36 Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder.
37 And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy.
38 Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.
39 And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.
40 And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour?
41 Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
42 He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.
43 And he came and found them asleep again: for their eyes were heavy.
44 And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words.
45 Then cometh he to his disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
46 Rise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand that doth betray me. (Matthew 26)
A long, long time ago, as I was going through an LDS temple endowment session, the Lord encouraged me to think on the significance of “cups.” I immediately thought of the cup that “runs over” mentioned in Psalm 23 and of the many ways in which the Lord had blessed me in “goodness and mercy” thus far in my life.
Following that session, I entered the temple’s celestial room and picked up a copy of the scriptures to see what they had to say on the subject. If I recall correctly, it was a triple combination that I picked up—a volume that included the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price. I looked up “cup” in the index and was shocked by the fact that every scripture reference for that word had a negative connotation—a cup of fury, a cup of wrath, a cup of indignation, a bitter cup—and that was a key to a subsequent flood of understanding about other aspects of the gospel. There are two “cups.” And interestingly, I wasn’t scared of the idea of having to encounter a bitter cup in the process of ascent. There was just a solemn realization of a point of fact: To the degree that I wanted to know Christ, I would need to experience the same kind of unmerited suffering that he does, and the Lord was preparing me for that.
Anyone who has been through an LDS endowment should reflect on what is offered to them, through symbols, at various stages of the endowment and on the importance of consent in receiving what is offered.
Fast forward. Years later, the Lord instructed me to take the sacrament, on my own and with unleavened bread and wine. On many levels, that experience provided many poignant lessons to me. One of them came as I brought the glass of wine to my lips. For reasons that I’m not going to get into right now, I have an aversion to alcohol—not the idea of drinking alcohol, but the alcohol itself—and the smell of the alcohol in the wine put my mind and heart in a place where the last thing, in the entire world, that I wanted to do was to drink that wine. It triggered a physical response, and my stomach turned. More than once. To say that I was “reluctant” to drink would be too strong a description for what I felt. “Hesitant” would be better. I imagine Nephi feeling much the same way in those moments before he slew Laban—not unwilling to do as the Lord commanded, but carefully evaluating and integrating the benefit of doing such a thing because of a willingness to search out, in the light of Christ, those things that are good and to do them.
From that singular lesson, many realizations were made. In the few seconds between the moment that I got a strong whiff of the wine and the moment when I finally drank it, the Lord showed me the benefit of being obedient to his direction to partake of the sacrament in that manner. In doing as he directed, he gave me a glimpse of how and what he felt as he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane.
Now let me rewind for a minute.
When I was young, I was taught about the law of “common consent.” It’s not talked about very much anymore in the LDS church, I don’t think. I think if you were to bring it up to young people in the LDS church today, most wouldn’t have any idea of what you were talking about.
But it is an interesting thing to think about—what paths most people are willing (and then asked) to consent to and what they are not. And herein lies a great key to both recognizing others who have great light and becoming a person with greater light. Having the greatest measure of light, Christ becomes a standard by which we can gauge our own as we compare our mortal (and immortal) experiences with his. He consented to the greatest amount of unmerited suffering that any mortal could. Christ’s level of consent was extremely uncommon, and as you become like him, your level of consent will need to become the same.
Fast forward again. The Lord gave me a dream in which he foreshadowed things that he would soon bring into my life.
Then, through a set of relatively recent circumstances, the Lord gave me the opportunity to consent to a task that I, most assuredly, would have turned away from had he not shown me the necessity of engaging in it for the benefit of another. I knew that, in accepting the task, there would be a measure of unmerited suffering that I would be required to go through, but I had no idea what it would actually be like.
Looking back, I can honestly say that what I learned about him, about heaven and hell, and about reality was absolutely worth it.
In saying all of this, I am NOT saying that you should go out looking for ways in which to “consent” to things that God has not asked for. However, if you ever have a dream or any other type of foreshadowing in which the Lord shows you the depths of hell, steel your mind and heart to trust in God, submit to whatever he eventually does ask of you, and then hang on tight as he takes you into those depths in real life. He doesn’t leave you there. He takes you there so that you can be of service to Him and others and thereby enjoy the heights of heaven. And that is not bitter. It is sweet.
Make your level of consent uncommon.