the word “rest” to describe out relationship with our Savior. The prophet Moroni taught (Moroni:7:3),

“You…are the peaceable followers of Christ…that have obtained a sufficient hope by which ye can enter into the rest of the Lord, from this time henceforth until ye shall rest with him in heaven.”

Indeed, we are each able to rest – to find a reprieve from even life’s most difficult challenges, in this life and the next – thanks to the selfless sacrifice of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ knows what it feels like to be alone.

Like many of us, my life has been fraught with trials. For many years I was a victim of severe verbal and emotional abuse, which – when paired with my innate tendency toward people pleasing and perfection – encouraged a myriad of mental health challenges, including an eating disorder that further robbed me of self-efficacy. Meanwhile, my father was fighting a roller-coaster battle with cancer, and my brother with a serious illness that now seems to be under control, but to this day remains undiagnosed.

At one particularly low point, I remember laying in my bed staring at the ceiling, feeling the weight of these difficult experiences drag me to depths that seemed insurmountable. I remember offering a silent beg of a prayer to God, pleading with Him to make the pain stop. Confessing to Him that I couldn’t do it anymore. Cathecting to Him my overwhelmingly intransigent feelings of isolation.

As I lay there in the dark, silently suffocating under the weight of these emotions, I distinctly remember this thought coming to mind:

“Jesus Christ knows what it feels like to be completely alone.”

I then recalled a passage—not of my own volition, I’m sure—from the General Conference talk None Were With Him. Elder Holland explains the moment following Christ’s solitary suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane when He hung on the cross and found Himself devoid of God the Father’s divine companionship. Utterly alone.

“Now I speak very carefully, even reverently,” Elder Holland taught somberly, “of what may have been the most difficult moment in all of this solitary journey to Atonement.”

I speak of those final moments for which Jesus must have been prepared intellectually and physically but which He may not have fully anticipated emotionally and spiritually—that concluding descent into the paralyzing despair of divine withdrawal when He cries in ultimate loneliness, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

 

The loss of mortal support He had anticipated, but apparently He had not comprehended this.

After suffering every torment we may potentially endure in this life so we never have to agonize alone, Jesus Christ experienced something we will never have to suffer – absolute isolation.

Worth noting here is that because God loves us, He won’t withdraw His spirit from us unless we’ve made a decision for which that is the inevitable consequence according to the laws of justice. That wasn’t the case for our Savior. For Jesus Christ, who never made such a mistake, God withdrew His presence only so Christ could to empathize when the same happened to us.

Elder Holland explains:

A perfect Father did not forsake His Son in that hour. Indeed, it is my personal belief that in all of Christ’s mortal ministry the Father may never have been closer to His Son than in these agonizing final moments of suffering. Nevertheless, that the supreme sacrifice of His Son might be as complete as it was voluntary and solitary, the Father briefly withdrew from Jesus the comfort of His Spirit, the support of His personal presence. It was required, indeed it was central to the significance of the Atonement, that this perfect Son who had never spoken ill nor done wrong nor touched an unclean thing had to know how the rest of humankind—us, all of us—would feel when we did commit such sins. For His Atonement to be infinite and eternal, He had to feel what it was like to die not only physically but spiritually, to sense what it was like to have the divine Spirit withdraw, leaving one feeling totally, abjectly, hopelessly alone.

I felt alone laying in that dark bedroom. But as evidenced by the Spirit offering me this revelatory inspiration in the middle of that sleepless night – I did not feel forsaken. On the contrary, I had never felt more understood. The pain I felt hadn’t subsided, nor had the challenges I faced evaporated, but I no longer felt forgotten. Indeed, Christ has promised, “I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you” (John 14:18).

Jesus Christ will champion for us to the Father.

As I studied the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, my thoughts kept straying back to judgement day – the day after death when we will stand before God to be judged for the choices we made while here on Earth.

As a loving parent, God the Father has set rules and expectations for us, His children, to help us reach our greatest potential. As a fair and just God, He will also ensure we see the consequences of our mortal actions – both good and bad.

This is intimidating for a lot of us. We can't be perfect in this life. We're going to make imperfect choices. Probably a lot of them. And we understand that uncomfortable consequences follow poor decision making.

