Of Discovered Music and Enthroning the Savior

November 25, 2016 Leave a comment

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Many people are introduced to the melody, “Greensleeves,” via the well-known Christmas carol, “What Child Is This?”  There could hardly be a better introduction.

I have a theory that all truly great music—simple or complex—is not created but rather discovered by the composer.  Such music is, I envision, part of a body of music already known and celebrated in heaven.  I could be wrong, but some music is so sublime that it seems to me impossible that heaven could not already be aware of it.  It is my thought that “Greensleeves” belongs to such a class of discovered music.  Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Pachelbel’s Canon in D, the folk tune “Shenandoah,” among many others, are part of that divine play list, along with beauties yet to be discovered.  So it seems to me.

The words to the carol of which I write are fit for the melody.  They are a soul deep meditation on why the birth of this Baby is so important.  The musings lead to an answer found in what this Child would later do.  The mortal mission of Christ the King is incomparably important to you and me.

I fear that many modern renditions miss—or perhaps even avoid—the point. Among the some two dozen recordings of the carol in my possession, I recently discovered to my surprise that all but maybe four leave out the second of three verses, the one that holds a central place in the poem penned by the author, William C. Dix.  Some repeat, again and again, the true declaration of the first verse that this Child is “Christ the King.”  Recognition of that reality is important, but how far does it get you?  Even Herod believed and feared that prophecy, a belief that goaded him to destroy all of the babes of Bethlehem that his soldiers could find.

Why did Christ the King find it necessary to lower Himself to be born among men?  That is the central question, understanding the answer to which converts our attitude toward Christ from more than reverence for a Divine Monarch into humble love born of joy and boundless gratitude.  The second verse explains what is at the heart of Christmas.  But listen to your recording and see whether these words are included:

Why lies He in such mean estate,
Where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christians, fear, for sinners here
The silent Word is pleading.
Nails, spear shall pierce Him through,
The cross be borne for me, for you.
Hail, hail the Word made flesh,
The babe, the Son of Mary.

This little Child would be pierced by nails and spear when He was older but no less innocent.  Why would He submit to that?  Why would the King submit to that?  We worship Christ not just because He is the King, but because of what this King has done for us.

I conceive of a day, a moment, when those very men who pounded the nails into the Savior’s hands and feet come personally to realize, come face-to-face with, what they have done.  What depth of grief that this knowledge will cause to the minds of those men—of those moments in that day—I can imagine in only the smallest degree.  They will be the only men, among the billions who have trod the earth, who with hammers in their fists drove nails into the hands and feet of the Creator and their Savior.  What will that recognition mean to them?

Perhaps the Savior’s plea from the cross, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do,” will be the beginning of some healing solace when they do know what they personally did.  I suspect that this is not the limit of the mercy that the Savior will extend to these, His brothers, who were so close to the Son of God in this horrible way.

Then I am drawn to consider, how will we feel when our day comes, and it surely will, when we stand face-to-face and see those wounds in His hands and feet?  How will we feel when we come to understand perfectly, as we will, that our own, personal sins made those wounds necessary, that because of what we knowingly have done there was no other way, that we helped to make those nails unavoidable?  More, how will we feel, looking in the Savior’s eyes, when we fully understand that depending on our repentance the suffering that we personally caused was entirely and eternally worth it, or in absence of our repentance all for naught?  At that moment our joy and our love or our grief and pain will be without measure.

Let us decide now, for we may, to let our loving hearts enthrone Him.

Filed under atonement, Christmas, Jesus Christ, joy, music, repentance, sacrifice, salvation, suffering Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Of Vanity and Christmas Gifts

December 22, 2014 Leave a comment

The prophets, ancient and modern, are clear that this life is a very artificial thing. The earth and this mortality did not just happen. They were carefully planned in the sphere of the eternities, for very specific—and lasting—purposes.

