Jesus, our Perfect Examplar (Maxwell)

Jesus, our Perfect Exemplar, was astonishingly exemplary even in the hours surrounding the awful but glorious Atonement. The intrigue of Pilate and Herod, for instance, who had earlier been “at enmity” but who “made friends together” because of Jesus, presented opportunities for Jesus to “shrink” from going through with the Atonement (Luke 23:12; D&C 19:18). Herod, who had been desirous “to see [Jesus] of a long season,” “hoped to have seen some miracle done by him” (Luke 23:8). Yet Jesus, under heavy questioning from Herod, “answered him nothing” (Luke 23:9; see also Mosiah 14:7). Jesus’ integrity and intellect were not for sale! Amid temptation, he maintained his integrity–even in the midst of an opportunity that a lesser individual would have seized to reduce his suffering and to increase the praise of men.

Ironically, when Jesus’ enemies came for him, the Light of the World, they came with lanterns and torches (John 18:3). Jesus, who by then might have understandably been so swollen with sorrow and self-concern that there was no time to think of others, nevertheless restored the severed ear of a hostile guard (Luke 22:50­51). Amid irony he kept his poise. He also kept his way, which is not the way of the sword.

Christ spoke only several sentences on the cross. One of them was to insure that his mother, Mary, would be cared for by John (John 19:25­27). Another sentence reassured a thief on an adjoining cross (Luke 23:43). He had empathy amid his agony.

Finally, he maintained his consecration in the midst of the deepest deprivation anyone can know. President Brigham Young taught us that in the course of the astonishing Atonement, the Father withdrew both his presence and his Spirit from Jesus, and, further, even cast a veil over Jesus (JD 3:206). Thus Jesus became utterly and totally alone! There then came that great cry of forsakenness! “Nevertheless,” Jesus did not “shrink,” but, instead, “finished [his] preparations unto the children of men” (D&C 19:18­19). Just as he promised premortally, even when he might have reflected a little credit upon himself for the glorious Atonement, meek Jesus, instead, gave all the glory to the Father (D&C 19:19).

We need not apologize for regarding Jesus as “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). We need not apologize for regarding salvational knowledge, revealed by him, as being the most precious. Indeed, in Christ “all things hold together,” for he is perfect in knowing and perfect in doing. And, most marvelously, he has challenged us to become like him (Matthew 5:48; 3 Nephi 12:48; 27:27).

Elder Neal A. Maxwell, BYU Devotional, August 1992

http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=625

relativistic forces at work on our society (Maxwell; Genovese)

One writer recently observed that the relativistic forces at work:

should warm every atheist’s heart. For if God is a socially conscious political being whose views invariably correspond to our own prejudices on every essential point of doctrine, He demands of us no more than our politics require. [H]ow would our worship of [this kind of being] constitute more than self-congratulation for our own moral standards?

The writer continued:

As an atheist, I like this [kind of] god. It is good to see him every morning while I am shaving. [Eugene D. Genovese, “Pilgrim’s Progress,”The New Republic, 11 May 1992, p. 38]

Elder Neal A. Maxwell, BYU Devotional, August 1992

http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=625

our eventual possibilities in the midsts of our present limitations (Maxwell; Tolkien)

For now, though we can mercifully see something of our eventual possibilities, you and I are aware of our present limitations. Tolkien wrote wisely:

It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule. [Gandalf in J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King (New York: Ballantine Books, 1965), p. 190]

Hence we desperately need the gospel’s wisdom not only for eternity, but also “for the succour of those years wherein we are set,” in order “to do what is in us.” Enoch obtained revelation and reassurance and gratefully exclaimed of God, “Yet thou art there” (Moses 7:30). This is what you and I want to know of him: Does he know me, love me, and care for me? We can have the same reassurance given to Enoch.

How intellectually amazing the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is! The gospel is truly inexhaustible! It is marvelous! It is a wonder!

Elder Neal A. Maxwell, BYU Devotional August 18, 1992

http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=625

the awful weight of the Atonement (Maxwell)

A short while before Gethsemane and Calvary, Jesus prayed, “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour.” Then, as if in soliloquy, he said, “But for this cause came I unto this hour” (John 12:27). The awful weight of the Atonement had begun to descend upon him. We next find him in Gethsemane.

And they came to a place which was named Gethsemane: and he saith to his disciples, Sit ye here, while I shall pray.

And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy. [Mark 14:32–33]

The Greek for “very heavy” is “depressed, dejected, in anguish.” Just as the Psalmist had

foreseen, the Savior was “full of heaviness” (Psalms 69:20). The heavy weight of the sins of all mankind were falling upon him.

He had been intellectually and otherwise prepared from ages past for this task. He is the creator of this and other worlds. He knew the plan of salvation. He knew this is what it would come to. But when it happened, it was so much worse than even he had imagined!

Now, brothers and sisters, this was not theater; it was the real thing. “And he went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him” (Mark 14:35). Only in the Gospel of Mark do we get this next special pleading, “And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me” (Mark 14:36). When Jesus used the word “Abba,” it was a most personal and intimate familiar reference—the cry of a child in deepest distress for his father to help him in the midst of this agony.

