Jesus Is the Christ
A few years ago, my friend’s two-year-old daughter climbed unnoticed into their small wading pool, lost her balance, and silently drowned. I do not need to tell you—I cannot tell you, it is impossible for me to tell you—the grief and shock and anguish that family experienced at the passing of their little girl. If there be no Christ, they never recover from it. Their little girl stays dead. There is no Resurrection, no hope for a reunion.
But there is a Christ, there is a Resurrection, and there will be a sweet reunion. That little girl lives on. She continues to be an influence on her family, and not merely through memories. If you were to see that family today, you would marvel at how “the sting of death is swallowed up in [Jesus] Christ.”30
Not long ago, I sat in the Draper Temple, observing the sealing of a beautiful young couple. I marveled because I had some knowledge of the groom’s dark past. I did not know everything he had been involved in; I just knew that he had been involved in, well, pretty much everything. He had fallen deep and far. If there be no Christ, that young man does not change; that young man cannot change. Yet there he was in the sealing room, changed. I searched his face, trying to detect some residue from his dark past, but there was none. Instead, his countenance shone with light and love and hope and joy. Why? Because there is a Christ, and His Atonement leaves no tracks, no traces.
No matter how far or how deep you may have fallen, Jesus has descended farther and deeper. During His descent, He became acquainted with your grief, and He was bruised by your iniquities.31 He voluntarily did this so that He could bring you back home where you belong. Nor is it His aim to simply save you by the skin of your teeth. No, His promise is sure: “I am able to make you holy”32—without spot.
In a stirring exchange recorded in the book of Matthew, Peter had the opportunity to bear his testimony of Jesus to Jesus—an opportunity each of us will likely have one day. In response to Jesus’s inquiry, “Whom say ye that I am?” Peter testified, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”33
Jesus responded, saying, “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.”34
Let’s pause and consider that. Think of all the things Peter saw or experienced with Jesus in the flesh. He saw the sick healed and the lepers cleansed. In the flesh, Peter saw the lame walk, the dumb talk, the deaf hear, the blind see, and the dead brought back to life. He helped Jesus feed multitudes. And he walked on water with Jesus. All of these and so much more Peter saw or experienced in the flesh.
But Jesus said to him, in essence, “Peter, that’s not why you know; that’s not how you know I am the Christ. You know I am the Christ because of the spirit of revelation—the Holy Ghost confirming to your mind and to your heart that I am the Christ, the Son of the living God.”35
By the same power and by the same process, I bear the same witness as that chief apostle in the primitive Church. I testify that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Over a lifetime I have come to view and understand my own pitiful, fallen state. I have experienced sin and sorrow, suffering, and infirmities of mind and body. I have experienced unfairness and injustice at the hands of others and through the harshness of life. All of these and so much more have given me a sure knowledge that there must needs be a Christ.
I have also searched the scriptures, pondered and prayed, wrestled in the spirit, and basked in the Spirit. I have earnestly, sometimes desperately, sought for relief, forgiveness, solace, and testimony. And in Jesus I have found them. All of these and so much more have led me to a sure knowledge that Jesus is the Christ.
With all my heart, I invite you to “seek this Jesus.”36 He is so accessible. I bear witness that He is alive right now. Jesus is saving and helping and healing and forgiving right now. He is quick to forgive and slow to anger. He is mighty to save, and, to that end, He is mighty to change you and me. I testify that the answer to “the great question” is this: There must needs be a Christ, and Jesus is the Christ. Let us come unto Him in humility and faith so that we will be prepared when He comes unto us in power and great glory. This is my invitation and my prayer, in the name of Jesus the Christ, amen.
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