As horrific as were the beatings and scourgings, the spitting and slapping, the exhaustion and sleep-deprivation, the mocking and complete humiliation of the Lamb of God at the hands of the uncouth Roman Praetorian guard prior to Jesus' ascent to Golgotha, all of it together did not come close to the agonies of Gethsemane.
His total submission --- remember He is God --- to this extreme public ordeal is merely a signal clue that He was "willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father" (Mosiah 3:19). That verse from the angel to king Benjamin for our benefit and learning --- Mosiah 3:19 --- we normally see as a description of what natural, fallen man must do to come back to God. It is a perfect testament that Christ is our example in this, as in all things.
Such were the labor pains involved in the rebirth process of Atonement for us.
We cannot begin to fathom, explain or describe the agonies of Gethsemane. But they were so extreme that they caused the blood of a God to issue from every pore of His holy body, and for Him to tremble because of the pain, to the extent that He pleaded for some other means to make the sacrifice. This way was too awful. "Nevertheless" --- eternity hinged on that word, and a sigh of relief filled the heavens as "I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men" (D&C 19:18--19). He submitted and went through with it. And the "glory be to the Father" --- even then He disowned the credit! in favor of the necessities of the plan, the Father's plan. This is profound voluntary humility to add to the later humiliation.
Such labor pains --- "to suffer both body and spirit" --- think of that.
All of this leads to a question: does the birth of a child inflict any kind of labor pain on the child itself? I don't know the answer. I do know, from filmed accounts of the event, and from personal witness as a father, that the baby looks uncomfortable to say the least, desperate perhaps, gasping for life, and that the baby cries out in anguish and a bit of defiance (?) at its predicament and ordeal. We perhaps will not know the answer. But it is hard work --- for the baby, the mother, and the father, as he sweats and walks the floor of the waiting room or of the theater of the event. . . . The whole process is a miracle, a wrenching miracle.
Now, perhaps you can see where this is leading.
Are there profound pains involved in the rebirth process? As described here, the pains of rebirth are not of a mother this time, but of a Father, the father of the new birth. Jesus Christ is the Father of the new birth. And the process involves water, blood and Spirit, just as the first, physical, mother-birth did, as Moses 6:58--60 describes.
But are there expected labor pains for the "candidate"? --- for the person involved in being born again? You might want to ask Alma the Younger that question, and study and appreciate his answer in the latter part of Mosiah 27 and the whole of Alma 36.
Do we see and appreciate these passages of scripture? Do we give room for them in our hearts as we study and teach the Book of Mormon? When the verses from Mosiah cited here were reached in Sunday School classes this month, in many if not most classes, these verses were passed over, neglected, ignored if you will, because the doctrine they contain is not known and understood and embraced among us. We are uncomfortable with it and in it.
How do you know that, Stephen Cook?! You don't even attend Sunday School Gospel Doctrine classes, 'cos you're teaching your own youth Sunday School class. How would you know? . . . I just know. Leave it at that.
Time to conclude. Space runneth out.
Two last insights: just as the baptism of water as part of the rebirth process requires, in a strict and specific and supervised way, total immersion in the water, so the baptism of the Spirit --- of fire and the Holy Ghost --- requires total immersion. And many of us, in the words of the Prophet Joseph, "cannot stand the fire at all" (see Teachings, page 331). More detail on this important aspect later.
The final point: we are trying to amplify and summarize here all that we offered on the "broken leg" and the "currant bush" insights, the "whom God loveth, He chasteneth" idea, with a view to pointing out the real Christ and His work among those who would become His children in the rebirth process.
Jesus Christ is the Father of the new birth. His status as our Elder Brother, while doctrinally true and correct, is at best irrelevant here in mortality. He is our Father, the Father of our new birth. To call Him our Elder Brother is to obscure and miss Who He really is here in mortality, His role and its import and impact. And the scriptures testify of it clearly.
Do you recall in our post just before general conference and Easter we cited an insight from President Boyd K. Packer? --- to the effect that, "I used to think I knew what the word 'father' meant. I have come to know what it means. Brothers and Sisters, it is in the scriptures." [The link to that post is included in the e-mail that brought this post.]
The explanation of that cryptic insight can be found in this writing from Elder McConkie:
"We are well aware that all men are children of God, the offspring of the Father, his sons and his daughters. . . . What is not so well known is that nearly all the passages of scripture, both ancient and modern, which speak of God as our Father and of men on earth being the sons of God, have no reference to our birth in preexistence as the children of Elohim, but teach rather that Jehovah [Jesus Christ] is our Father and we are his children [through the rebirth process of the gospel plan as expounded here]" (Promised Messiah, pp.351--2, emphasis added).
Labor pains? Yes, and more than we can imagine as the Lamb has to witness our neglecting and ignoring, our indifference to these truths, which neglect and apathy only adds to the pain, for Him and His prophets (see 2 Nephi 32:7 and many other passages we will share upon request).
One we shall share here: "Thou art angry, O Lord, with this people [not just disappointed or hurt] because they will not understand [the word will indicates there is a measure of agency at work in our neglect] thy mercies which thou hast bestowed upon them because of thy Son" (Alma 33:16). Ponder again on the labor pains described here. And understand that we must measure up in bearing our part of the labor pains in our own rebirth.
These are given that we may understand what has been done for us, and that we may start to wholeheartedly enlist in the process by willingly submitting to what He sees fit to inflict upon us, like the little lamb with the broken leg, and the weeping currant bush, until we are ready to truly "partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption . . . [and] come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him" (Omni 1:26). That will take some labor pains. But it's all for you and me, and the plan for our happiness.
Are not these things of monumental significance? Are they of more than passing interest? These truths are given to us by Joseph, and cost the best blood of the nineteenth century to bring them forth, to testify of the best blood of all times.
Steve
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