Abraham reported this, from a vision wherein he saw God speaking of us, His spirit children, before He created the earth:

We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell; and we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them; and they who keep their first estate shall be added upon; . . . and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever. (Abraham 3:24-26)

Some centuries later Moses had a related vision, in which the Lord told him,

For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. (Moses 1:39)

Our glory appears to be the Lord’s glory. It is the Lord’s work and glory that we grow and progress forever. The mortal mission and sacrifice of Jesus Christ were all part of His work for our immortality and eternal life. I am not sure that the Lord cares anything at all about anything we do other than what we do that affects His work and His glory. I do not find any evidence in the scriptures that anything else that we do matters to Him. Of course, in an eternal context, nothing else we do really matters to us, either. All of that other stuff is what the author of Ecclesiastes refers to as “vanity of vanities” (Ecclesiastes 1:2).

That vanity, the key theme of the Book of Ecclesiastes, is what many people seem to think that this life is all about. Many people live this life as if this life really mattered much, when in truth, all that matters about this life is how it affects the true reality, which resides in the eternal worlds, beyond this world and life. Lasting value and meaning are found in what we take with us when we leave this world.

That is a good filter, if we wish to discern what in this life is imperishable and real and what is temporary and vain. If you take it with you past the grave, it matters. If it does not, fuhgeddaboudit. Or, at least, do not set your heart on it or waste much time with it.

That might be a good guide for Christmas gifts. By that I mean, consider the purpose behind the giving of the gift. Is its purpose to transfer possession of vanity, that has no reach beyond the grave? Or is it instead intended to communicate and strengthen ties of love, friendship, to show kindness, to build relationships, to facilitate personal growth and progress, to memorialize pleasant shared experiences, to express and transmit value? Consider how it may be tied to this list of eternal verities that stay with us:

Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence. (Doctrine and Covenants 4:6)

There is a lot of Christmas Spirit in that list. Such solemnized gifts are not likely to break and never grow old. They are very real. To the extent they embrace such virtues, I think we remember them.

Filed under Abraham, atonement, Christmas, creation, death, divine nature, eternal life, giving, God, Jesus Christ, life, mortality, premortal life, prosperity, salvation, spirituality, time, vanity, wealth Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Of Coming to Heaven and the Lord’s Supper

October 2, 2014 Leave a comment

The lyrics to a Spanish song that I enjoy listening to include this line:

Para entrar en el cielo, no es preciso morir.

That translates into, “In order to enter heaven it is not necessary to die.” Of course, that is true. I have often said and know from some experience that eternal life can begin even in mortality, since the core element of eternal life is to possess the spiritual gift of charity, meaning the pure love of Christ (see Moroni 7:47), the one spiritual gift that never ends.

While it is not necessary to die to receive eternal life, we do need to come unto Christ. Eternal life means living with God the Father, in His presence, and inheriting all that He has. To qualify for that existence where perfect love and goodness prevail from this world of imperfection, corruption, and sin, it is necessary to come unto Christ, who has overcome all and who offers to help us to overcome all.

We come unto Christ only on His terms. We cannot command that He come to us on our terms. He is the perfect being, and we are very much short of that. We are the ones with distance to cover. Christ condescended to come as mortal man into our presence and our world of evil, but He did not condescend to partake of the evil. We have. He left our world through death, as we all will, but then was resurrected, which none were before Him, but because of whose resurrection all will follow.

Following resurrection, we will all be judged by the Father to determine whether we may remain in the Father’s presence and continue to grow and develop under His care. At that judgment, Christ will identify for the Father those who have come to the Son and thereby qualified to remain in heaven.

How do we come unto Christ? What are His terms? Just these, that we solemnly promise by covenant with Him and the Father that we will accept Him and keep His commandments. That is, we promise that we will follow Christ and stay with Him. How can coming unto the Savior mean anything less? Either we come unto Him or we do not.

The Savior has declared that this solemn promise and covenant is to be made in such a way as to be unmistakably imprinted on our minds, rich with the symbolism of washing away sin, burying the unrighteous way of life, and then rising to newness of life in accordance with the laws and ways of heaven. This covenant and symbolism are present in the ordinance of baptism. We place ourselves in the Savior’s hands via those whom He has personally chosen to represent Him. We are buried in water, washed and cleansed from sin, and arise out of the water in the image of the resurrection into a Christian life.

