That Great And Last Sacrifice

            My late grandmother had a house that overlooked the Spokane River in the state of Washington. As later became tradition, my family was visiting her at this property over Thanksgiving. Our family would join together from all over to be present for the large turkey dinner. And we always brought our black, little miniature schnauzer, Schnapps, with us. He loved the holidays because he would often be fed little pieces of human food under the table.

            As fate would have it, one night we let our beloved dog out into the backyard do his business before bedtime, and he got into a bit of a pickle. Grandma’s “backyard” was actually just a very steep un-landscaped hill that led directly down to the river bank. On this particular night I guess a spirit of adventurousness overtook our little schnauzer; either that or he got a bit carried away as he sniffed his way down the hill. When dusk would descend over my grandmothers river house, her backyard was bathed in darkness save for a solitary light that was positioned next to the patio sliding door. Safe to say, that light didn’t illuminate much but that which it did illuminate was easily visible. To make matters worse, towards the end of his life Schnapps’ vision was fairly poor due to his struggle with diabetes. So we were usually sure to keep a watchful eye on him. As my father and I stood together in the cool night air, we drank in our surroundings. The ever-present sound of the rushing water below, the sound the breeze makes as it caresses the tops of the towering pines, the earthy smell of cut grass, and then suddenly, we heard the low growl of a tiny, half-blind pooch. A quick scan of the swath of illuminated porch and grass revealed that our dog had ventured too far. Immediately we began to call, “Schnapps! Come!” It was one of the only voice commands that he would recognize. Over and over, and more frantically we called, “Schnapps! Come!” only to hear the low growls again, followed by some shrill barks, and then a yelp. Helplessly, we listened to the ensuing frantic noises of our small pet.

What could we do? We were truly helpless. We knew that if we ventured down the steep hill after him we would almost surely be injured. Again we called for him, over and over. And then we saw a little black form come sidling into the edge of the light. Relieved as we were to see him, we were puzzled as to what had actually happened in the darkness. And then we smelled it—that sweet, rotten stench, the only smell equally recognizable and horrible to every creature on the earth. The only smell that makes child and adult alike cringe in horror, it was the infamous scent of skunk spray. My father and I shot each other a quick glance before we said in chorus, “Oh no Schnapps… did you find a bad kitty?”

What I saw next will be burned into my memory for as long as I live. Our poor little dog came crawling to us, his tail between his legs with a look of shame on his face more wretched than I have ever seen on a human. This sight alone would be enough to move even the hardest, toughest men on the earth to compassion. Out of concern for the good smell of my grandmother’s house I stayed outside with our sorry excuse for an animal, holding him at arm’s length as my father closed the sliding door and ventured inside for a plastic tub and all the tomato juice he could find.

The Atonement of Jesus Christ is the most puzzling and powerful thing on the planet. You could study the Atonement all your life and never reach the bottom of the doctrine and words written about it. I hope that these words will help in some small way to foster growth in testimony. As I read about the Atonement or watch depictions of it in movies I often wonder, “Was all this really necessary? Why did He do it this way?” I think we cannot but help to ask those questions if we really think about what He went through: the Jewish temple guards blindfolded him, punched him in the face and demanded him to prophesy; they accused him falsely and released a murderer back into their midst instead of Him; they mocked Him, caned him until the welts bled, and then ripped open His skin with barbed whips; later, even as His blood pooled on the ground beneath Him, they cried for Him to be crucified; and they even crowned him with razor sharp thorns and made Him carry the instrument of His torture before they nailed Him to it—once in the hands, once in the feet, and once in the wrists. The horror of his death and crucifixion is often lost on us.

But through it all, God was with His son. And it wasn’t until even God the Father departed that Jesus cried out, despairing, Mark 15:34 “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Here is the Son of God, the one who just hours before was forgiving the men as they nailed Him to the cross, saying “they know not what they do” (Luke. 23: 24). Here was a Man with the capacity to forgive His own murderers and say “Father, they don’t know… they don’t know…” now crying out asking why His father would leave Him in His hour of need.

My own interpretation is that Jesus was sincerely asking this question of His father. It is the only time I can find where Jesus asks a question in this process. He went as a sheep to the slaughter, peacefully, without a word of protest. He seemed to understand the need for all the pain up to this point: the pain of the Garden, and the scourging, and the crucifixion that later was coupled with all the former pain from the Garden as well as He hung on the cross. But it is not until God withdraws that even Jesus asks “Why?”

