Merry Christmas! and joy, comfort and peace be to you. The Spirit told me multiple times this week that it would already be abundantly felt in this meeting by the time I spoke and so it is. The talks and music we've heard this month--and especially today--have been extraordinary witnesses of Christ and I am grateful for and have been uplifted by them. But the Spirit has also given me a little message, and it is this mite that I share with you today. It starts with a question: Why we do we celebrate Christmas?
It makes sense to celebrate Easter, to mark Jesus' triumph over death and sin. By completing the Atonement and coming forward in the Resurrection, Jesus made possible redemption and salvation for each of us. For this we sing praises and glorify our Father in Heaven. Glory glory, glory be! But if Easter is the celebration of Jesus doing for us what we could not do for ourselves, Christmas is the celebration of others doing for Jesus what He could not do for Himself.
To complete the Atonement, Jesus needed a mortal body. He needed milk, food, warmth, clothing, and protection. He needed instruction and early guidance. I think of Mary, his young mother. I think of her traveling to Bethlehem, likely with other members of Joseph's family, pregnant with a "bastard child," and likely ostracized and alone. I think of how Mary's baby was a child perhaps no one wanted, except Mary herself. His first comforts would have come from her--the milk and warmth of her body. Her voice which he heard in the womb. Her fingers running over his flesh. The tightness of her arms. We need no angels, no star, no wisemen to marvel at the miracle of Jesus making it even that far, a living baby with a living mother. How his healthy cries must have been a comfort to her! There in the stable they lay together--Mary and her Jesus-child, wholly dependent and in need of goodwill towards them.
I think of Joseph, who had already extended goodwill to Mary by taking her in despite her unexpected pregnancy. I think of the shepherds, who frightened and amazed, left their flocks and came to see the baby Jesus and rejoiced when they saw Him. I think of Simeon and Anna--a prophet and a prophetess--who saw this young couple and their infant in a crowd on an ordinary day after decades of temple service. They took Jesus in their arms and blessed Him and gave thanks. I think of the kings, those wise-men who not only offered gifts and worshipped Jesus, but, by leaving Jerusalem without returning to Herod, chose to protect a poor and powerless child instead of preserving their political alliances. I think of the angel Gabriel, crossing over from the other side of the veil repeatedly, persistently, to prophesy of, advocate for, and also protect the infant Jesus.
I think how each of these people played a role in comforting and nurturing the infant Jesus. If, in reading the story, we forget that we know the ending and imagine only this impoverished child from a rural family we cannot be sure that this child will live, that He will survive the myriad illnesses and injuries and dangers of childhood, let alone that He will amount to anything in adulthood, let alone be the Savior of mankind. We are left with his family fleeing their homeland into Egypt, running from murderous soldiers after Joseph is warned in a dream. How could this be comforting? And yet, Jesus would have received comforts as He grew as small and simple or miraculous and demonstrative as they would have been. While the record is bare, telling us only that Jesus "grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man," we know from our own mortal experience that His growth was in the context of being daily fed, bathed, nurtured, shepherded, taught by the unrecorded and unsung people in his life. Neighbors, family members, strangers, teachers, synagogue leaders, brothers, sisters. In this period of life at least, Jesus was in fact ministered to. And we can celebrate that. And we should celebrate it--for while it is almost certain that the "Christmas story" didn't actually take place as it is recorded in scripture, we share and teach this story because it illustrates with great beauty the pleading invitation of the Savior's life and teachings--His insistence that are all, in fact, Saviors to each other.
It is remarkable to me that with the exception of the Atonement itself, Christ never claims complete ownership of the role of Savior--in fact, He continually invites those around Him to share in it and His teachings are singularly focused on instructing others in this work--think of the parable of the Good Samaritan or of the Prodigal Son. When we celebrate Christmas, we not only celebrate Christ, but we celebrate each other--the fact that we play a vital role in the ministry of Christ. That each of us, having come from the womb of a woman and having drawn breath, has potential to save another.
And so it is truly in the Spirit of Christmas that at Christmas time we are drawn to give comfort to each other and to receive it--to fill our homes with warmth and light, to draw others near to us, to extend ourselves more generously to those in need. It is because the Spirit of Christmas reminds us that even though Jesus did, ultimately, drink of the bitter cup alone, He arrived at the cross through the grace of His mother, His father, His family, His friends, His disciples and so many others.
Some day we all will arrive in front of Him at the Judgment Day. The scriptures say He will be in a throne, but I would not surprised if it is a stable and there He is, sitting on a bale of straw. We sit beside Him. There is no star, no angel choir. No glory. Just Him and the scars in His hands and His feet. We open a book together and read aloud. Ah--here are the missing pages--He says. The record of what happened between birth, and death--all the sticky hands, the runny noses, the moving boxes, the loud sobs, the unexpected laughter, the bended knees, the freshly-painted walls, the freshly-baked bread, the frozen jars of soup, the threshed wheat, the trumpet solos, those trips across the desert on a donkey or in the back of an old Ford van--in other words, all the grace, the wisdom, the stature of our lives. When we are finished reading, He will simply say, "If you did it to the least of these, you did it to me."
I pray in that day to arrive with my husband, my first born son, my daughter, my second son--whomever else may come across my life--and to kneel before my Savior and say, as Mary did, Behold, the handmaiden of the Lord, be it unto me according to Thy word. I bear witness that Jesus is the Christ and that it is through Him and with Him that we are saved. In His Holy Name, Jesus Christ, Amen.
