This year's Christmas card photo, featuring two of my grandchildren |
Merry Christmas!
We’re celebrating a holy day, to honor our Savior Jesus Christ. We’re asked to become more like Him.
We’re celebrating a holy day, to honor our Savior Jesus Christ. We’re asked to become more like Him.
So, what does that mean? What does a life look like, when
following His example? We can get some of these qualities from scriptures,
among them the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, and in I Corinthians 13, which defines
His love:
·
Loving
·
Kind
·
Meek
·
Humble
·
Seeking righteousness
·
Merciful
·
Pure in heart (honest, integrity, without guile)
·
Peacemaker
·
Longsuffering
·
Without envy
·
Not easily provoked
·
Seeks truth
·
Avoids iniquity
·
Gentle
·
Self-sacrificing
And we could add a few extras that don’t come up as often:
· He sees a person’s heart, always knowing what a
person really means or intends, and works with that person, as a friend would,
to encourage living better.
· He always knows God’s will and makes that His
own will.
· He combines truth and kindness, but He doesn’t
modify the truth to avoid offending.
· He doesn’t mollify. He doesn’t accept evil, even
when He deeply loves the person doing the evil.
Imagine if all the people on earth lived the way Jesus did—or at least were earnestly striving to. On the Spherical Model, Jesus Christ leads to way to Civilization. He moves us ever northward, toward Him.
One of my favorite speakers, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, says,
Considering the incomprehensible cost of the Crucifixion and
Atonement, I promise you He is not going to turn His back on us now. When He
says to the poor in spirit, “Come unto me,” He means He knows the way out and
He knows the way up. He knows it because He has walked it. He knows the way
because He is the way.[i]
Above all other lives, His birth, life, death, and
resurrection, are most worth celebrating.
His birth story shows us beauty in humble circumstances. Many
of my favorite Christmas carols tell the story. I’ll share just a few verses.
This is the final verse of the Alfred Burt carol, “We’ll
Dress the House with Holly Bright”:
And ye who would the Christ Child
greet,
Your heart also adorn,
That it may be a dwelling meet
For Him who now is born.
Let all unlovely things give place
To souls bedecked with heavenly grace,
That ye may view His holy face,
With joy on Christmas morn.
Here’s another Alfred Burt carol, the ending of “Some
Children See Him”:
O lay
aside each earthly thing,
And
with thy heart as offering,
Come
worship now the infant King,
‘Tis
love that’s born tonight!
I’m noticing endings of a lot of songs. This is the final
verse of the Christina Rosetti poem, “In the Bleak Midwinter”:
What can I give Him,
Poor as I am? —
If I were a Shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man
I would do my part, —
Yet what I can I give Him, —
Give my heart.
Poor as I am? —
If I were a Shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man
I would do my part, —
Yet what I can I give Him, —
Give my heart.
As a family, we’ve been retelling the nativity story as part
of our Christmas Eve tradition for thirty years. We have a script. We dress up
in costumes, and we all take part. Every time there’s a new baby, we use a real
baby instead of a doll to be the baby Jesus.
My Christmas card is always a depiction of some part of the
nativity story. This year we had my new granddaughter and her big brother play
the parts of the baby Jesus and a shepherd (above).
Many of my Christmas decorations are depictions of the
nativity. I like the goodies and presents and fun as much as the next person,
but the real celebration is what is at the core of this holy day, and that is
Christ.
If you want a beautiful visual retelling of the Christmas
story, spend eight minutes on this video, produced by The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints:
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