“But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren,” Hebrews (2:9-11). For any of us who have taken the time to meditate on the truly heart-rending agony that Jesus Christ endured to atone for the sins of the world, and, more specifically, to ponder on the drops of blood Jesus spilled specifically for our own sins and misdeeds, we can’t look on such pain without a strong desire to, as it were, unsubscribe from the Plan of Salvation. If one so good and pure and innocent had to suffer so much for one so guilty and reprehensible and despicable as we, then we can’t have been worth it and He oughtn’t to have gone through with it. Ideally, we would avoid adding to His agony by simply being good, being perfect even, but since all of our efforts to do so have almost always ended in failure, it is clear that opting out of the gospel is the only thing we might do to assuage our guilty conscience. Not only is this impossible but it is also counterproductive. Abandoning the path of the righteous because we judge ourselves unworthy to add to the infinite suffering of our Savior through our failed attempts to become more like Him will in the end only add more bitterness and gall to the cup that Jesus had to drink. Jesus Christ suffered the sins of all of God’s children, not just the ones that successfully repented and figured everything out. But how can we go on and learn more about our Savior and His goodness when this will only sharpen our knowledge of the pain our mistakes will cause Him and add to the guilt we will already feel for being part of the problem? Jesus was crowned with glory and honor for the suffering He experienced. The more He suffers, the more glory is heaped upon Him. When our misguided and foolish and rebellious choices add thorns to His crown and draw yet more drops of blood, we are only adding to a far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory for Him in the end. I am by no means attempting to imply that we ought to double down on our sinful ways since this will only add more and more glory to the Savior in the end. What I am saying is that we can stop trying to beat ourselves up when we have fallen short of perfection. There is more joy and more glory for the sinner that repents, than for the just person that needs no repentance. It is through sufferings that we - and Jesus Christ - are made perfect. He and we are both sanctified and glorified and perfected through this process of sinning and repenting and redeeming. We can and must remember the suffering that Jesus Christ experienced for our sins, but we can and must also look forward to the glory and joy that grows a little bit brighter every time we fall and then reach out with repentance to be saved once more. Abandoning repentance leaves our Savior to suffer the same amount for our sins but robs Him of the glory of saving us from suffering a similar fate. Embracing the imperfect stumbling uphill, even if it is full of bad choices and missed opportunities and failures to be everything that we can be, gives a reason for our own suffering and that of Jesus Christ, helps to transform the crown of thorns into a golden crown of glory, and makes the whole thing worth it in the end. I know that we hurt our Savior in small and big ways every single day, but if we keep striving to always remember Him and keep His commandments and follow Him, we can become One with Him as He saves us and we give Him a reason to live up to His role as Savior.