There are times in all of our lives when we ask that question. It comes in various forms: “Why?”

“Why me?”

“Why now?”

“Why this way?”

"Why?" is not a new question. People have asked it for centuries. We all feel like victims at one point or another. Agency has the power to throw wrenches in all of our best-laid plans. At times we are subject to the sins and shortcomings of others. And at those times the question: “Why?” just begs to be asked.

At other times, our own sins harrow us up into the recognition of our own guilt. Even in self-inflicted pain we may wrongly project it onto God and ask the same question. It is my belief that that question stems out of a misconception of why we are here on the earth. So I’ll tell you why we are here. Ready?  “[God] has deliberately placed us in a sphere where our most sharply focused purpose is to learn from our experience” (The Broken Heart, 131). This experience here on the earth includes pain, suffering, and injustice. We are here to sin, make mistakes, and be humbled. In other words, we are here on the earth to have our hearts broken. Literally broken. None will be exempted from this process. It is hard to accept, but it is why we are here. 

But lest that depress you, there is a purpose behind all this suffering. Even when we are depressed and it seems the harder we try, the harder we fall, there is a purpose to it. And knowing this purpose can change how you feel. Bruce C. Hafen described these moments like this: “It is natural to assume that when we don’t appear to be doing ‘excellently’ the perfection process is not working. But the exact opposite may be true. Our moments of greatest stress and difficulty are often the times when the refiner’s fire is doing its most purifying work” (106). We need to come to view our trials as a necessary part of life. Life is not a string of moments of joy and then all the times in between when we are frantically trying to avoid pain. The true purpose of life is to experience both.

Life is a cycle of pain and joy. And if we understand why life is like this, then when we make mistakes and feel guilty we won’t be discouraged. We can even be encouraged. Again I quote Bruce C. Hafen: “The pain of a wounded conscience comes to us not just to cause suffering. It is an invitation to respond in a way that will ultimately lead to joy” (91). The proper way to respond that Elder Hafen is talking about is having a contrite spirit—the other half of Jesus’ invitation that reads: 3 Ne. 9:20 “And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost.”

So how exactly do we get a broken heart and a contrite spirit? I know that all of us will experience pain and joy in this life. But it requires a conscious choice on our part to make that pain count for something. After all, we know it is possible to have a broken heart in the wrong way. Mormon observes this of the wicked Nephites Mormon 2: 10-14:

10 And it came to pass that the Nephites began to repent of their iniquity, and began to cry even as had been prophesied by Samuel the prophet;  . . . 11 Thus there began to be a mourning and a lamentation in all the land because of these things, and more especially among the people of Nephi. 12 And it came to pass that when I, Mormon, saw their lamentation and their mourning and their sorrow before the Lord, my heart did begin to rejoice within me, knowing the mercies and the long-suffering of the Lord, therefore supposing that he would be merciful unto them that they would again become a righteous people. 13 But behold this my joy was vain, for their sorrowing was not unto repentance, because of the goodness of God; but it was rather the sorrowing of the damned, because the Lord would not always suffer them to take happiness in sin. 14 And they did not come unto Jesus with broken hearts and contrite spirits, but they did curse God, and wish to die.

From this scripture we learn that it is possible for us to have wrong motivations behind our broken hearts. I would like to make a differentiation here: There is a difference between having a broken heart unto yourself, and having a broken heart unto God. When our heart breaks unto God, we come to him as little children. We trust in Him completely. It is a response that will “lead [us] to joy” as Elder Hafen put it. Having a broken heart unto God means that we are willing to “give up all [our] sins to know Him.” We have decided to no longer trust in ourselves and in earthly ways of solving problems. Having a broken heart unto God means falling upon your knees because you have nowhere else to go. It means that you are stripped of pride and fear and just want to be made clean and whole again.

And it requires the second step, that of having a contrite spirit. True repentance involves both steps. We cannot be like the wicked Nephites in that we just feel bad because we can’t sin anymore; we can’t have broken hearts but curse God at the same time. Having a contrite spirit means that you are willing to do whatever it takes to become clean. It is followed by brutal honesty and a confession to those we have harmed or to our bishop if necessary. Being contrite means being sincerely humble and feeling true remorse.