The person who approaches baptism truly repentant of all of his sins, genuinely committed to a complete turning away from all evil, will feel the powers and joys of heaven filling his heart. He will enter into the presence of God through the power of the Holy Ghost. In fact, shortly after baptism, the next step in coming unto Christ is to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands of Christ’s representatives, just as the Samaritans anciently, who were baptized by Philip and soon thereafter were given the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands of the Apostles Peter and John (see Acts 8:12-17).

I have experienced those steps personally and testify that it works just that way. Through faith, repentance, and baptism, sins are washed away, and through the gift of the Holy Ghost the heart is changed and filled with the gift of charity, the pure love of Christ.

Sad to say, and I would not excuse myself by noting that it happens to us all, not long after the covenant is made the covenant is broken, and it is not broken by God. He perfectly fulfills His part. On our part, sins are once again indulged in, old or new ones, or both. The Spirit is grieved and withdraws, the gift of charity is also withdrawn, the man is left back on his own. With the covenant broken what are we to do?

With a graciousness that far surpasses the patience of any mortal man, God allows us to remake the covenant and come unto Christ again. We need not be rebaptized. God has provided another ordinance that allows us to reaffirm the baptismal covenant and reclaim its powers and blessings. As with baptism, it is a physical action that embodies a spiritual commitment. Also, like baptism, it is designed and prescribed by God in a symbolic form that reminds us of Jesus Christ through whom our redemption is possible.

I refer to the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. As with baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper comes in two parts. In the first, we partake of broken bread, reminding us of the Savior’s body broken for us and soon after resurrected. In the second we partake of water or wine to remind us of the blood shed by Christ in Gethsemane and on the cross.

As we partake of the sacrament with the same intent and spirit with which we were baptized, the whole baptismal covenant is reaffirmed and renewed, and we resume our Christian life. We return to Christ. We need this sacrament or our baptism would be nullified by our later sins. We need it to retain the effects of our baptism.

It is astonishing, really. It is a marvelous manifestation of the grace of God that He offers us this opportunity, weekly, to renew our solemn baptismal promises that we not so solemnly break. While we renege, the Lord does not. In fact, He offers us the second, third, and hundredth chance, which by all rights and justice He need not do. Which of us would have such patience with those who broke their promises to us?

Because of the Lord’s patience, to enter into heaven, the presence of God, again and again, it is not necessary to die. It is necessary to live, and to do that we must come unto Christ, and He beckons to us, all the time. Why wait to answer His call?

(First published August 26, 2012)

Filed under atonement, baptism, charity, death, eternal life, faith, grace, heaven, Holy Ghost, joy, mortality, ordinances, perfection, repentance, resurrection, sabbath, salvation, sin, spirituality Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Of Dead Family Members and Getting to Know Them

September 22, 2014 Leave a comment

Some years ago a radio commentator expressed revulsion toward the popular fascination with genealogy. To make his argument short, he did not see the point. In his view all of those people are dead and gone. What do they matter?

Inasmuch as the comment was made before recent notable advances in research on gene-based hereditary diseases, we can excuse the radioman’s ignorance of how important genealogy can be to tracing the roots of many things that make us ill. At the time, however, I would have liked to relieve his ignorance of other points perhaps even more relevant and important.

In all fairness, I agree with a narrow part of his argument, his objection to the democratization of the old aristocratic practice of using genealogy to prove yourself better than someone else. Such a pitiful exercise in arrogance and pride is pointless. Given how family trees intertwine in just a few generations, there is probably nary a person of western European background who is not a descendent of Charlemagne. The story is similar for people from other parts of the world. And we are all descendants of Noah and Adam, so where are the bragging rights?

It is on his central point where the radioman’s rejection of genealogy falls to the ground. What a woeful and lonely view of man’s condition is embodied in the view that once someone dies he is forever gone! Genealogy, or more broadly speaking, family history, is founded on the belief that the dead in profound respects live on, that they do matter to us. Let me suggest three ways among many, ranked in a generally progressing order of importance.

