As I prepare for Sunday’s classes, I try to break each lesson down into smaller parts and study it throughout the week. This helps me to ponder the various parts of each lesson more fully, and to do more in-depth study of each section. It also makes the larger parts easier to handle.
For today’s scripture study, I tried to tackle John 1:1-14. Because we are once again on the road, I was able to make it through the first four verses in depth while still in the car before finally surrendering to the fantastic combination of motion sickness and kids kicking my back. However, I did manage to read over the first fourteen verses to give me a general idea of the meaning behind the passages.
One of the first things I did after I received my scriptures was to methodically skim the footnote section for JSTs, and then circle the corresponding letter, thus enabling me to easily skip to the corresponding JST. Thus before I even started reading, I was aware that the first half of the first chapter of John is listed in the back. Now, I have to confess that I have always found that first chapter to be a bit confusing, even with the knowledge that most people consider Christ to be the word. By flipping to the JST, the confusing passages became a bit clearer. Thus, I would first encourage you to flip to the section just before the map for further clarity.
Once I had read and compared the two versions, I was ready for a more in-depth study. I would love it if the JST had footnotes in the back, which would keep me from skipping from one section to the other, but I suppose you can’t have everything.
As I said, I really only managed an in-depth analysis of the first four verses, and those most likely because there weren’t a ton of footnotes. (I’ll confess that I do tend to skip over references to the TG and just hit the scriptures noted; however, I’ve found looking to see what the topic referred to is gives me a good idea as to what the scripture might mean.)
The scriptures I referred to were
D&C 76:39, Revelations 13:8, D&C 93:7, and 1 John 1:1. (The first scripture led me to the rest.) Each of these cited the eternal nature of the mission of Chris. Each scripture refers to the fact that Christ was called to be the Lamb of God Even before the world was created, Christ knew of His divine role as our Savior. Even then, He must have had an idea of the pain His choice would require. As our Savior, He not only bore the great physical pain of the crucifixion and torments that preceded it. He also bore the emotional pain of each and every person on this Earth. When I struggle with my burdens, it sometimes seems impossible to comprehend what He must have undergone. Furthermore, He had the trial of gazing out at a crowd of people who screamed for His crucifixion and death while knowing that barely hours before He had provided for them an opportunity for eternal life. Though perhaps He didn’t gauge the full scope of the trials He would undergo, He surely had an inkling of all of this as He volunteered himself as our Savior.
Despite His knowledge of the pain He would undergo when He came to Earth, Christ still stood consistently in His role as our Redeemer. There are times in my life when taking the long view, the eternal perspective, seems difficult. Sometimes it seems as though it would just be easier to not have to think about the consequences of our actions. Why struggle for self-mastery when it is so much easier to lose our tempers, to sit down on the couch and let our minds vegetate and rot. These are the times that we need to keep the eternal plan in mind, even as Christ must surely have fixated on it in His times of suffering.
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