The Battle Was Won
In the garden it was won
Listen
Start by listening to The Battle Was Won from Hold the Line. The words are on the song’s page.
The message
Every war that people remember had banners and drums and thousands of spears. The battle that decided everything had none of that. It was fought without a sound, by one Man in an olive grove, face down on the ground, while His friends slept. No trumpet, no legion, no soldier of His own. Just a promise He made before the world began, and a cup He had to drink alone.
In Gethsemane Jesus prayed, "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done." An angel came from heaven to strengthen Him. And the agony was so great that "his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." The Book of Mormon tells us, in words an angel gave King Benjamin, that blood came "from every pore, so great shall be his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people." And the Savior Himself described it in the Doctrine and Covenants: suffering that caused Him, "even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore." He could have called more than twelve legions of angels. He didn't. He went willingly.
Here's the part of the Atonement that I think is the most tender thing in all of scripture. Alma teaches that the Savior would suffer not only for our sins, but take upon Himself our "pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind," our sicknesses and infirmities, "that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people." Succor means to run to someone's aid. He felt your darkest midnight. He felt mine too. He doesn't have to imagine what you're going through. He knows, and He knows how to help.
And it didn't end in the garden. On the third day the women came to the tomb and found the stone rolled away, and two men in shining garments asked them, "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen." Then the Book of Mormon gives a second witness the world almost never hears: the risen Lord came down out of heaven among the people in the Americas, and invited them to come forward, one by one, and feel the prints of the nails in His hands and in His feet. They did, every one of them, and they knew of a surety that it was He. He is alive.
So here's the turn the song makes, and it matters. The war is won. The enemy is bound. But the enemy can still take me, if I let him. The fight that's left for us isn't against a devil who has already lost; it's against the natural man, which King Benjamin says we put off "through the atonement of Christ the Lord." And Moroni says that as often as people repented and sought forgiveness with real intent, they were forgiven. As often as. There's no limit on the rising.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland taught that because Jesus walked that lonely road utterly alone, we don't have to. I don't carry what He carried. I don't pay what He has paid. I just stand on what He finished. So don't tell me your war is lost, and don't tell me it's too late. The fight you're in today is not a fight you face alone.
Ponder
Alma says the Savior took on your pains and sicknesses so that He would know, from the inside, how to help you. What have you been carrying alone because you weren't sure He would understand?
Try this tonight
Read Alma 7:11-12. Then, in prayer, tell the Savior about one pain or sorrow you have been carrying by yourself, and ask Him to carry it with you.