Tonight, we spent New Year’s with the Walkers and the Christensens. I will share a story told by Elder Christensen. “Christmas invites feelings of tenderness, joy, and love. And as any parent will attest, similar feelings typically attend the birth of each newborn child. Of course, Christ’s birth was unlike any other. The precious details—the journey to Bethlehem, an overcrowded inn, a lowly manger, a newfound star, and ministering angels—make His a birth story for the ages. Yet the story of the Savior’s birth represents only a part of why we feel the Spirit during the Christmas season. Christmas is not only a celebration of how Jesus came into the world but also of knowing who He is—our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ—and of why He came.
President Thomas S. Monson has taught: “Because He came to earth, … we [can] have joy and happiness in our lives and peace each day of the year. … Because He came, there is meaning to our mortal existence.”1
The Firstborn of the Father
This meaning becomes clearer when we consider the fulness of the Christmas story. As President Gordon B. Hinckley explained: “There would be no Christmas if there had not been Easter. The babe Jesus of Bethlehem would be but another baby without the redeeming Christ of Gethsemane and Calvary, and the triumphant fact of the Resurrection.”2
Jesus’s birth in Bethlehem is not the beginning of the story, and Calvary is not the end. The scriptures teach that He was “in the beginning … with God”3 in the premortal Council in Heaven. We also were there, where we knew Him as Jehovah, the Firstborn of our Eternal Father.4 We learned that He would perform the central role as Creator and Redeemer of the world. We shouted for joy as we embraced our Father’s great plan of happiness.5 Albeit there were some who rebelled against God’s plan, we are among those who placed our faith in Jesus Christ. We willingly accepted the perils of mortality because we had confidence that Jesus would accomplish the will of the Father—that through Him we would be saved.
The Birth of God’s Only Begotten Son
Here on earth, the memory of our former life is covered by a veil of forgetfulness. Our purpose in coming to earth was to learn how to “walk by faith, not by sight.”6
To strengthen that faith, God sent prophets who foresaw and foretold of the coming of the promised Messiah. One of these prophets was Nephi, who saw in vision a tree that was exceedingly beautiful and white. When he asked to know the interpretation of his vision, he was shown the city of Nazareth and Mary, a virgin who was most beautiful and fair. The angel attending to Nephi then asked this most penetrating question: “Knowest thou the condescension of God?” In other words, “Do you understand why God Himself will come into the world, why He would condescend below all things?” Nephi’s response was somewhat tentative: “I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things.”
The angel then said, “The virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God.” Nephi saw Mary holding a child in her arms, and in joy the angel cried out, “Behold the Lamb of God, … even the Son of the Eternal Father!” Suddenly, the meaning of the tree—and the reason we celebrate Christ’s birth—became clearer to Nephi. Said he, “It is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things.” “Yea,” the angel added, “and the most joyous to the soul.”7
Finally, nearly 600 years after Nephi’s vision, the long-awaited, long-prophesied day arrived. Jesus passed through the veil and entered the world as a helpless baby, though a baby unlike any other. God’s Firstborn Son in the spirit became His Only Begotten Son in the flesh. This child, born in the humblest of circumstances, would carry on His shoulders the salvation of God’s eternal family! Truly, “the hopes and fears of all the years” converged in the “little town of Bethlehem” that night.8
But the story, of course, does not end there. As miraculous as the Savior’s birth was, greater miracles were about to follow.