  • The members of our family who have passed on are in many aspects part of us, beyond the shared DNA. Much in our habits, practices, language, beliefs, and our culture in general has deep roots in those who raised and taught those who raised and taught us. Most of that is probably worth retaining and cherishing, some of it in need of overcoming, but there is a rich heritage there to be discovered. Significant personal meaning can be found in the recognition that the current generation is only the leading edge of something very big that has been going on a long time.
  • As I mentioned, you do not have to do much family history research to discover that we are linked together, more connected than separate. Few genealogists can avoid the powerful realization of being part of the family of man. Our respect for humanity and for each other deepens.
  • Most important, the dead are not gone. They have merely passed from this brief state of mortality, brief for all of us, to the next state on the journey that makes up eternity. Each of us will soon be joining those who once walked where we walk. Family history is the effort to get to know them now, whom we have the privilege of knowing better for a much longer time than mortality has to offer.

Explaining the resurrection to the Sadducees, Jesus Christ reminded them that our Father is God of the living, not of the dead (Mark 12:26, 27). The mission of Jesus Christ is to provide life to all, to carry out the “work and the glory” of God, “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” (Moses 1:39)

Jesus Christ speaks more than symbolically and beyond His own relationship when He refers to God the Father. The family relationships and ties, so precious to us now, are eternal. That means that they not only are intended to last forever, but they reach across the generations, beyond death—to generations past and future. They can be among those few precious things we take with us to the grave and beyond. That is not a vain wish of every loving husband and wife and father and mother. It is an inheritance from our Divine Father.

We can begin to build and extend and preserve those relationships here and now. Why wait?

(First published January 6, 2013)

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Of Charity and Forever

May 12, 2014 Leave a comment

The more I ponder, the more I am brought to the conviction that the pure love of Christ, what the scriptures call charity, is the purpose of life and its highest ideal. So much of this life is designed to provide the opportunity and conditions for developing charity.

Consider this description of charity, provided by the ancient American prophet, Mormon.

And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. (Moroni 7:45)

The Apostle Paul offered a very similar description in his first letter to the Corinthians, where he explained that faith, hope, and charity are closely intertwined (see 1 Corinthians 13).

On this earth, in mortality, man does not come by charity naturally. It seems that to develop charity its opposite must be possible, too. As one connects us with heaven, the other ties us to the world of death. We see abundant evidence that this is so.

Where is the man or woman who naturally possesses all of the traits that are part of and unified in charity? We are all drawn to traits the very opposite of charity, to suffer as briefly as we may, to be frequently unkind, often puffed up, normally seeking our own, and surely too easily provoked, thinking plenty of evil, bearing perhaps some things but far from all, with limited hope, and of weak endurance. Gloriously, we all to some degree by our efforts and with the help of others rise above these evils and exhibit and make part of our natures some portion of the elements of charity. Most people seem to mix the two opposites to varying degrees.

God reaches out to lift each of us up and above our mortal nature. Charity is a gift from God, one that He bestows upon those who qualify to receive it by demonstrating their willingness to receive it and live by it. The more we desire it and live by it, the more that charity remains with us and becomes part of us and changes us. When the Spirit of God comes upon us and enters into our hearts and fills our minds, we taste, we experience charity for a time, in all of its aspects, all unified together (the virtues of charity are of a kind and part harmoniously and mutually reinforcing). For a time, the virtues of charity become our virtues.

Thus Mormon counseled,

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God. . . (Moroni 7:48)

That is what it means to be a “son of God,” born of the Spirit. By following Jesus Christ, living as He would, the gift of charity is bestowed upon us, enabling and teaching us in our hearts and minds how to live like Christ, to do the works that He would do, giving us the power to believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things. As we experience personally the pure love of Christ our nature changes and we become progressively like Christ.

The world provides ample opportunities to exercise and develop those virtues that we know in spiritual vision but which we need to practice in fact to make ours, to make ourselves into their image, the image of Christ. We are surrounded by evil, by hardship, by difficulty, by those who need our help. Reaching to heaven, charity enlightens us to know how to conquer evil and gives us the power to cope with hardship, overcome difficulty, to bless, promote kindness, relieve suffering, and “endure all things.”

Yet we fall short from time to time, we lose the vision, we turn away. Sin is any and all that would keep us from developing charity. Repentance brings us back by allowing us to change, to seek and qualify for forgiveness of our sins through Christ’s redemption and again be ready for our hearts and minds to be filled with the gift of charity by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Once more we exercise faith, we gain hope, “but the greatest of these is charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13). We may keep charity forever, and as we experience charity in this world we personally learn what forever means.