Did Jesus hope there might be, as with Abraham, a ram in the thicket? We do not know, but the agony and the extremity were great. The sins and the grossness of all mankind were falling upon someone who was perfectly sinless, perfectly sensitive. This pleading to the Father included the doctrine he had taught in his ministry as Jehovah to Abraham and Sarah. “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Genesis 18:14). He had taught it in his mortal messiahship: “All things are possible to him that believeth” (Mark 9:23). Hence, this resounding plea. And then came that marvelous spiritual submissiveness: “Nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt” (Mark 14:36).

Luke wrote that at a particular point, an angel appeared to strengthen him. I do not know who that angel was, but what a great privilege to be at the side of the Son of God as he worked out the Atonement for the whole human family!

Jesus bled at every pore, and the bleeding started in Gethsemane. He was stretched to the limits. Later, when Jesus was on the cross, the Father, for reasons that are not completely apparent, withdrew his immediate presence from his son. The full weight fell upon him one last time, and there came the great soul cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34).

Through that marvelous Prophet Joseph, in the book of Alma, we learned that Jesus not only suffered for our sins, but, in order to perfect his capacity of mercy and empathy, he also bore our sicknesses and infirmities that he might know “according to the flesh” (see Alma 7:11–12) what we pass through and thus become the perfect shepherd, which he is.

Neal A. Maxwell, “A Choice Seer”, BYU Devotional March 30, 1986

http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=915

Second Coming (Maxwell)

All [people] need to accept the reality of Christ’s return in majesty and power beforethat event occurs; as C.S. Lewis put it, it will do men little good to kneel down when it is no longer possible to stand up, for when the “Author of the play comes on stage, the play is over!”

Neal A. Maxwell

God’s anger (Maxwell)

It is customary, even understandable, when we read of God’s indignation and anger to think of it in terms of an angry mortal father and not ponder it much more.  Some even mutter about Old Testament “tribalism,” mistakenly thinking of God as being personally piqued or offended at some act of wickedness or stupidity because He has told us to behave otherwise.  This is erroneous, bumper-sticker theology.   Simply because we are, so often, angry at a wrong done to us, we [wrongly] assume the same about God’s anger.  

Neal A. Maxwell, “Sermons Not Spoken,” p. 83 

Incredible aloneness lay at the heart of the Great Atonement (Maxwell)

When Jesus comes again in reminding red attire, there will be a spectacular solar display and stars will fall from their places in the heavens. What will then be evoked will not be an exclamation over the solar display. Rather, from human lips praise will flow for Jesus’ loving-kindness, for His perfect goodness. Then, the scriptures assure us and tell us how long we will go on praising Jesus for that Atonement: “forever and ever.” (Mosiah 2:24; D&C 128:23.) The one thing He will mention when He comes again in majesty and power will have nothing to do with how He suffered in the scourging, nothing to do with the vinegar and gall or any of those things. Instead, His voice will be heard to say, “I have trodden the winepress alone, and none was with me” (Isa. 63:3). Incredible aloneness lay at the heart of the Great Atonement, and Jesus endured it, because He let His will beswallowed up in the will of the Father.

Neal A. Maxwell (emphasis added)

His capacity to succor us (Maxwell)

Can we, even in the depths of disease, tell Him anything at all about suffering? In ways we cannot comprehend, our sicknesses and infirmities were borne by Him even before they were borne by us. The very weight of our combined sins caused Him to descend below all. We have never been, nor will we be, in depths such as He has known. Thus His Atonement made perfect His empathy and His mercy and His capacity to succor us, for which we can be everlastingly grateful as He tutors us in our trials. There was no ram in the thicket at Calvary to spare Him, this Friend of Abraham and Isaac. 

Neal A. Maxwell (Even As I Am, pp. 116-17.)

diluted Christianity is not Christianity (Maxwell)

Diluted Christianity is not Christianity, it is a feeble attempt to have Christianity without Christ, for it denies the central service of Jesus’ life—the Atonement. Those who call themselves Christians but deny the divinity of Jesus cannot seem to tolerate those of us who accept and proclaim the divinity of Christ. No one, brothers and sisters, would pay us much heed if we were merely nonsmoking, non-drinking humanists. Without acknowledging the reality of the Resurrection and the Atonement, believing in the ministry of Jesus would mean slumping into the very Sadduceeism which Jesus himself denounced.

Neal A. Maxwell (“All Hell Is Moved” p. 177.)

marvelous meekness of Jesus (Maxwell)

Jesus’ marvelous meekness prevented any “root of bitterness” from “springing up” in Him (Heb. 12:15). Ponder the Savior‘s precious words about the Atonement after He passed through it. There is no mention of the vinegar. No mention of the scourging. No mention of having been struck. No mention of having been spat upon. He does declare that He “suffer[ed] both body and spirit” in an exquisiteness which we simply cannot comprehend.   (D&C 19:18; see also v. 15.)

Neal A. Maxwell (Ensign, May 1989, p. 64.)