In short, to me, having a broken heart and a contrite spirit means acting just like my little dog. When we saw our dog’s broken heart we wasted no time in preparing to make Him clean again. As he stood in a plastic tub covered in red, surrounded by those he loved, he didn’t understand exactly what we were doing, but he came to us expecting to be made normal again. The simple faith of our dog still amazes me. He knew that we could somehow help him. That is why he came back into the light. He knew we would forgive him for disobeying us and not heeding our calls. Often we have less faith than our little Schnauzer, we think, for whatever reason that we are beyond redemption. In our vain pride, we somehow think we have a greater capacity to sin than God does to forgive and heal us. We ignore His never-ending calls to come unto him. Sometimes we imagine that we can be beyond the power of the atonement. We think we can mess up worse than God can fix. So instead of coming back to the Savior that loves us, we stay in the darkness. We wallow in our sins, we live in the darkness, and we curse God for not forgiving us.

Do not doubt the power of the Atonement. Do not limit Christ’s power. Do not try to put boundaries around the God of redemption. It is my testimony that no soul is too far lost. No burden of sin too great. No child unloved or unworthy. Jesus loved you enough to suffer for your sins and die for you. How much do you love Him in return? I promise you that if you repent and have faith enough in Him to believe you can be forgiven, you can be made perfectly clean again. Only tomato juice could make our dog normal again. Only the blood of Christ can wash the natural consequences of sin away.

There is a wise purpose behind our suffering, just as there was a purpose behind God leaving His Son in His most desperate hour of need. God withdrew in that moment so that His Son would know exactly what it feels like to be one of us. Jesus knows what it is like to feel the guilt caused by the absence of the Spirit we feel when we do something wrong. Glory be to God for knowing why the act of withdrawing was necessary, for there have been many times in my life when I have been comforted by a Savior who knows what it is like to feel alone. So when you experience pain or suffering in this life, whether it be your own fault or someone else’s, know that God will comfort you through His son Jesus Christ.   

In closing, I’d like to share one last story. Some of you may remember when President Gordon B. Hinckley told “something of a parable” about “a one room school house in the mountains of Virginia where the boys were so rough no teacher had been able to handle them.”

“One day an inexperienced young teacher applied. He was told that every teacher had received an awful beating, but the teacher accepted the risk. The first day of school the teacher asked the boys to establish their own rules and the penalty for breaking the rules. The class came up with 10 rules, which were written on the blackboard. Then the teacher asked, ‘What shall we do with one who breaks the rules?’

“‘Beat him across the back ten times without his coat on,’ came the response.

“A day or so later … the lunch of a big student, named Tom, was stolen. The thief was located—a little hungry fellow, about ten years old.

“As Little Jim came up to take his licking, he pleaded to keep his coat on. ‘Take your coat off,’ the teacher said. ‘You helped make the rules!’

“The boy took off the coat. He had no shirt and revealed a bony little crippled body. As the teacher hesitated with the rod, Big Tom jumped to his feet and volunteered to take the boy’s licking.

“‘Very well, there is a certain law that one can become a substitute for another. Are you all agreed?’ the teacher asked.

“After five strokes across Tom’s back, the rod broke. The class was sobbing. ‘Little Jim had reached up and caught Tom with both arms around his neck. ‘Tom, I’m sorry that I stole your lunch, but I was awful hungry. Tom, I will love you till I die for taking my licking for me! Yes, I will love you forever!’” 

President Hinckley then quoted Isaiah 53: 4, 5 “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. … He was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”

All of us will feel like that half-starved boy at some point in our lives. Our crippled little bodies will be exposed to punishment and we may sometimes try to explain to others that we acted in such and such a way because we were hungry, or tired, or stressed. But when we come to the end of our lives, we will no longer have any excuses, and when we see how Jesus took our punishment, our excuses will give way to proclamations of love. If only we have faith in Christ like that of a little child, or a miniature Schnauzer, God will heal us and comfort us. I know that He lives and that He knows who we are. I know He cares about our little sorrows and our big ones. And He can heal us and take away our burdens. And for this I will love Him until I die. 

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