Line upon Line

Kerry Muhlestein’s new, inexpensive booklet The Easter Connection: Made Whole with God through Christ is just out in time for Easter and available at Seagullbook.com

This Easter I will be made whole in a way I never have before, and in ways I never knew I needed. I also believe that each one of us has that need, whether we realize it or not. This Easter I will feel a greater gratitude for Christ than ever before. I will rejoice in understanding an element of the atoning sacrifice I never have before. All of this is because of lessons I learned when I was only expecting to be entertained.

While I watched a television show called Relative Race, produced by Lenzworks, I was forced to consider an oddity. On this show I kept witnessing the healing and whole-making process experienced by people who found family they had never known. I kept feeling a visceral reaction to observing the forging of these newfound, but long yearned for unions. Again and again, I found my own soul being made more whole. That was puzzling to me since I have always known my family, and have never felt a real separation from them. How could I be made whole when I wasn’t sundered? Pondering this while thinking about covenants and relationships, I came to realize forcefully a truth I had always known.

Though my mind does not remember my pre-mortal relationship with my Heavenly Parents, my soul somehow does. I – and every other human on the planet – carry with me a wound of separation. We have been separated from those who mean the very most to us. This inherently creates a longing to regain that relationship. I believe every human experiences that longing, whether they are aware of it or not. Further, I fervently believe that the purpose of the covenant is to restore, and then heighten, our relationship with God. Additionally, since Christ’s purpose was to fulfill His Father’s will, or promises, then Christ’s mission really was and is to help us reestablish relationship with God, and then increase that relationship until it reaches perfection.

This combined with a few other things going on in my life. In the April 2023 General conference, I felt that many speakers, but especially Elder Stevenson, urged us to come to a greater appreciation of Easter and better celebrate Christ’s atoning sacrifice.  As I thought of how I could personally come to understand that supernal gift better, and how I could teach it better, I wondered if some of my increased understanding of covenants[1] could be a lens I could apply to the Easter story to draw new insights out of it. I was surprised at how immediately this yielded results. I was also astounded at how quickly and forcefully it intertwined with the experiences I was having with Relative Race. I continue to be surprised with how much I keep learning, even after having set aside my formal study of and writing about Easter. I hope that in this article I can capture a small piece of what I learned and wrote about regarding this topic, and even add a little bit more.

As I began to write The Easter Connection: Made Whole with God through Christ, I started out with a premise. I surmised that if what I had learned about the Abrahamic Covenant being centered on a relationship with God was correct, that I should be able to see relationship reflected in the Easter story. I suspected this was true, but was astonished at how thoroughly the notion of relationship with God was interwoven in the doctrine and narrative of Christ’s sufferings.

As I studied this concept, I was confronted with consistently contrasting, yet parallel ideas. Since publishing the book, I have come to understand this opposing complimentary pattern even better, since we just finished an intense study of 2 Nephi 2 as part of Come Follow Me. In my book I explore the relationship between Christ’s path towards abandonment and aloneness as the same path that propels us towards acceptance and unity with God. Re-looking at 2 Nephi 2 has helped me to see how much this is grounded in the principles of opposition. Just as we need to experience bitterness in order to know sweetness, and just as we must experience misery in order to know joy, so Christ had to experience abandonment and complete aloneness in order for us to experience full unity and belonging with God. As I say in my book, “The Greater the unification He sought, the deeper the pain into which He had to descend. Indeed, He experienced infinite suffering; as a result, full and complete – or infinite – unity is possible.”[2]

Of course, there is not space here to attempt to recreate my entire book, but a summary of some key points might be helpful:

