Christ Carries the Weight to Heaven

Too often, we look at sin as a simple setback. It's as if we can "Two steps forward, one step back" our way into heaven. When we look at it that way, repentance and forgiveness aren't much more than drawing the "Advance to go" Chance card in Monopoly, simply allowing us to get back to when we were perfect.

The bottom line is that no mortal has reached the standard of perfection demanded of Jesus of Nazareth in the Sermon on the Mount:

"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).

That level of perfection does not come in an instant. It is not constantly attained each time we ask for forgiveness. It comes as a result of effort on our part, and our cooperation and agreement to the terms of the grace, justice, and mercy of God.

To illustrate the point I'm trying to make in a much more clear way, imagine your ship just went down, and you see an island off in the far distance. Naturally, you are going to swim with all your energy to get there. Perhaps if you are in the right condition, you could actually have the energy to make it!

Yet, for some reason, every now and then, you take a weight and tie it to the end of a rope; the other end of the rope is tied to you. Your swimming is going to get tougher and tougher, and is going to be utterly impossible. Try as you might, the weight is just going to be far too much, and you will be exhausted well before you can make it that ever-so-appealing island, where you can finally stay and rest.

That is what sin does to us. It weighs us down. It makes our progress all but impossible. Any progress we
do make will be stalled and inadequate.

Luckily, the Savior said this:

"I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent" (Doctrine and Covenants 19:17).

Jesus Christ, the Lord and Redeemer of the world, swam up behind us, and carried the weights. He was perfect, he could carry weight no one else could. Because of this, we aren't just sitting there, treading in the water, doing all that we can to keep our head above the surface. We are swimming. We are powering forward towards our eternal destination.

A student of Brad Wilcox once said, "Because of covenants, I am working with Christ toward our goals instead of working toward Christ as the goal."

The redemption that can only come through the Redeemer does not just put us back to where we started. We didn't leave our Father's sacred presence in premortal life so that we can someday go back to His presence. We left so that we could someday hopefully return more like Him, yes, even "even as [our] Father which is in heaven is perfect." The Atonement of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of the Living God, enables each of us to press forward, with a "steadfastness in Christ" (2 Nephi 31:20). We grasp His scarred hands, and walk right alongside the most important Man to even step foot on Earth.

Think of the meaning this gives to His admonition:

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you... For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30).

I testify that it is only through the "through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah" (2 Nephi 2:8) that we can be redeemed. I also testify that this redemption is not to get us back to where we were before we made a mistake, but to help us grow into the type of person that only God can comprehend (1 John 3:2).