uSe tHe aToNeMent

 Talk on “High Priest of Good Things To Come”

12 November 2023

Union Fort 11th Ward (Singles Ward)

I’ve been asked to speak on Elder Holland’s 1999 General Conference address, “An High Priest of Good Things to Come.” In this talk Jeffrey R Holland gives a bit of a pep talk to people in the midst of trials, asking us to look forward with hope and faith in Jesus Christ and the inevitable display of Christ’s victory over such trials.

 

“Use the Atonement”

One of my gospel/church pet peeves is when people say the platitude or cliche to “use the Atonement” to solve a problem or stop pain. It’s often done in an unempathetic way, as if the Atonement was celestial duct tape. I don’t like it! I’m suffering here! And they aren’t able to expound on what they mean on how exactly to use the Atonement to solve my current problem, or heal my physical or emotional injuries!

In a recent conversation with a close friend of mine going through her own trials, she mentioned that one way she “uses the Atonement” is by imagining Jesus Christ physically walking with her holding her by the hand as she goes through things. And I think this is a valid way to “use the Atonement.” The sacrament prayer focuses on merely thinking of Jesus Christ. One of my favorite hymns says “Jesus the very thought of thee with sweetness fills my breast.” And Alma the Younger says it was just the thought of Jesus that rescued him from his mental anguish (Alma 36:17-19. See also, Gordon B. Lindsey’s 2005 BYU Speech, "Always Remember Him")

I think the Atonement also gives us perspective. Well, it gave Jesus perspective. Jesus attained glorification and with it came eternal perspective, a view we don’t have. He knows what’s in store for us because He’s seen it. And He tells us it’s waiting for those that are faithful and believe in Him. Having faith in Him and His Atonement means believing that what He knows is in store for us is true.

The Gift of Pain

This pet peeve of mine, of people overusing this platitude to “use the Atonement”, prompted a debate with myself about what this means. Why do people say this, and why don’t I like it? I asked myself as a counterargument, When people say to use the Atonement, what do I expect? Do I expect the pain to be immediately removed? The pain never feels good, but pain isn’t always bad. 

Physical pain is important for the body because it’s the way your brain tells your body that whatever you’re doing isn’t good for the body. It’s protecting the body. Consider people that are paralyzed. They don’t have connections to their nerves in their legs or sometimes their arms. They can’t tell if their body is too hot or too cold. Their brain doesn’t get those signals. 

The same applies to mental pain and emotional pain. It may be a way to tell your soul that whatever is happening isn’t good. The pain I’ve felt in the past, from recent past to long-past things, has quieted my soul and made me more thoughtful. There may be something to be said about God or Jesus holding back from immediately fixing the problem. It may quiet our soul.

Sometimes people have described this as the pain digging deep, making room for joy to be deeper. There is precedence for this in the scriptures. During the Atonement, God had to remove His presence from Jesus Christ (See Matthew 27:46). And there’s precedent for God the Father feeling pain (See Moses 7:28-29). 

Faith v Positivity

The gospel of Jesus Christ is simple. There are five principles to it: Faith, Repentance, Baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. That’s simple. But the implementation of it in this mortal experience is very complex. And I think one reason I don’t like people simply saying “use the Atonement” is that it over simplifies a solution to trials.

The over simplified message of Elder Holland’s talk, “High Priest of Good Things to Come” may be misconstrued as positive thinking. But the major emphasis of my commentary on this talk, is that it isn’t simply an encouragement to be positive. Sorrow and pain are inevitable and okay.

It was pointed out in a Sunday School lesson in this ward a few weeks ago that the baptismal covenant as explained in the Book of Mosiah is to “mourn with those that mourn,” emphasis on “mourn.” It isn’t to tell people to think positively, but to show empathy. Mourn with those that mourn. 

A few years ago my close friend passed away unexpectedly due to a hiking accident. I observed a lot of different types of mourning, and the grieving process in myself and in others with whom I associated. Some people let the emotions flow through. They weren’t afraid to feel them even if it meant crying or pain. Doing so allowed the emotion to be processed and internalized.

Others were very avoidant of these emotions because they are uncomfortable. But after time I noticed that holding those emotions back made them build and build and get worse and worse because they were teaching their brain to avoid those emotions. This meant the brain was learning to be stressed or anxious about additional things that may lead to the original uncomfortable emotion. They were adding to the list of things they wanted their brain to avoid, sending it into overdrive.

One of my other gospel pet peeves was also exhibited during this time when people would say things like “People shouldn’t feel sad for someone’s death if they have a testimony of the Plan of Salvation. They should be happy!” And that drove me nuts. Not to quote a scripture but just to summarize,

“Jesus cried,”

(See John 11:35). That scripture indicates that Jesus had emotions, and it occurred when He heard his friend, Lazarus, had died! Additionally, Jesus waited for a few days before He raised Lazarus from the dead! He allowed his closest friends to feel emotions and He mourned with them rather than immediately solving their problem.