The Father’s Business
We know very little of Jesus’s early years. We are told that He “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.”9 By age 12, His expressed desire was to “be about [His] Father’s business.”10 That business was to manifest to the world the Father’s “great and wonderful love” for His children.11
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, … that the world through him might be saved.”12
His Father’s business was to “[go] about doing good.”13 It was a work of compassion—“healing the sick, raising the dead, causing the lame to walk, the blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear.”14
His Father’s business was to open the eyes of our faith, to arouse our spiritual faculties, and to heal our pain, our pride, our sickness, and our sins. It was to “succor [us in our] infirmities.” And to accomplish this, Jesus willingly suffered pain, rejection, afflictions, and temptations of every kind.15
His Father’s business was to help us fulfill our purpose on earth—to “fit us for heaven,” that we might “live with [Him] there.”16 In other words, His Father’s business was—and is—“to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”17
The Atonement of Jesus Christ
Ultimately, the fulness of the story of Christmas culminates with the last three days of the Savior’s life. In that pivotal period, the Savior passed from the Garden of Gethsemane to the cross of Calvary to the Garden Tomb. As Elder Jeffrey R. Holland taught, the “impact and efficacy” of that moment would “reach back … to the beginning of time, and forward … throughout all eternity.”18
With the fate of every human soul hanging in the balance, Jesus entered the Garden of Gethsemane virtually alone. There followed interrogation, scourging, and finally an excruciating death on the cross. With the same humility and submissiveness in which He declared from the beginning, “Here am I, send me,”19 he now said, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”20
The earth groaned, His friends grieved, and darkness covered the land. The Savior passed into the world of spirits, where “an innumerable company of the spirits of the just”—righteous souls who had died—awaited His coming. In striking similarity to what had happened in the beginning of time, the sons and daughters of God shouted for joy and bowed down to worship their Deliverer.21
The Resurrection of the Light of the World
Soon the time came for the Savior to take up His physical body again and complete His victory over death. Early in the morning on a spring day, the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went to His tomb and found it empty. She was the first to hear His voice and see His beloved face. Jesus later appeared to His Apostles, inviting them to behold His hands and feet, to “handle [Him], and see”22 that it really was Him—that their Redeemer did indeed live again!
These are the “good tidings of great joy”23 we celebrate at Christmas—not only that Christ was born but that He lived among us, gave His life for us, was resurrected, and ultimately “finished the work which [His Father gave Him] to do.”24 We rejoice because the confusion and chaos of this world can be hushed by the promise made to us from the very beginning—a promise fulfilled by the Atonement of Jesus Christ. For this reason, the story of Christmas is not fully told without the story of Easter. It was the Savior’s atoning sacrifice that made holy the silent night in Bethlehem. It was His gift of redemption that caused us to shout for joy in the premortal world—this gift that heals our sickness, restores our sight, and wipes away all tears.25
The light we love at Christmas emanates from the Light of the World, Jesus Christ. The story we cherish at Christmas tells of our Father’s plan of happiness, which Christ made possible. The gift that makes the Christmas season sacred is His very life, which He gave that we might have everlasting life. May we receive this gift and share His love and His gospel with all the world, particularly during this wonderful season of the year, is my prayer in the sacred name of Jesus Christ, amen.
The Light and the Life of the world
Elder David A. Bednar
The most familiar and beloved account of the Savior’s birth is found in the second chapter of Luke in the New Testament. I am filled with gratitude each time I read about Joseph and Mary traveling to Bethlehem, the lowly manger, the humble birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, and angels proclaiming “good tidings of great joy … to all people” (Luke 2:10).
The Restoration of the gospel in the latter days provides an important companion account of the Savior’s birth in the Book of Mormon. My message highlights this additional description of the first Christmas. As we consider this episode together, brothers and sisters, I invite you to visualize yourself in these events and not merely listen to the words.
I pray the Holy Ghost will help you liken these scriptures to you and your family (see 1 Nephi 19:23) and fill your hearts with the true spirit of Christmas.
Samuel the Lamanite
Our account begins in the land of Zarahemla a few years before the birth of the Savior. Samuel the Lamanite came among the people to preach repentance and prophesy of Christ. Now please try to imagine that you are 10 years old and a member of the multitude listening to a prophet of God foretell future events.
Samuel declared: “Behold, I give unto you a sign; for five years more cometh, and behold, then cometh the Son of God to redeem all those who shall believe on his name.
“And behold, this will I give unto you for a sign at the time of his coming; for behold, there shall be great lights in heaven, insomuch that in the night before he cometh there shall be no darkness, insomuch that it shall appear unto man as if it was day.
“Therefore, there shall be one day and a night and a day, as if it were one day and there were no night; and this shall be unto you for a sign. …
“And behold, there shall a new star arise … ; and this also shall be a sign unto you” (Helaman 14:2–5).
The Savior’s Birth
As time passed, “the prophecies of the prophets began to be fulfilled more fully; for there began to be greater signs and greater miracles wrought among the people” (3 Nephi 1:4).