Filed under abundant life, charity, divine nature, eternal life, faith, God, heaven, Holy Ghost, hope, Joseph Smith, knowledge, life, opposition, repentance, revelation, salvation, sin, spirituality, suffering, works Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Of Man and God’s Work

January 12, 2014 2 Comments


Photo by Mitchell Maglio on Unsplash

On the sacred mountain, made sacred by the personal presence of the Divine, Moses spoke face to face with God, without whom “was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:3) Moses beheld in vision the many creations of God and many worlds on which God had placed His children, much as with this creation. The Lord explained to Moses that, “as one earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof even so shall another come; and there is no end to my works, neither to my words.” (Moses 1:38)

That creative work is what God does and has been doing and will continue to do. Then God explained to Moses the “Why” behind it all:

For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. (Moses 1:39)

That is to say that what God does is entirely purposeful, the “what” of His work intrinsically tied to the “Why.” And why He does what He does, and what He does, is all related to man. We are His children, and the Father is literally our Father. On the morning of His resurrection, the Father’s firstborn son, Jesus Christ, declared to Mary Magdalene, “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father” (John 20:17). The Son was speaking literally not figuratively.

Our Heavenly Father is more interested in our growth and progress than even the most loving earthly parents are in the growth and progress of their children. His happiness is connected with our happiness and progress, His “job satisfaction” derived from our moral improvement. That improvement, in turn, comes from the righteous exercise of our freedom to choose and do good.

The exercise of our choice is all that we can give to God that He does not have, and He will not deprive us of that power of choice. He will not take it, because by doing so our “choice” becomes worthless to Him. It is the fullest and therefore richest exercise of that freedom that He seeks and applies His own effort to empower and encourage and protect. To diminish our freedom is to diminish its worth to Him. Compelled virtue is no virtue at all and has no value to the Father or to His children. By choosing good in an environment where we may select evil we become good; by living virtuously among full opportunities to embrace vice we become virtuous. Through that process—with the free gift of the Savior to retrieve us, upon conditions of repentance, from evil choices—we expand our freedom, rejecting all that would enslave us. In so doing we qualify for God’s ultimate gift, eternal life.

That is the process and what life is all about. God devotes His attention to creating the necessary environment and conditions for our eternal progression. Then He stays involved to help each of us as much as we will allow. His love for us extended to the sacrificial offering of His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, who used His own free will to rescue us out of the depths of evil if we would apply what choice we may have left to turn with all our hearts away from darkness toward light.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

This being God’s work and His glory, He cares very much about what we do that affects that work and glory. That is also to say that nothing else we do matters to Him. It is only in the context of His work for our immortality and eternal life that anything we do really matters. God is probably not very interested in whether we buy the blue car or the white car, per se, as it has little bearing on immortality and eternal life. God could be interested, however, if we choose to buy the blue car after agreeing beforehand with our spouse to buy the white one, as unity in marriage matters a great deal to our eternal progress, as does keeping promises.

All of this begs the question, if something does not matter to God, should it matter much to us? In fact, paying excessive attention to the minutiae and distractions of life can become a big deal, if doing so draws our time and effort away from what truly drives virtue.

Customs and traditions can do this very thing. Consider the recent Christmas season. Were there little things, maybe many little things, that competed for your focus on Christ and the commemoration of His mission, and the many good works that the Christmas season offered? Customs and traditions can do that if we are not careful.

The Savior, during his mortal ministry in Galilee and Judea, frequently pointed the people to their traditions that interfered with what He called the “weightier matters”, such as “judgment, mercy, and faith”. He called that straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel (Matthew 23:23, 24). Do we not see a similar error in the political correctness of today that raises an uproar over a stray word—no matter how ugly—while embracing all varieties of immorality and family destruction?

God’s work is all related to us, because we are related to Him. Knowing God’s work, and making it our work, may be as important and valuable for us today as it was for Moses in his time. I suspect so.

