From YA Weekly
How the Savior’s Example Helps Us Overcome the Mocking Voices of the World
When hostility is aimed at our faith, how can we be peacemakers?
The Mocking of Christ, by Carl Bloch
Whether on social media, on your mission, or at school, it’s likely that you have come across teasing, taunting, or hostile comments directed toward The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And those mocking voices never seem to get any easier to hear. Sometimes your gut reaction might be anger or a desire to retaliate.
Thankfully, Jesus Christ is our ultimate example in all things, and we can learn a lot from how He responded to mockery during His ministry, especially during the last days of His mortality.
He demonstrated the perfect example of humility and love.
His divine response to attackers can teach us, as His disciples, to respond as He would. Here are three important lessons for responding to disdain and derision about the Church:
1. Refuse to Take Offense
Jesus’s example teaches us to look past verbal attacks and to see others as children of God. He demonstrates that we can avoid finding personal offense when we consider that others simply may not understand the gravity of their actions: “Forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).
We also read the vile taunts directed at the Savior as He agonized on the cross. Persecutors “reviled him, wagging their heads” (Matthew 27:39), ridiculing and scoffing at His divine mission (see Matthew 27:40).
Chief priests and elders also mocked Him, saying: “He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him” (Matthew 27:42).
Remarkably, while suffering both the agony of crucifixion and the mocking of the world, Jesus demonstrated His own teachings: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).
If we strive to see others as the Savior does, even if they attack what we hold dear, we can experience patience—even love—for them.
2. Heed Them Not
Through the teachings of the prophet Lehi, Christ inspires us to disregard voices of contempt. In Lehi’s dream, Lehi took hold of a “rod of iron” that led him to the tree of life. Although many people reached the tree of life, some were ashamed because of the scoffing voices coming from a “great and spacious building” (see 1 Nephi 8:26–31).
But how does Lehi respond to those voices? He heeds them not: “And great was the multitude that did enter into that strange building. And after they did enter into that building they did point the finger of scorn at me and those that were partaking of the fruit also; but we heeded them not” (1 Nephi 8:33).
We can do the same.
Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles once taught: “The doctrine of Christ written ‘with the Spirit of the living God … in fleshy tables of [our hearts]’ [2 Corinthians 3:3] increases our capacity to ‘heed not’ the many distractions, taunts, and diversions in our fallen world. For example, faith focused in and on the Lord Jesus Christ fortifies us with spiritual strength.”
The more you focus on refining your faith in Christ and His gospel, the less you will be affected by mocking voices.
3. Lift Your Vision to Higher Ground
Sometimes, the hurtful words of others seem insurmountable. Critical words, like daggers, seek to slash and cut away our faith.
In these moments, remember that “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7). By lifting our vision above the depravity of the world, we can see the blessings of a loving Heavenly Father, who gave us His Son to show us the way to peace.
The Savior encourages us to see above a mocking world—to believe in the promise that all will be made well one day as we endure to the end.
As we joyfully look forward to His Second Coming, we can find comfort and peace in His promise to those who choose to follow Him: “For they that are wise and have received the truth, and have taken the Holy Spirit for their guide, and have not been deceived—verily I say unto you, they shall not be hewn down and cast into the fire, but shall abide the day” (Doctrine and Covenants 45:57).
As you focus on the Savior and His teachings during this Easter season, remember that if anyone understands how it feels to be mocked by the world, He does. And as you turn to Him in faith, He will help you overcome the world, just as He has.