Lord, give me strength for just one more.

 

A Talk on the Atonement of Jesus Christ

Several months ago I watched the movie Hacksaw Ridge. It tells the true story of Desmond Doss, a medic during World War II who refused to carry a rifle because of his faith and his religion. He did not believe in taking lives, but in saving them.

During one of the bloodiest battles of the war, his entire unit was ordered to retreat. Everyone began descending the cliff toward safety. When he reached the edge, preparing to climb down, he heard the cries of wounded soldiers who were still up there. He could climb down to where his fellow soldiers were safe and ready to protect those who were descending, or he could return to the fighting to help them. He chose to stay.

It was night, and he was surrounded by darkness. The deafening sound of explosions and bullets striking nearby filled the air. He began searching for the wounded. Some of them were as far as 600 feet away, nearly the length of two football fields. In order to stay alive, at times he had to remain completely still beside fallen soldiers while the enemy passed only a few steps away from where he was hiding.

Every time he found a wounded soldier, he refused to leave him behind. He would carry him, drag him, lift him, and take him to the edge of the cliff. It was a drop of forty feet, about the height of a four-story building. By this time there was no one left below. But even then, carefully, he lowered each soldier down to safety. Then he would turn around and go back into the danger.

The first. Then ten. Then thirty. Then fifty. Until there were seventy-five.

Each time more exhausted. Each time weaker. Each time risking his life.

And each time he prayed the same prayer: Lord, give me strength for just one more.

After lowering the last man, with his hands torn and bloodied from the rope, his body collapsed from exhaustion. He had nothing left to give. But because he chose to stay, seventy-five men lived.

What Desmond Doss did that night is only a small example of what Jesus Christ has done for each one of us.

The Savior did not carry seventy-five men. He carried every soul who has ever lived. Historians estimate that more than one hundred billion people have lived on this earth.

He saved them all. Not as a group, but individually. You and me.

He suffered everything that we suffer. Alma chapter 7 teaches that He took upon Himself pains and afflictions of every kind. He did not suffer only for our sins. He suffered for pain, for sorrow, for sickness, for broken hearts, for loneliness, for fear, for uncertainty, for our weaknesses, and for every burden we would ever carry, so that He would know perfectly how to help us.

I came to understand this in a small way, in a way I had never understood before, during a motorcycle accident.

A car invaded my lane, and I was thrown off my motorcycle and landed in the middle of the highway.

It was rush hour, and I could hear the sound of brakes screeching as cars stopped abruptly around me.

I closed my eyes and prayed for safety. Then there was silence.

My first instinct was to see if I could move. I moved my fingers and they responded. I moved my left leg and was able to move it. Then I tried moving my right leg. There was pain. Intense pain, but it was tolerable. I knew something was broken.

Then I moved my left arm. It responded.

But when I tried to move my right arm, the pain I felt was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was immediate. Intense. Unbearable.

My face began to tremble from the pain. I could not control it.

And tears began to fall automatically, nonstop, like a water faucet had been opened.

Lying there on the extremely hot pavement, now surrounded by people, feeling the pain of six broken bones and filled with uncertainty, I began to understand how real physical suffering is.

The scriptures teach that Christ suffered much more. In Mosiah chapter 3 it says that He would suffer pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer except it be unto death.

And in Doctrine and Covenants section 19, He said that His suffering caused Him, even though He was God, to tremble because of pain and to bleed at every pore. He trembled. He bled at every pore. Not symbolically. Not figuratively. Literally.

As I later reflected on that moment on the highway, when my own face trembled because of the intensity of the pain, I understood something I had never understood before. The Savior knows exactly what that feels like. He has felt it. Not in theory. Not as a concept. But in reality. He trembled so that when we tremble, we are not alone.

But the purpose of the Atonement was not only to understand our pain. It was to overcome it. To make repentance possible. To cleanse us, heal us, and change us.

Because of the Atonement we can repent. We can be forgiven. We can overcome spiritual death. Our weaknesses can become strengths. We can return to His presence. Not only salvation, but exaltation is possible.

One day we will stand before Him, and we will see the marks in His hands. Marks that testify that even though He was a God and could have ended His suffering at any moment, He chose to stay. Marks that testify of the love He has for us, so that we could repent, be forgiven, and return to His presence.

Before I finish, I want to extend an invitation.

If there is something in our lives that requires repentance, let us do it. Not tomorrow. Not when it is more convenient. Now.

If there is someone we have had a conflict with, let us not wait for them to make the first move. Let us be the ones to ask for forgiveness. Let us be the ones who seek reconciliation.

Every step toward repentance is a way of saying to the Savior: Your suffering mattered in my life. Your love was not in vain.

Finally, I do not know if this was Heavenly Fathers humor, but while I was lying there on the pavement, broken, I could still hear my motorcycle in the distance. The engine was still running. The music was still playing. And the song that was playing loudly was George Michael’s song… You’ve Got to Have Faith.

I testify that Jesus Christ lives. I testify that His Atonement makes repentance possible. I testify that because of Him, what is broken can be restored, and that through Him we can return to the presence of our Heavenly Father.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.