The Calm of Christ – Sunday, January 16, 1983
Recently, a little girl said to her father, “Daddy, I know the opposite of night.”
“What is it?” he obligingly asked.
“Day!” she proudly replied, smiling at her knowledge and accomplishment.
And so, a child had noticed that there are opposites in life—contrasts in things about us. And someday she’ll probably learn to better understand contrasting emotions—those opposite feelings that carry us from one extreme to another.
We know that the opposite of happiness is sadness, the opposite of joy, grief and that pleasure finds its opposite in pain, and love in hate. But all these contrasting emotions may be encompassed or overcome by yet another feeling that is not in opposition to anything. It is the feeling of spiritual calm, a calm for which there is no opposite; there is only the comfort of its presence, or the stupor of its absence.
One of the great biblical accounts of such calm—and in the face of tremendous suffering—is the story of Job. Having lost family, friends, fortune, and finally his health, Job nevertheless proclaims:
Oh that my words were now written!…
For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that
He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
And though after my skin worms destroy this body,
yet in my flesh shall I see God.”1
We know very little about Job. The scriptures tell us that he was a good man. But many good men have been destroyed, their faith in God devastated by circumstances less terrible than befell Job. Indeed, even Job wondered at his predicament. But beyond Job’s wondering—beyond the incapacity of his own ability to see things in terms of black and white, of opposites, there was an absolute atonement, a resolution of the injustices of life. And he was calm.
So, too, was a prophet in a more modern setting who said, as he anticipated his own death at the hands of assassins, “1 am going like a lamb to the slaughter; but I am calm as a summer’s morning.”2
The calm he spoke of is the calm of Christ. The calm assurance that the grace of the Savior’s sacrifice is sufficient to overcome any of life’s challenges. Though grief and joy may come, there is peace beyond it all. There is the peace—the calm—of God’s eternal love.
1 Old Testament, Job 19:23-26
2 Doctrine and Covenants, 135:4
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January 16, 1983
Broadcast Number 2,787