| ...I have always been puzzled, as a boy,
by the Easter story. I used to sit there in Sunday School in Raymond,
Alberta, Canada, and they told me how Jesus suffered on the cross. That just
left a lot of questions in my mind.
Here is a beautiful, beautiful person—the
son of our Heavenly Father—he’s up on that cross. He has a crown made of
thorns on his. Dried blood down his face. He’s been all lacerated by a
cat-of-nine-tails. He’s got spikes in his hands and in his wrists and in his
feet. He is all sweaty and bloody and he hanging there on the cross.
I wanted to know what that’s for. I
wanted to know what that does. What does that help do? And who wanted that
anyway? Everybody says its necessary, I want to know why and what it
accomplishes and what he’s doing up there. The Romans crucified a lot of
people, but why the son of God? What was this for? Why was this
prophesied—did Enoch say he would die on a cross? I used to say that every
Easter.
So when I got on my mission, age 17, I’m
riding on a train in England with an apostle of the Lord, John A.Widstoe. He
was sitting there like all mission presidents do, worrying about the
conference with the missionaries and so on. He was very quiet and meditative
when I leaned over and said, “Brother Widtsoe, can I ask you a question?” He
seemed a bit startled and looked up at me and said, “Yes?” I knew I had
suddenly awakened him from a revere of meditation on something. Elder
Widtsoe was also a very famous scientist.
I said to him, “I just wanted to ask you
about why the Atonement was necessary. I accept the fact this it is, but I
just wondered why. I wondered what caused it to have the Father require the
Son to go through this.”
Brother Widtsoe thought a moment and then
replied, “Elder Skousen, who asked you to ask me this question?”
I answered, “Well, nobody. It’s my
question. Nobody asked me to ask it.”
He said, “I’m not asked that question
very often. Do you really want to know why the Atonement was necessary?”
I replied, “Well, if its alright.”
“Yes,” he said. “It’s alright. How badly
do you want to know the answer?”
I said, “Well, I’ve wanted to know it
ever since I was a little boy.”
Brother Widtsoe said, “Alright. You know,
if people don’t ask questions, they can’t hear the answer.” He continued,
“So I will share the answer with you over a period of time.”
I told him I really appreciated that, and
got out my pencil told him that if he would give me the verses I would right
them down.
He said, “Well, I will tell you what to
look for and I’ll tell you which standard work its in.” I asked, “aren’t’
you going to give me the chapter and verse?”
He answered, “I wouldn’t deprive you of
the thrill of finding it.”
So he told me what to look for, and what
was the source of God’s power—and this is where you’ll find it in the early
part of the Doctrine and Covenants. And here is where Jesus asked if he
couldn’t get out of it, and this is in several passages in the New
Testament. It will say these things and you look for that. Then you will
find some very basic scientific truths located in Second Nephi and here is
what it will tell you.
Did you know it took me seven years
before I had located all those passages! Each time I would thereafter see
Elder Widtsoe both on and off my mission I would report in.
He would say, “Well, you are doing pretty
good. I’ll give you the section of D&C. Try 88 or 29 or whatever it was. So
I would look, and there it was-there it was! I had read right past it
several times and missed it.
Finally I had
it all written up, put it together and sent him a copy. He said, “Alright
now, we need to get some of these things back into the main stream of
thought because the Latter-day Saints aren’t doing what the prophet Jacob
said to do.” He said we ought to talk more about the Atonement and why it is
necessary... |
A Personal Search for the
