Thoughts on the atonement

The centerpiece of my reading this week was 2 Nephi 9, Jacob's discourse on the atonement. In a nutshell, Jacob's understanding is that Christ suffers the pains of all in order to work out an infinite atonement capable of redeeming us from the otherwise infinite sentence of death. If we couldn't be brought back from the dead, we would be forever subject to the devil and would become devils ourselves. But the resurrection brings us back into God's presence for judgment, making it possible for the righteous, as well as those who died knowing no law, to be saved in God's kingdom while the rebellious are sent back into everlasting fire with the devil and his angels.

I'm not invested in making assertions about the nature of the afterlife, or even whether there is one. To the extent that I think about the afterlife, my mental images of it are drawn from Mormon teachings, the ones I cite on the "Preparing for Eternity" page at LiberalMormon.net. I imagine the afterlife as a continuation of this life, a material realm, a realm where we go on growing in knowledge and character, where we continue to relate to other people the way we did here, and where our Heavenly Parents allow us to have whatever gave us joy in this life and to live in whatever proximity to them we are comfortable. The point of these images, as far as I'm concerned (at least at this stage in my life; maybe my feelings about this will change if/when something happens to make me more aware of my mortality), is that the images teach me how I should live now: namely, that I should build now the kind of life and relationships I would want to continue to experience in the world to come. These images also teach me about the character of God and thus about my relationship with God. The images to which I give credence don't include our Heavenly Parents sending multitudes of their children packing into a lake of fire and brimstone. (I confess, however, that I would derive considerable un-Christlike satisfaction from being able to imagine certain individuals burning in a lake of fire; so I can understand why the image appealed to certain scriptural writers.)

What I'm building up to saying is that Jacob's discourse on the atonement doesn't mean much to me as a roadmap for the afterlife. However, there are principles embedded in his discourse which do speak strongly to my heart and mind.

1. Christ has infinite power to redeem, to deliver, to overcome, to transform, to reconcile, to unify. I have no problem believing that people are capable of becoming devils, even that people have a natural tendency to become devilish. Think the Holocaust. Think Hiroshima. Think child abuse. Think animal abuse. I'll think here about my personal demons; you can think about yours. We need forgiveness; we need sanctification. And the good news Christians call the gospel is that we can get them. The absolutely worst things we've done or are—individually or collectively—can be overcome in God's reconciling, transforming, liberating love. To say that Christ has power to deliver us from death is to say that Christ has power to deliver us from absolutely anything. But...

2. Christ's power to redeem, deliver, overcome, transform, reconcile, unify, etc., is contingent on human agency. We have to open up conduits through which God's redeeming power can flow. Christ can redeem, deliver, overcome, transform, reconcile, and unify only to the extent that we become his instruments. To put it another way: we have to be ministers of the atonement.

My mission was the time in my life when I felt most vividly that I was living as a minister of Christ's redeeming power. For two years, I was able to dedicate myself full-time to being an instrument for bringing Christ's presence into people's lives as a force for good and a force for change. It was incredibly grueling and incredibly rewarding, and almost as soon as my mission was over, I started looking for ways to recover something of that experience: temple work, the Peace Corps or other kinds of volunteer work, involvement with a Spanish-speaking congregation, social justice activism.

3. Christ suffers with us. There was a time when the idea that Christ had suffered to pay the price for my sins meant a lot to me, because it helped me overcome a debilitating sense of perfectionism. It assured me that Christ's grace compensated for my failings. Once I left LDS church life—which unfortunately breeds perfectionism and guilt for reasons I won't get into now—I stopped feeling so guilty all the time, and the notion of an atonement that pays the price for my guilt quickly stopped being meaningful to me.

But the concept that Christ suffers with humanity remains extremely important to me. Alma 7:11-12 is central to my understanding of the atonement at this point, and it's in light of that text that I read 2 Ne. 9:21, about Christ suffering "the pains of every living creature, both men, women, and children." (I'm tempted to want to tease out of the words "every living creature" the possibility that Christ takes on the suffering of animals as well—and plants, if plants suffer. I know that reading has nothing to do with the author's intention in this passage; but as a "creative misreading," it would be consistent with scriptures which indicate that God's concern extends to all created beings.) Christ shares everything that happens to us; he is with us in everything; he understands everything; his empathy is perfect and absolute. And he challenges me, as his minister, to open myself up to sharing the suffering of others. My two-year mission, again, was the time in my life when I was most open to that kind of experience.

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Jesus—

Later today I'll consume bread and water in memory of your body and blood.
As I do that, I'll be thinking today about the bread and water as the sign of your suffering, which is the suffering of every person—me, people I love, people I've never heard of, people I know about but don't really care that much about, people I outright despise.
When I eat that bread and drink that water, I'll be committing myself to share in that suffering.
I realize I don't actually have any idea what that means.
But I accept the commitment anyway.
Help me to be more open to others' suffering—to be more empathetic, more sensitive.
Help me know better how to respond on the occasions when I become aware of the suffering of individuals I know—what to say, what to do with my body, what acts of sympathy and support to offer.
Make me an instrument of your redeeming power.
Make me an instrument of your love.

Amen.