Christ on the Carport

“I had this really weird dream I think I should tell you about,” Shelly commented in our Relief Society class a few Sundays ago. It is indeed a weird dream; I keep thinking about it. Though I hate to tell someone else’s dream, I’m going to give it a go.

In this dream, Shelly was in a car with her good friend Debbie, driving around the neighborhood. They would pull the car into someone’s driveway, and Debbie would start telling Shelly about all the hard things in that person’s life. As she told the story, Shelly made clear that the people in the dream were not real people in the neighborhood and she couldn’t remember the details—she just said that the people were suffering greatly and as she heard their stories she just felt so bad, so sorry, so dejected. What could ever help these poor people?

Though Shelly couldn’t remember the details of the sorrows Debbie told her, you and I know what they were. We see such sorrows all around us. The widower adrift and lonely after losing his wife of over sixty years. The parent distraught over a child’s heroin addiction. The mom diagnosed with cancer. Those suffering from mental illness: from depression, panic attacks, paranoia, and schizophrenia. The family without income and wondering how to pay the mortgage or the rent or to buy groceries. The mother who lost a son to suicide. The wife or child suffering silently from abuse. There is such sorrow all around us. If we were to stop in front of any home, and somehow see the sorrow faced within, we would indeed feel compassion and sadness.

And that doesn’t even begin to touch the sorrows beyond our neighborhoods--the tragedies we see every day in the news--the incredible sufferings of war, famine, oppression, epidemics, poverty, and more.

Shelley explained that each time Debbie explained the sadness behind the walls of each home, Shelley felt overwhelmed by despair. “How can these people manage? What sorrow to live with! What can I ever do to ease their pain?”

Then, as they sat in the driveway of yet another house, she felt compelled to look up, which she had never done in any of the other houses.

There, sitting on the roof of the carport, she saw the Savior sitting “Indian style” As she said it, Shelly stopped, and smiled, “How random is that?” On his face was an expression of great suffering and compassion, and he was sitting in a pool of blood.

That is, of course, how the people in the houses--how each of us-- could bear the sorrow. If we look up, we will find the Savior suffering with us. He suffered on Gethsemane and on the cross. He suffered 2000 years ago and he suffers with us now, aware of every pain and willing to bear it for us.

One of my favorite descriptions of the Savior’s atoning sacrifice is this one from The Book of Mormon: “And he . . . will take upon him the pains and sicknesses of his people. . . that his bowels may be filled with mercy. . . that he may know. . . how to succor his people according to their infirmities” (Alma 7:11-12). To me this means that he has suffered and does suffer the very pain that I suffer, and because he does, he understands my pain and he understands me. What is more intimate than that?

And because He knows my pain and knows me, he knows just how to help me in my pain and suffering.

But to receive that help, I do need to ask diligently, in faith believing, willing to act upon my faith.

Here is another Easter story that I think of.

I think of Mary Magdalene and her great sorrow, as she watched her Savior suffer on the cross, watched him buried hastily in a borrowed tomb.

I think of Mary crying in despair, her world seemingly at an end, through that lonely Sabbath of mourning. Then, the Sabbath over, I think how she must have washed her face and thought, “What can I do? How can I reach out to my Lord? How can I serve Him still?”

She knew what she could do. It wasn’t much, but she knew she and her friends could do it. They gathered what they needed--the linens, the oils, the spices--and walked steadfastly toward the tomb, to honor their Savior with their loving service, to carefully prepare the body. They did not even know for sure how they were going to do it. They wondered among themselves, “Who shall roll away the stone from the door?”

But they stepped forth to do what they could do.

Then, there at the tomb, the stone was rolled away, the body missing. Mary, as we often do, assumed the worst: “Oh no! They have taken even his body away from me. I cannot do even that small service for him.”

She must have felt that her act of faith had been denied. Why was her prayer unanswered?

Her friends left her there, sobbing, feeling there was no way out of her sorrow.

Then she heard a voice. “Mary.” She turned and saw her risen Lord, glorious before her.

Her sorrow turned to joy as she saw his pain and suffering turned to victory.

I keep thinking of these two images of Christ. Christ on the carport, bleeding and suffering for and with our sorrows. And the glorious risen Christ, who overcomes all pain and sorrow. Christ offers us both—the bleeding Christ suffering with us, and the great and radiant Savior who will turn all our sorrow to joy.

Even in the depths of sorrow, as we look up, we can find our loving Lord suffering for and with us. As we step forward in faith to do what we can for Him, even in the midst of our suffering, we will find what he offers: help and hope and joy.