• It is ironic that part of our journey to become more unified with God involves being separated from Him.
• There is a parallel irony, that in order to heal our separation, Christ had to become separated from God.
• The fuller the unity They wished for us to obtain, the further Christ had to be separated.
• I have come to believe that Christ’s atoning and unifying sacrifice encompasses things He suffered from the time of the Last Supper through His death and resurrection.
• As the Last Supper began, Christ began to teach His disciples about the nature of their covenant with God.
• As part of His teachings, Christ taught a great deal about unity. This included
  • They had been experiencing a type of unity with Him.
  • As He left, they could obtain a unity with the Holy Ghost.
  • The Holy Ghost could help them obtain a unity with Christ and the Father.
  • Some of the Greek/Aramaic terms Christ used can clarify and amplify those teachings.
  • Eventually the Holy Ghost and Christ together would make it possible for His followers to experience the same kind of unity with the entire Godhead which They experience with each other.
• For every instance of teaching unity, Christ seemed to encounter an element of His own unfolding experience that forced Him towards aloneness.
• On this path of separation, every time Christ was able to take a bit of solace in the unity He had with God or His disciples, He was confronted with something that further separated Him from His disciples.
• In Gethsemane Christ experienced an aloneness that reached unexpected and towering heights and that was a very crucial part of His atoning suffering.
• On the cross, Christ experienced an abandonment by and separation from God that was unexpected and supremely painful.
• This all allowed Him to create unity and wholeness for us.

All of these points have beautiful and powerful scriptural expressions, which I explore more fully in the book. I was touched and moved as I read familiar stories through this lens, and I believe I have been forever changed as a result.

I have come to appreciate Christ’s willingness to suffer for me on a new level. In my mind I picture Christ pushing me towards my Father. This is always true, but it seems to me that during His atoning sacrifice, He was pushing me (and you) while in a lake. In order for Him to propel me towards the Father, His pushes thrust Him in the opposite direction — further from all of us. In order to push hard enough for me to arrive at the shore where I can be wrapped in my Father’s arms, Christ had to push hard enough that He was propelled to the center of the Lake, where He found Himself far from God and completely alone. As I have written, “Through towering solitude, Christ created eternal togetherness. His willingness to suffer the Father’s will, even when abandoned in every way possible, has won the blessed union for which He prayed at the Last Supper. By doing the Father’s will, He became the answer to His own prayer, as well as to all of ours.”[3]

As we arrive on the shore of our Father’s presence, we will find that not only has our separation been overcome, but we can experience greater unity than ever. As I have noted, “As we are sanctified and changed, we can overcome the gap that was introduced at the Fall and then even overcome the gap that existed before the Fall as we come into full emulation, communion and union with God.”[4] This is all possible because of Christ treading the most terrible of winepresses completely and staggeringly alone.

For me, the growth in my understanding of Christ’s painful aloneness and isolation in His greatest hour, created a deeper feeling of loss about His loss, and of gratitude for His willingness to pay that price. I came to realize that “He looked to heaven in His hour of need and found Himself terrifyingly, shockingly, and heartbreakingly on His own.”[5] Yet being willing to do that made it possible for Him to finish the work which His Father had given Him to do. Once that was done, He was able to finally rejoin His Father. “Having come to His Father again, He paved the path for us to do the same. His rebirth, celebrated on Easter, marked the ability for all of us to have a rebirth – a new life as a being that was capable of full communion and union with God. That is true Easter!”[6]

This knowledge is allowing me to be more grateful for Christ’s atonement. It will allow me to better celebrate and commemorate Easter. I hope that all of this will create for me a greater unity with Christ, which also inevitably leads to greater unity with my Heavenly Parents. I believe studying this aspect of the atoning gift can also provide this for all of God’s children.

Notes: 

[1] See Kerry Muhlestein, God Will Prevail: Ancient Covenants, Modern Blessings, and the Gathering of Israel (American Fork, UT: Covenant Communications, 2021); and Kerry Muhlestein, Finding Promised Blessings on the Covenant Path (American Fork, UT: Covenant Communications, 2023).

[2] Kerry Muhlestein, The Easter Connection: Made Whole with God through Christ (American Fork, UT: Covenant Communications, 2024), 5.

[3] Muhlestien, The Easter Connection, 33.

[4] Muhlestein, The Easter Connection, 19.

[5] Muhlestein, The Easter Connection, 31.

[6] Muhlestein, The Easter Connection, 33.