During my scripture study this week, I came across a verse in the Book of Mormon that quieted these fears for me a great deal: Jesus Christ "stand[s] betwixt [us] and justice, having broken the bands of death" (Mosiah 15:9). 

Immediately upon reading this scripture, I had an image come to my mind: I was standing before God the Father, awaiting my judgement – Jesus Christ at my side, perfectly aware of all the lamentable choices I made in my time on Earth yet championing for me to the Father anyway. 

What a powerful image.

See, 

When the Savior carried out the Atonement … He “satisfied the demands of justice” and extended mercy to everyone who repents and follows Him (see Mosiah 15:9; Alma 34:14–16; Church of Jesus Christ, Topics: Justice).

Jesus Christ's atoning sacrifice married mercy and justice.

To be clear, mercy is not a substitute for justice. Mercy means we’re not damned by our sins; it does not excuse us from committing them. God expects us to take responsibility for the consequences of our actions, and repent for our mistakes.

The Atonement of Jesus Christ did not replace the law of justice with God’s mercy. Instead, it married them. Without the Atonement, we would be subject only to the laws of justice, which require us to be perfect – to never make a mistake – to reenter the presence of God. When Jesus Christ completed His atoning sacrifice, He introduced “compassionate treatment of [people] greater than what [they] deserve” by taking upon Himself full responsibility for the eternal consequences of justice (Church of Jesus Christ, Topics: Mercy).

By assuming this duty, Christ lifted the weight of damnation off our shoulders. We no longer needed to be perfect to enter the presence of God because we now had a Savior as our intermediary. The laws of justice still require us to accept responsibility for the consequences of our choices, but because Jesus Christ introduced mercy to the equation by atoning for our sins, we now also have potential to be forgiven.

When we choose to repent of our failures, thanks to the atoning sacrifice of our Savior, “the Father can mercifully withhold [eternal] punishment from us and welcome us into His presence” (Church of Jesus Christ, Topics: Mercy).

As the prophet Alma taught, ‘Justice exerciseth all his demands, and also mercy claimeth all which is her own; and thus, none but the truly penitent are saved’ (Alma 42:24; see also Alma 42:22–23, 25; Church of Jesus Christ, Topics: Mercy).

Jesus Christ is our perfect comforter.

By fulfilling His atoning sacrifice, Jesus Christ not only created a way for us to achieve divine status, though flawed, He also became perfectly empathetic of those flaws. "He is...a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief...surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows" (Isaiah 53:3-4).

My favorite word in the scriptures, the word "succor," comes from the Latin word succurrere which means, "to go beneath" and "run to help." Jesus Christ is our perfect comforter because He knows exactly how to "succor [us] in [our] infirmities" (Alma 7:12) on account of having suffered them Himself – either from His three decades of life experience or during the few agonizing hours of suffering He endured in the Garden of Gethsemane and then hanging on the cross.

Because He accomplished His atoning sacrifice for us, Jesus Christ can  – and does – stand as our intermediary between the inadequate decisions we make in this life and the condemning justice that would surely damn us the next. This is possible because Christ's atoning sacrifice and subsequent rise from the tomb invented the possibility for us to repent of our mistakes, rescuing us from the purgatory we would inevitably face without it. 

“Against all odds and with none to help or uphold Him,” Elder Holland taught (None Were With Him), “Jesus of Nazareth, the living Son of the living God, restored physical life where death had held sway and brought joyful, spiritual redemption out of sin, hellish darkness, and despair.” … 

Brothers and sisters, one of the great consolations of this Easter season is that because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so. … My … plea at Easter time is that these scenes of Christ’s lonely sacrifice, laced with moments of denial and abandonment and, at least once, outright betrayal, must never be reenacted by us.

He Is Risen.

Jesus Christ suffered and died so that we might have joy and live. Not just today and tomorrow, but for all of eternity. He experienced utter isolation in the darkest moment of His life so that we will never have to feel alone during our sabbatical leave from our heavenly home. And “Because He has paid the price for our sins, we will not have to suffer [damnation] if we [choose to] repent” (see Doctrine and Covenants 19:15–20; Church of Jesus Christ, Topics: Justice). My testimony of these truths has been strengthened as I studied the atoning sacrifice of my Savior this Easter season. I hope my testimony can help strengthen your as well.

He truly is risen. Let the whole wide world rejoice.

Happy Easter.