Please now imagine five years have passed and you are now approximately 15 years old. You can recall clearly the prophecies of Samuel as you consider the present circumstances in which you live.
“But there were some who began to say that the time was past for the words to be fulfilled, which were spoken by Samuel, the Lamanite.
“And they began to rejoice over their brethren, saying: Behold the time is past, and the words of Samuel are not fulfilled; therefore, your joy and your faith concerning this thing hath been vain.
“And it came to pass that they did make a great uproar throughout the land; and the people who believed began to be very sorrowful, lest by any means those things which had been spoken might not come to pass.
“But behold, they did watch steadfastly for that day and that night and that day which should be as one day as if there were no night, that they might know that their faith had not been vain.
“Now it came to pass that there was a day set apart by the unbelievers, that all those who believed in those traditions should be put to death except the sign should come to pass, which had been given by Samuel the prophet” (3 Nephi 1:5–9).
Brothers and sisters, can we even begin to understand what it might have been like to await the sign of His coming and also face the dire deadline of death? Would you and I stand firm and steadfast in the faith, or would we waver and shrink?
Then, indeed, the sign of Christ’s birth foretold by Samuel was given. In a climate of religious persecution and at the tender age of approximately 15, you marveled one evening as the sun went down but there was no darkness.
“And the people began to be astonished because there was no darkness when the night came. …
“And they began to know that the Son of God must shortly appear; yea, … all the people … were so exceedingly astonished that they fell to the earth. …
“And it came to pass that there was no darkness in all that night, but it was as light as though it was mid-day. And it came to pass that the sun did rise in the morning again, … and they knew that it was the day that the Lord should be born, because of the sign which had been given.
“And it had come to pass, yea, all things, every whit, according to the words of the prophets.
“And it came to pass also that a new star did appear, according to the word” (3 Nephi 1:15, 17, 19–21).
The day Jesus was born was a day of deliverance for the believers in the New World. Light as the sign of the Savior’s birth literally saved their lives.
The Savior’s Death and Resurrection
Now, brothers and sisters, imagine that over 30 years have passed and you are now approaching the age of 50. You can still remember vividly the teachings of Samuel and your experiences as a teenager when the sign of the Lord’s birth was given.
One of the signs of Christ’s death foretold by Samuel was three days of intense darkness (see Helaman 14:27; 3 Nephi 8:3).
“And it came to pass that there was thick darkness upon all the face of the land, insomuch that the inhabitants thereof who had not fallen could feel the vapor of darkness;
“And there could be no light, because of the darkness, neither candles, neither torches; neither could there be fire kindled … , so that there could not be any light at all;
“And there was not any light seen, neither fire, nor glimmer, neither the sun, nor the moon, nor the stars, for so great were the mists of darkness which were upon the face of the land.
“And it came to pass that it did last for the space of three days that there was no light seen” (3 Nephi 8:20–23).
What might it have been like to experience those three days of indescribable darkness and then, a short time later, gather with the multitude of 2,500 people at the temple in the land of Bountiful? Can you envision the majesty of the moment as the Savior descended from the heavens and declared, “Behold, I am Jesus Christ. … I am the light and the life of the world”? (3 Nephi 11:10–11; italics added).
To this special assembly at the temple, two of the first words the Savior used to describe Himself were “the light.” Samuel predicted a sign of light. The sign of light was given at the Savior’s birth. For the people in the assembled multitude, terrible darkness and fear had been dissipated by the true light, even Jesus Christ.
The account of the first Christmas in the Book of Mormon helps us to learn and more fully understand that Jesus Christ is the “light which shineth in darkness” (see D&C 10:57–61). In every season of our lives, in all of the circumstances we may encounter, and in each challenge we may face, Jesus Christ is the light that dispels fear, provides assurance and direction, and engenders enduring peace and joy.
Many of our memorable and enduring Christmas traditions include different kinds of lights—lights on trees, lights in and on our homes, candles on our tables. May the beautiful lights of every holiday season remind us of Him who is the source of all light.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light.
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.
(“O Little Town of Bethlehem,” Hymns, no. 208).
I witness that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, triumphantly fulfilled His mortal mission and ministry, and as our resurrected Lord, He lives today. I so testify in the sacred name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.
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