Opposite Day

This is my Good Friday post as part of my #Because of Him Series.

4. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." -- John 15:13
Because of Him, we can hope for things we cannot see.

"But why is it called Good Friday if something bad happened?" my son asked me today. It's the same question we've probably all had.

It's a day of paradox, a day of contradiction. Jesus died, which was bad. But He needed to die, so it was good. Bad men crucified Him, so they were following Satan. And yet God used the actions of the bad men to bring about the Atonement and Resurrection. It's all confusing.

And then there's this matter of resurrection. If you grow up believing it, it's no problem at all to accept that after we die, we can be resurrected. But imagine trying to convince a scientist of it.

"But," they might say, "how can a body become immortal? How can you overcome the second law of thermodynamics? What justification do you have for believing something so completely opposite of what we have observed about bodies since the dawn of time?"

For that matter, what justification do we have for believing anything Christ taught? He said "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it" (Luke 9:24). But that's not what we experience here and now. We see time and time again that might makes right. We see evidence daily that money and power can get us anything the world can offer. We see that putting ourselves first ensures our own successes. And life is short, so we might as well get what we can while we can.

. . . But that bleak view of the world is not the only view. We see that bullying often wins, but so does altruism. We see that putting power in the hands of the underprivileged -- such as giving education to mothers -- benefits the whole society. We see that when we care about others' needs, we can come up with remarkable innovations that bless many lives. When love defines our motives, we begin to see glimpses of the kingdom of God.

So yes, maybe the laws of physics and entropy and scarcity are accurate, but perhaps they are incomplete. Perhaps they work best in a world focused on oneself rather than on others. Maybe a world turned upside down, where the last shall be first and the first shall be list, is the realer world after all.

And if we can see that Christ's instructions for the kingdom of God create the reality we prefer to the nasty, brutish, and short life created by the fall of Adam, perhaps it's not so foolish to believe His promise that the kingdom of God could contain something as incredible and expansive as resurrection, as heaven, as a loving and powerful God. Perhaps, as C. S. Lewis said in The Great Divorce,

All Hell is smaller than one pebble of your earthly world: but it is smaller than one atom of this world, the Real World. Look at yon butterfly. If it swallowed all Hell, Hell would not be big enough to do it any harm or to have any taste'

'It seems big enough when you're in it, Sir.'

'And yet all loneliness, angers, hatreds, envies, and itchings that it contains, if rolled into one single experience and put into the scale against the least moment of the joy that is felt by the least in Heaven, would have no weight that could be registered at all. Bad cannot succeed even in being bad as truly as good is good. If all Hell's miseries together entered the consciousness of yon wee yellow bird on the bough there, they would be swallowed up without trace, as if one drop of ink had been dropped into that Great Ocean to which your terrestrial Pacific is only a molecule'

Good Friday was terrible. It was confusing. It was devastating. But the senseless death of a carpenter from Galilee meant so much more than any of them could imagine. Good Friday was bad, but it was  just the tiny atom of Hell that seemed so formidable until Christ confronted it personally and proved it had no power against the hugeness and goodness of God.

And if Christ can transform a bad Friday into Good Friday, then we have so much reason to hope in all of His promises.

Birth

Note: This is my Maundy Thursday #BecauseOfHim post.

4. Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. -- John 3:5

Because of Him, everyone has the opportunity to come closer to God.

In John 3, we read:

3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?

5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

Well, I confess that I have marveled at this concept day after day. I have wondered the same question as Nicodemus -- can a person enter the second time into his or her mother's womb and get a fresh start? Can someone simply accept Christ and have that be sufficient? Can someone overcome a life where most everyone they know does drugs, where they went to bed hungry and scared, or where they were exposed to heavily thematic or pornographic materials from a young age? Can someone accept Christ and suddenly become a 100% church attending, scripture-studying, Word of Wisdom-keeping, dependable person?

With God all things are possible, but I have seen that that is a very, very, very tall order. It is so, so hard for people to attend church regularly for so many reasons. It is so, so hard to get out of poverty, especially when there are health issues. And we do what we can -- in our ward, for example, we have self-reliance classes and welfare and home teachers and visiting teachers and auxiliary leaders who try to reach out -- but it is not easy for the person in need or the people who are trying to help. 

And so I asked myself a variation on Nicodemus's question -- can someone who is not born to a life of privilege attain a life of privilege as if they were born again? Then, I had another question pop into my head -- do they have to be? Does someone have to have a life like an upper middle class child -- where they heard 30,000 words a day from parents, where they always had nutritious food and sanitary conditions, where they learned good manners and to return phone calls and emails, where they never even considered stealing or doing drugs because no one else they knew would ever do that -- in order to make it to heaven?

And I realized, that's not what Jesus was saying at all. What matters is that we have to be born of the Spirit. We have to have that spiritual awakening -- that realization that there is more to the universe than us and our own needs, the realization that there is a God who has rules that we've been breaking, the realization that we need a Savior -- and anyone from anywhere can have that experience. Anyone with a humble heart can be born again. Everyone, regardless of their privilege or talents, must be born again to enter the kingdom of God.

I have been lucky to be in wards where I've seen such humble, wonderful people join the church and be instantly welcomed into the family. Yet in these wards, there still are many, many names in the ward directory that I haven't recognized. I'm starting to appreciate what a foreign concept it might be to come to church every single week, to accept callings, and to be immersed in this culture often defined by middle-class, college-educated people from the western United States. And then on top of that, some might not have a reliable way to get to church!

