Recently, I dropped a card in the mail for a friend who’s experiencing something deeply painful and unfair. In the card, I included a small art print depicting the Savior in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Among the many depictions of Christ’s suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, I especially appreciate those that connect me to the Savior’s sacred Atonement with raw, vivid emotion. In some artwork, His physical agony is palpable — shoulders hunched, knees collapsed, blood staining His clothes. (See Matthew 26:39.)
I thought again of those depictions when news broke of the tragic bus accident in Lesotho, Africa, that killed eight young women and two of their leaders and injured many others. What a horrific loss for both the local community and the impacted families. How overwhelmingly devastating.
Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has spoken about the “infuriating unfairness” of such situations. During April 2021 general conference, he said, “Some unfairness cannot be explained; inexplicable unfairness is infuriating. Unfairness comes from living with bodies that are imperfect, injured or diseased. Mortal life is inherently unfair. Some people are born in affluence; others are not. Some have loving parents; others do not. Some live many years; others, few. And on and on and on. Some individuals make injurious mistakes even when they are trying to do good. Some choose not to alleviate unfairness when they could. Distressingly, some individuals use their God-given agency to hurt others when they never should.”
He continued: “Nothing compares to the unfairness [the Savior] endured. It was not fair that He experienced all the pains and afflictions of mankind. It was not fair that He suffered for my sins and mistakes and for yours. But He chose to do so because of His love for us and for Heavenly Father. He understands perfectly what we are experiencing.”
Surely, anyone who saw the incomparable unfairness of Christ’s suffering in the garden would never have trivialized His experience. Surely, someone walking the holiest ground to ever grace the earth would have dropped to their knees and wept to see the Savior in so much pain. Surely, they would have stayed with Him and borne hallowed witness to the blood wrung from His skin like oil from olives.
Can we do any less, then, when it comes to the individual agonies of others? The responsibility to honor each other’s pain is so important that Alma declared Church members have a sacred responsibility “to mourn with those that mourn ... and comfort those that stand in need of comfort” (Mosiah 18:9). Certainly we should fast and pray for our friends in Lesotho, certainly we should trust that all will eventually be made right through the Savior, but for right now, perhaps our focus should be on weeping with and for them. When it comes to life’s “infuriating unfairness,” perhaps the most important thing we can do is bear witness, as our Savior does for each of us.
In a June 2018 Liahona article, President Jeffrey R. Holland put it this way: “In the experience of the Atonement, Jesus Christ vicariously experienced — and bore the burden of — the sins and sorrows and troubles and tears of all mankind, from Adam and Eve to the end of the world. In this, He Himself did not actually sin, but He felt the pain and consequence of those who did. He did not personally experience a broken marriage, but He felt the pain and consequence of those who do. He did not personally experience rape or schizophrenia or cancer or the loss of a child, but He felt the pain and consequence of those who do, and so on and on through the litany of life’s burdens and broken hearts.
“That view of how the Atonement works suggests the one true divine example of empathy the world has ever known. …
“Empathy. Sounds pretty inadequate, but it is a place to start. We may not be able to alter the journey, but we can make sure no one walks it alone. Surely that is what it means to bear one another’s burdens — they are burdens. And who knows when or if they will be lifted in mortality? But we can walk together and share the load. We can lift our brothers and sisters as Jesus Christ lifted us. And through all of this, we certainly gain new and brighter appreciation for what the Savior ultimately does for us.”
— Kaitlyn Bancroft is a reporter for the Church News.