Sister Doe
Massachusetts
December 2018
It makes sense to celebrate Easter, to mark Jesus' triumph over death and sin. By completing the Atonement and coming forward in the Resurrection, Jesus made possible redemption and salvation for each of us. For this we sing praises and glorify our Father in Heaven. Glory glory, glory be! But if Easter is the celebration of Jesus doing for us what we could not do for ourselves, Christmas is the celebration of others doing for Jesus what He could not do for Himself.
To complete the Atonement, Jesus needed a mortal body. He needed milk, food, warmth, clothing, and protection. He needed instruction and early guidance. I think of Mary, his young mother. I think of her traveling to Bethlehem, likely with other members of Joseph's family, pregnant with a "bastard child," and likely ostracized and alone. I think of how Mary's baby was a child perhaps no one wanted, except Mary herself. His first comforts would have come from her--the milk and warmth of her body. Her voice which he heard in the womb. Her fingers running over his flesh. The tightness of her arms. We need no angels, no star, no wisemen to marvel at the miracle of Jesus making it even that far, a living baby with a living mother. How his healthy cries must have been a comfort to her! There in the stable they lay together--Mary and her Jesus-child, wholly dependent and in need of goodwill towards them.
I think of Joseph, who had already extended goodwill to Mary by taking her in despite her unexpected pregnancy. I think of the shepherds, who frightened and amazed, left their flocks and came to see the baby Jesus and rejoiced when they saw Him. I think of Simeon and Anna--a prophet and a prophetess--who saw this young couple and their infant in a crowd on an ordinary day after decades of temple service. They took Jesus in their arms and blessed Him and gave thanks. I think of the kings, those wise-men who not only offered gifts and worshipped Jesus, but, by leaving Jerusalem without returning to Herod, chose to protect a poor and powerless child instead of preserving their political alliances. I think of the angel Gabriel, crossing over from the other side of the veil repeatedly, persistently, to prophesy of, advocate for, and also protect the infant Jesus.
I think how each of these people played a role in comforting and nurturing the infant Jesus. If, in reading the story, we forget that we know the ending and imagine only this impoverished child from a rural family we cannot be sure that this child will live, that He will survive the myriad illnesses and injuries and dangers of childhood, let alone that He will amount to anything in adulthood, let alone be the Savior of mankind. We are left with his family fleeing their homeland into Egypt, running from murderous soldiers after Joseph is warned in a dream. How could this be comforting? And yet, Jesus would have received comforts as He grew as small and simple or miraculous and demonstrative as they would have been. While the record is bare, telling us only that Jesus "grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man," we know from our own mortal experience that His growth was in the context of being daily fed, bathed, nurtured, shepherded, taught by the unrecorded and unsung people in his life. Neighbors, family members, strangers, teachers, synagogue leaders, brothers, sisters. In this period of life at least, Jesus was in fact ministered to. And we can celebrate that. And we should celebrate it--for while it is almost certain that the "Christmas story" didn't actually take place as it is recorded in scripture, we share and teach this story because it illustrates with great beauty the pleading invitation of the Savior's life and teachings--His insistence that are all, in fact, Saviors to each other.
It is remarkable to me that with the exception of the Atonement itself, Christ never claims complete ownership of the role of Savior--in fact, He continually invites those around Him to share in it and His teachings are singularly focused on instructing others in this work--think of the parable of the Good Samaritan or of the Prodigal Son. When we celebrate Christmas, we not only celebrate Christ, but we celebrate each other--the fact that we play a vital role in the ministry of Christ. That each of us, having come from the womb of a woman and having drawn breath, has potential to save another.
And so it is truly in the Spirit of Christmas that at Christmas time we are drawn to give comfort to each other and to receive it--to fill our homes with warmth and light, to draw others near to us, to extend ourselves more generously to those in need. It is because the Spirit of Christmas reminds us that even though Jesus did, ultimately, drink of the bitter cup alone, He arrived at the cross through the grace of His mother, His father, His family, His friends, His disciples and so many others.
Some day we all will arrive in front of Him at the Judgment Day. The scriptures say He will be in a throne, but I would not surprised if it is a stable and there He is, sitting on a bale of straw. We sit beside Him. There is no star, no angel choir. No glory. Just Him and the scars in His hands and His feet. We open a book together and read aloud. Ah--here are the missing pages--He says. The record of what happened between birth, and death--all the sticky hands, the runny noses, the moving boxes, the loud sobs, the unexpected laughter, the bended knees, the freshly-painted walls, the freshly-baked bread, the frozen jars of soup, the threshed wheat, the trumpet solos, those trips across the desert on a donkey or in the back of an old Ford van--in other words, all the grace, the wisdom, the stature of our lives. When we are finished reading, He will simply say, "If you did it to the least of these, you did it to me."
I pray in that day to arrive with my husband, my first born son, my daughter, my second son--whomever else may come across my life--and to kneel before my Savior and say, as Mary did, Behold, the handmaiden of the Lord, be it unto me according to Thy word. I bear witness that Jesus is the Christ and that it is through Him and with Him that we are saved. In His Holy Name, Jesus Christ, Amen.
Sister Doe
Massachusetts
December 2018
Comments
Post a Comment