And yet, even if they don't come each week or accept callings, they still were born again. They still had that wonderful experience with the Holy Ghost that gave them the desire to be be baptized. Perhaps we do not have all the resources to help make church attendance a habit as natural as breathing, perhaps some have not remembered the goodness of God that they felt when they first repented (Mosiah 4:11), but God watches over them just as he does the babies in the NICU who are still figuring out their lungs. Christ travailed for them, and He will not abandon them.

When Kevin went [close] to Bethlehem

When Kevin went [close*] to Bethlehem
I think he took great care
To visit all the landmarks, sites
And ancient buildings there

Inside the Church of Annunciation

Exterior of Church of Annunciation

Church of St. Joseph

Between the two churches -- Old Nazareth is down the stairs 

Church of the Multiplication of Loaves and Fishes

Church of the Primacy of St. Peter on the Sea of Galilee

White Synagogue in Capernaum

Carvings in Capernaum

Western Wall

Dome of the Rock

Azerbaijan was his first stop;

Its airport was no shack,

He carried his belongings
In his trusty old backpack

Beatitude Monastery

I think there on the busy roads
That he was meek and mild

And awed at all the tailgating
That made the driving wild

Perhaps when not in conference hours
He walked through holy lands

View from the Jerusalem Center

River Jordan

The Sea of Galilee

A stone from the time of Christ

And spent some time addressing
All his paper's new demands.

Editing is about as fun as a scorpion

And close beside the Garden Tomb

He dimmed the cell phone light

(From a different site, but still fitting)

And held his thoughts of Jesus close
Upon that holy site.

Ancient trees in the Garden of Gethsemane

*I asked him why he didn't go to Bethlehem, and he said it was hard to get to with public transportation on the weekend. Mary didn't use that excuse 2000 years ago when she was pregnant, but there weren't checkpoints back then either as far as we know.

At one

Every night after reading scriptures, we recite a few verses from memory. The one we always choose first is "Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy." (2 Nephi 2:25)

Over the past few years, I've learned more about just how big a fall from heaven that was, and it's been overwhelming.

In the past, I've generally thought of sin as an isolated, individual event, as are its effects. Sin might hurt you and the people closest to you, but that would be the end of it. A little bit of repenting would fix things up just fine.

But for whatever reason, I see things differently now. Selfishness is always at the heart of evil, but it can be perpetuated a variety of ways, and sometimes it is taught as much as it is chosen. People do have agency, but it is often hampered by a variety of environmental and cultural factors. Although a terrible person occasionally has a wonderful upbringing, most people who choose wickedness seem to slide into it in one way or another, be it through addictions, lousy parents, mental illness, societies that teach them how to hate, or any number of factors that seem to limit their accountability and agency from the get go.

Additionally, most nations have a history of oppression of some kind or another, and the effects of that can linger for centuries. Worse, quotes from religious texts -- be it the Bible, Quran, or other scriptures -- can be used as a battering ram for outrageous policies that can further this oppression by adding the threat of the wrath of God toward anyone who speaks up.

How could the Atonement cover all of this? How could the Savior redeem countries with stains of evil on them? How could He make centuries of state or religious sponsored abuse not impact the present anymore? How could He atone for pollution, for systemic racism, for unwise foreign or domestic policies, for corruption, for poverty, for drought, for wishful thinking confused with revelation, for poor decisions, and even for mistakes that still result in death? How could Christ save the world from itself?

The Savior himself had an interesting answer to that in His intercessory prayer: "I pray not for the world." (John 17:9) Considering that He earlier told Nicodemus that "God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved," (John 3:17) that seems a little harsh and contradictory.

But here's the detail I hadn't understood -- it's the "world through him" that will be saved, not just the world. It is the disciples that believed Christ that he prays for, and they are the ones who will become one with the Father, even as Christ is one with the Father (John 17:11).

Christ's Atonement is absolutely about families and communities and societies -- that's why we have churches and temples, and that's why we look forward to Zion. But those communities will be comprised of people who have chosen Him individually. No matter how we first become acquainted with sin, whether we slide into it or willfully choose it, we all need to individually turn to Christ. It is through Him that every person in the world can overcome all the scars and baggage we inherited by being born.

This is not to say that we should just give up on "The World" once we have individually accepted Christ. Although it is ultimately more important to take the slums out of a person than a person out of the slums (to quote Ezra Taft Benson), often we take the slums out of ourselves by working to take each other out of the slums. Besides, people really do have an easier time choosing the right and seeing the light when they aren't surrounded by crime, alcohol, and scarcity. Kids really do have an easier time in life when we take the lead out of their drinking water and their paint. People are less likely to return to sinful ways when they have a supportive community to nurture them through the change. We should work to create Zion both temporally and spiritually in the world we currently live in, even if The World itself will never fully be incorporated into Zion.

And ultimately, though I still do not fully understand it, I have faith that somehow all the gaps in our efforts -- the people who grow up without proper accountability, the ones who are subjected to a failed policy here or there, and the ones who never get the chance to accept Christ in this life -- were somehow already accounted for in the Garden of Gethsemane. Somehow Christ's Atonement is big enough to handle a really fallen world, because it is a world full of individuals who are still God's children. And though things may never look like Zion in this lifetime, we can all find out one by one that when we turn to Him, He is mighty to save.