What I’m trying to say is that an oversimplification of the gospel, or even of Elder Holland’s talk to be positive, is incorrect in my opinion. One reason I like language is because there are multiple words to convey similar ideas. This is necessary because oftentimes the different words have subtle differences even though it initially feels like they refer to the same thing. In other words, I propose that faith and positivity aren’t the same things. To support my proposal, I submit a verse from the book of Mosiah. In chapter 7 Ammon is among the people of King Limhi who are held in bondage by the Lamanites. King Limhi speaks to his people: 

“O ye, my people, lift up your heads and be comforted; for behold, the time is at hand, or is not far distant, when we shall no longer be in subjection to our enemies, notwithstanding our many strugglings, which have been in vain.”

This is Limhi encouraging his people to have faith, but not to simply suppress negative emotions, or in other words, not simply to be positive. This is one of my favorite verses because of the next line. I didn’t read the whole verse above. In the next line he says,

“Yet I trust there remaineth an effectual struggle to be made.”

In other words, he’s saying, “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

Emotions Bond Us

One of the best movies of all time is Inside Out, a story about emotions and growing and change. We’re introduced to personifications of different emotions like Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, etc. They exist in the head of the main character, Riley, and control her actions. 

At the climax of the movie, Riley’s emotional console starts to die when there aren’t any emotions controlling it. This leads Riley to run away, feeling fear, disgust, anger in a stormy mix of emotions. Finally, Joy realizes that joyful memories in the past occurred because they were preceded by sad memories. Joy insists that Sadness takes control of the console. This leads to a sudden thawing of the frozen console, and Riley, sitting on a bus about to enter the highway, thaws out herself. Her sudden influx of sadness leads her to missing her parents. Riley immediately stops the bus to return to her home, and to her worried parents. Her parents acknowledge her sadness and admit they also feel some sadness too at their new living situation. They embrace her.

When she’s comforted by her parents it forms a new core memory, a beautiful blend between sadness and joy, introducing the audience to the idea that it’s possible to feel more than one emotion at a time. The sadness and the joy deepen her relationship with her parents. 

The director of this movie, Pete Doctor, said he had a hard time coming up with the storyline for this movie, unable to decide which emotion to focus on. Finally, he thought about what things in his life mean the most to him and why. He thought about his relationships. He said, 

“Emotions are the key to relationships. The people that you feel the most deeply connected with are the people that, yes, you’ve had good times with, but the people that really mean something deeply are those that I’ve cried with, that I’ve been pissed off at, that I’ve experienced fear with. It’s all the aspects of emotions that bond us together. So that gives me this idea, that maybe joy, as much as we all want it in our lives, is not the answer. The answer is actually sadness.”

Feeling sadness and other emotions with others deepens your relationship with others, creating a larger space for joy with those people. Additionally, these sad memories and the associated pain in an interesting way become almost sacred. They still make you feel sad, but satisfied because of how they brought you closer, or from how they enlarged your soul.

Going back to King Limhi, he echoes a similar sentiment. In Mosiah 8:20 he praises God saying, “O how marvelous are the works of the Lord, and how long doth he suffer with his people.” This scripture comes on the heels of the scripture where the king says he has a feeling they aren’t out of the woods yet. He’s illustrating that God is here in the metaphorical woods with us, because God really does believe that these bouts of sadness or whatever complex emotions you may be feeling, will deepen your relationship with Him. 

Elder Holland echoes this when he said in his talk

“I testify of God’s love and the Savior’s power to calm the storm. Always remember in that biblical story that He was out there on the water also, that He faced the worst of it right along with the newest and youngest and most fearful...Such counsel is not a jaunty pep talk about the power of positive thinking, though positive thinking is much needed in the world. No, Christ knows better than all others that the trials of life can be very deep and we are not shallow people if we struggle with them.”

Conclusion

In conclusion, when Jesus was in the midst of the climax of His Atonement, He testified, “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world.” And as Elder Maxwell said, “We too, brothers and sisters, came “into the world” to pass through our particularized portions of the mortal experience.” But through the Atonement, we can find purpose in suffering and pain, and look forward to “good things to come.”

(other notes if needed)

Rocky Balboa and Moral v. Physical Victory

There is an idea in literature and story telling focused on moral vs physical victory. It is only temporary or temporal for characters to achieve a physical or visible victory but more memorable and moving when they achieve a moral victory through their courage, and I especially like this and it’s especially noticeable when such a victory is contrasted with a physical loss. I’ve found in my own life that looking to such stories during my own hard times proves to be inspiring. One of the highlights of my pandemic experience was my discover of the Rocky movies. In the first one, amateur boxer Rocky Balboa is selected as an opponent by world boxing champion Apollo Creed. He admits to his girlfriend Adrian that he doesn’t think he can win. She asks him what he’s gonna do. He says,

“it really don't matter if I lose this fight. It really don't matter if this guy opens my head, either. 'Cause all I wanna do is go the distance. Nobody's ever gone the distance with Creed, and if I can go that distance, you see, and that bell rings and I'm still standin', I'm gonna know for the first time in my life, see, that I weren't just another bum from the neighborhood.”

In one of the sequels he reiterates this to his own son. He says,

“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life, but it ain’t about how hard you hit it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!”