Filed under atonement, Christmas, creation, divine nature, Easter, eternal life, faith, family, freedom, Jesus Christ, life, marriage, media, morality, Moses, repentance, salvation, works

Of the Arrival of Christmas and the Return of the Christ

December 29, 2013 Leave a comment

Christmas came this year. Nothing could stop it. People could and did choose to ignore it, with varying success, but their efforts made no difference to Christmas’ arrival. Neither poverty nor wealth could hold it back. Merchants lamented the shortened shopping season. Early wintry weather interfered with many transportation plans. Irreligionists of many stripes raised their usual objections to the public symbols of Christmas and in some places succeeded in suppressing those symbols. Wars and rumors of wars exerted their perennial presence to mock sentiments of peace on earth all the while proving its need. On personal levels, challenges at work, demanding academic schedules, unexpected as well as chronic illness, the death of loved ones, and many other matters and intrusions of varying importance fought for the precedence of our attention.

Many causes large and small could easily leave the feeling that there was no time for Christmas, this year or other years. The distractions of life can all too easily make the sources of lasting value appear as distractions.

I am again reminded of the words of Charles Dickens. He spoke through the mouth of young, idealistic Fred, in answer to his Uncle Ebenezer’s rodomontade against Christmas. The not yet but soon to be converted miser thought his daily work focused on important matters, all the while missing out on the sources of joy in life. Fred reminded his Uncle, as a prelude to a change of heart, how Christmas symbolized humanity’s worth in life’s lasting values, to which worldly wealth can serve as a facilitator but never a replacement.

There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, . . . Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut up hearts freely, and to think of those people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it! (Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol)

And so this year, in 2013 Christmas came, inevitably, inexorably, as it has for some two thousand years, and many blessings with it. The good and bad and indifferent that hitched along for the ride could not affect the driving core of Christmas, its fundamental, joyful message of hope of salvation for all, to one degree or another as each opens up—or not—to receive it.

It is in the driving arriving context of Christmas and the mission of Christ that it is appropriate to look to one of my favorite Christmas carols. I confess that this is difficult to do without the music, essential to the power of the carol’s message. I refer to the “Carol of the Bells,” a joyful Christmas message woven by Peter J. Wilhousky into the driving music of Mykola Leontovych’s Ukrainian song of Winter and the approaching Spring.

I love this carol for many reasons. One is that its origin of uniting Winter with Spring embodies the message that Christmas derives its meaning from Easter. Jesus was the Christ, the Anointed One, because of His ultimate sacrifice and victory over death and hell, a mission for which He was chosen before the world was created. Having fully accomplished His mission, as a resurrected God, Jesus declared, “I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world” (3 Nephi 11:11). That is the reason for and fulfilment of our Christmas joy.

Here are the lyrics. Importantly, as you read the words, feel their rhythm, central to the message:

Carol of the Bells

Hark how the bells,
sweet silver bells,
all seem to say,
throw cares away.

Christmas is here,
bringing good cheer,
to young and old,
meek and the bold.

Ding dong ding dong,
that is their song
with joyful ring
all caroling.

One seems to hear
words of good cheer
from ev’rywhere
filling the air.

Oh how they pound,
raising the sound,
o’er hill and dale,
telling their tale,

gaily they ring
while people sing
songs of good cheer,
Christmas is here.

Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas,
Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas,

On, on they send,
on without end,
their joyful tone
to ev’ry home.

Ding dong ding dong. . . dong!

The lyrics, like the tune, are repetitive, incessant, and by that technique insistent in rhythm. On, on they come. They demand attention. Like bells, they are loud and piercing. As someone knocking at the door, their message—and presumably the messengers—will not be denied. The tune is joyful, but not light and airy. Rather announcing a joy that comes from the soul, heartfelt, it is not the celebration of a party, but the celebration of a triumph, lasting and permanent, ever reaching out to more people, to every home.

So each year, onward Christmas comes, no holding it back, even as Jesus came into the world, as prophesied for thousands of years. There was nothing to hold Him back or deter His mortal mission of redemption, not the jealousy of Herod “the Great,” the pusillanimity of Pilate, the hatred of the leaders of the Sanhedrin, nor the darkness of priestcraft and its traditions. All was turned by God to assist in achieving the mission of the Christ.

