talk on the atonement

The talk I gave today in church....


     My bachelor's degree is in English.  I decided to major in that area because I spent an inordinate amount of time reading growing up, and I still do.  I love to read, and have since I was little.  I always have at least two books I'm in the middle of reading and I have a goal to one day write a book of my own.  This dregree choice was a no-brainer for me.  You mean there's a degree where I get to read and discuss books all day, every day?  Done!  Sign me up! I love words.  I love the power they have.  I love the way they can describe a dream, or an idea.  I love the way they can paint a picture in my mind.  I love the way they can make me laugh, or bring me to tears.  I love the way they make me think.

     This week, as I've been preparing this talk, I've found myself focusing on two specific, but little, words that I think are overlooked at lot.  Especially when it comes to the topic we've been focusing on this month; which is the Atonement.  Even though these two words are small, and insignificant, on their own, they are very important when it comes to this topic.  As soon as I was asked to speak today, I found myself repeating the words to the third Article of Faith in my head almost continuously, as I strove to find the direction I wanted to take in what I said.

     We believe that through the Atonement of Christ all mankind may be saved by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel.

     The two words that jumped out, almost immediately, and on which I'm going to be focusing my talk, are: believe and may.

     I learned the Articles of Faith in primary, and have repeated them many times over the years since then, but this is the first time that those two words seemed to be highlighted and underlined - drawing my attention to them.  The more I thought about them, in the context of the Atonement, the more important they seemed to become, and I knew I needed to study these two principles more.

     First word: believe.

     We've all read and heard the words to the third Article of Faith, whether we've been in the church a few weeks and we've only heard them in the talks that have been given so far this month, or we've been a member our whole life and learned them as a child.  Do we really believe them?  Do we really believe in the Atonement and what Christ has offered to each and every one of us through His incredible love and sacrifice?

     Second word: may,

     The third Article of Faith doesn't say all mankind IS saved, or all mankind WERE save.  It says all mankind MAY be saved.  Our salvation is not a guaranteed thing.  The opportunity is there, but it is up to us to take advantage of it - to repent and forsake the natural man through Christ's Atonement.  Are we doing that?  Do we know what we need to do in order to gain that gift?  How do we turn the possibility into a reality?

     In a talk given in the October 2012 general conference, Sister Linda K. Burton said, "Have we invited the Lord to write the law, or doctrine, in our hearts?  Do we believe that the forgiveness available through the Atonement....applies to us personally?"

     One of my favorite authors, speakers, and church leaders is Sheri Dew.  I'm currently reading her newest book, Women and the Priesthood (which is really good, by the way, and I think everyone should read it).  In it she said, "If you aren't sure what the Savior did for you through His infinite Atonement, look for every passage of scripture you can find where He declares His divinity and explains what He did for us - including that He made it possible for our broken hearts and wounds to be healed, that He will 'succor' or run to us in times of need, that He will heal us from sin when we repent, that He will and can help turn our weakness into strength...We need to think about Him more."

     I did a quick search through the Gospel Library app and found that the word "Atonement" is in the scriptures 274 times!  It's in the Old Testament 32 times, the New Testament twice, the Book of Mormon 21 times, six times in the Doctrine and Covenants, and three times in the Pearl of Great Price.  My search also came up with 252 other references in the materials that I have downloaded.  And that's just with the single word "Atonement."  That's not even searching other words associated with it, such as: advocate, blood, forgiveness, healing, intersession, redeem, justify, death, mediation, reconcile, redemption, sacrifice, salvation...and the list can go on and on.

     There is no excuse for us to not know about the Savior and His Atonement!  It's up to us to study and learn, and make sure we really believe the words we say.  President James E. Faust once said, "Our salvation depends on believing and accepting the Atonement.  Such acceptance requires a continual effort to understand it more fully...Understanding what we can of the Atonement and the Resurrection of Christ helps us to obtain a knowledge of Him and of His mission.  Any increase in our understanding of His atoning sacrifice draws us close to Him."

     A couple scriptures about the Atonement that I've found in my own studying, and which have become favorites of mine are:

     Moroni 7:41 - "And what is it that ye shall hope for?  Behold I say until you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and in the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise."

     Romans 5:6, 8, 10-11 - "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.  But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  For it, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.  And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement."

     I like these two scriptures because they talk about, and give me, one of my favorite words: hope.  Elder Snow, from the Seventy, said, "Hope is an emotion which brings richness to our everyday lives...hope brings a certain calming influence to our lives as we confidently look forward to future events...our hopes can lead to dreams which can inspire us and lead us to action...in the gospel of Jesus Christ, hope is the desire of His followers to gain eternal salvation through the Atonement of the Savior.  Our hope in the Atonement empowers us with eternal perspective.  Such perspective allows us to look beyond the here and no on into the promise of the eternities.  We don't have to be trapped in the narrow confines of society's fickle expectations.  We are free to look forward to celestial glory, sealed to our family and loved ones."

     In 2 Nephi 31:20, the prophet Nephi wrote another verse of scripture that uses my favorite word.  He said, "Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men."  Elder Snow continues, "This 'perfect brightness of hope' of which Nephi speaks is the hope in the Atonement, eternal salvation made possible by the sacrifice of our Savior."

     Have we received the Atonement in our lives?  Do we have hope in our Savior?  Do we believe and are we doing was we need to make it a reality?  Going back to Sister Burton's talk she said, "How can we expect to strengthen families or help others unless we first have written in our own hearts a deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ and His infinite Atonement?"  She then goes on to talk about three principles on the Atonement that we need to believe and have written in our hearts in order to make the Atonement a reality in our lives.

     The first principle is: "All that is unfair about life can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ."  Do we believe that?  Sister Burton says, "Why does the Lord allow suffering and adversity to come to us in this life?  Simply put, it is part of the plan for our growth and progress!  We 'shouted for joy' when we knew we would have the opportunity to come to earth to experience mortality."
 
      The second principle is: "These is power in the Atonement to enable us to overcome the natural man or woman and become true disciples of Jesus Christ."  She then tells a story from a primary lesson:

     "A woman walking along a road fell into a pit so deep she could not climb out.  No matter what she did, she could not get out by herself.  The woman called for help and rejoiced when a kind passerby heard her and lowered a ladder down into the pit.  This allowed her to climb out of the pit and regain her freedom.  We are like the woman in the pit.  Sinning is like falling into the pit, and we can't get out by ourselves.  Just as the kind passerby heard the woman's cry for help, Heavenly Father sent his Only Begotten Son to provide the means of escape.  Jesus Christ's atonement could be compared to lowering a ladder into the pit; it gives us the means to climb out.  But," Sister Burton continues, "The Savior does more than lower the ladder, He 'comes down into the pit and makes it possible for us to use the ladder to escape.'  Just as the woman in the pit had to climb up the ladder, we must repent of our sins and obey the gospel principles and ordinances to clime out of our pit and make the Atonement work in our lives.  Thus, after all we can do, the Atonement makes it possible for us to become worthy to return to Heavenly Father's presence."

     That last little part goes back to the second word I picked out of the third Article of Faith: may.  The Savior has given us the ladder, but it's up to us to use it and do what we need to, to climb out of the pit.  Otherwise his sacrifice, and everything he went through, was for naught and we are not saved.

     Sister Burton's third principle is: "The Atonement is the greatest evidence we have of the Father's love for His children."  Do we believe this?  Do we believe in Heavenly Father's love for each of us?  Sister Burton said, "We would do well to ponder this stirring thought from Elder Oakes: 'Think how it must have grieved our Heavenly Father to send His Son to endure the incomprehensible suffering for our sins.  That is the greatest evidence of His love for each of us!'  That supreme act of love ought to send each of us to our knees in humble prayer to thank our Heavenly Father for loving us enough that He sent His Only Begotten and perfect Son to suffer for our sins, our heartaches, and all that seems unfair in our own individual lives.  How does knowing our worth to Him change how we keep our covenants?  How does knowing our worth to Him affect our desire to minister to others?  How does knowing our worth to Him increase our desire to help those who need to understand the Atonement as we do - way down deep?  When each of us has the doctrine of the Atonement written deep in our hearts, then we will begin to become the kind of people the Lord wants us to be when He comes again. He will recognize us as His true disciples."

     President Faust, in October 1997, said, "We must believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.  We must believe in the Atonement and the Resurrection of the Savior.  We must believe in the words of the prophets, both ancient and modern.  We should also believe in ourselves.  Belief requires action...Action is inhibited by fear.  Believing involves faith and good works.  We cannot be passive."

     In December 2010, Elder Tad R. Callister said, "Because of the Savior's birth, life, and Atonement, there are no unsolvable problems.  There are temporary tragedies and difficulties, of course, but they need not be permanent or unconquerable.  Can you imagine anyone having a problem God cannot solve?  He always has a solution that will advance our eternal progress.  That is both the reason for and the essence of the Atonement...There is no question about the Atonement's capacity to provide solutions for our problems.  The scriptures are abundantly clear on this point.  The real issues are these: Will we embrace those solutions?  Will we choose the world's answer or God's answer?  Will we repent or rationalize, seek God's grace to overcome our weaknesses, or 'go it along,' acknowledge God's love in times of tragedy or spurn Him at every down turn in life?  The Atonement is the vehicle to solve life's major problems.  With the Atonement, God puts us in the driver's seat of our divine destiny, provided we follow His will."

     I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior.  I know the Atonement is real - I've felt it's presence and power in my life numerous times and I cling to that belief and the hope it gives me in times of trial.  I hope, as I've shared some of the things I've learned as I've been studying, reading, and pondering this week, that you have been able to take a moment and do a self-evaluation on the position we're each at different points along our journey back to our Father, but I hope and pray each of us will do everything we can to come to know our Savior better.  To understand, and strengthen our belief in Him, and to put that belief into action through our repenting and accepting His incredible gift to each of us.

     In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.