And since then, onward marches the calendar, each year Christmas arrives, symbolic that the day of the Savior’s return, as prophesied by Himself and His prophets, inexorably approaches. As Christ announced, only He and the Father know the precise day and time, but it is certain and each day closer. The arrival of Christmas each year is a reminder to me, that the time of rejoicing is coming, the hope and assurance of which justifies rejoicing today, and every day.

Christmas will come again next year. Ready or not, I am glad of it and will welcome it.

Filed under atonement, Christmas, Easter, eternal life, hope, Jesus Christ, joy, peace, priestcraft, salvation, Second coming of Christ, time

Of the Babe of Bethlehem and the Savior of the World

December 13, 2013 1 Comment

At this Christmas time, as we worship, if we worship, whom do we worship? Is our worship focused on the Babe of Bethlehem, the Babe so often celebrated in songs like, “Gesu Bambino,” “Sweet Little Jesus Boy,” “The Babe, the Son of Mary”?

What image comes to your mind at Christmas time? Is it a picturesque one made up of mangers, swaddling clothes, and a tender, helpless, voiceless little baby? Is this the Christ we worship? As important and miraculous as was this long foretold birth, we may and should linger there, but not settle there.

What of this image?

The veil was taken from our minds, and the eyes of our understanding were opened.
We saw the Lord standing upon the breastwork of the pulpit, before us; and under his feet was a paved work of pure gold, in color like amber.
His eyes were as a flame of fire; the hair of his head was white like the pure snow; his countenance shone above the brightness of the sun; and his voice was as the sound of the rushing of great waters, even the voice of Jehovah, saying:
I am the first and the last; I am he who liveth, I am he who was slain; I am your advocate with the Father. (Doctrine & Covenants 110:1-4)

At Christmas which do we worship? The Babe of Bethlehem, or the resurrected and glorified Lord of the universe? I suggest that it makes a world, an eternal world, of difference whether we prepare ourselves to worship and follow the babe of our postage stamps, who cannot speak for Himself and therefore affect our behavior, or whether we worship Christ, the Lord Jehovah who created the world, who spoke to Moses on the mount, and who continues to speak to the prophets today.

There is a similar question at Easter time. Do we worship a cross or the One who suffered death on the cross, was placed in the tomb, and rose from the dead on the third day? It was no babe, it was no child, who brought salvation to mankind. Though the story started with a babe, miraculously and wondrously born, it did not, it could not, end there. There was Gethsemane and a cross, and a willing atonement made. Then there was a once filled and soon empty tomb, empty because a God had died who had power to rise from the dead and bring all mankind with Him.

The prophecy proclaims, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given”. Note that after this point in the scripture, there is no more talk about babes in the prophecy, but there is a listing of what made this birth so important. It is what came after that was the point of the scripture:

. . .and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. (Isaiah 9:6,7)

The people of ancient America never experienced the baby Jesus. This was not part of their history. Their experience with the Christ was direct and full. It was with the Christ who saves.

He came to them as He will come to us, resurrected, glorified, all powerful, having won the victory over death and sin. As Christ descended from the heavens and stood among the worshiping people of America nearly 2000 years ago, people who loved him with all their souls, He announced,

Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world.
And behold, I am the light and the life of the world; and I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning.
And it came to pass that when Jesus had spoken these words the whole multitude fell to the earth. . . (3 Nephi 11:10-12)

Do we look forward to the day when we are brought into the presence of the almighty Lord Jesus Christ? Do we prepare for that day by worshiping Him now? Do we gather in those joys that a closeness to God always brings? If not, may we be converted, and like the Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas day revel in the enjoyment of long neglected riches that are ours.

(First published December 14, 2008)

Filed under abundant life, America, atonement, Christmas, Easter, Jesus Christ, prophets, resurrection, salvation, The Book of Mormon, worship

Of Christmas and Celebrating Hope

November 29, 2013 4 Comments

The story of Pandora and her box (or jar) has been retold for thousands of years, with minor variations. The key elements of the tale from Greek mythology are consistent. Pandora was endowed with many wonderful gifts and talents, among them beauty, music, persuasion, and others. She was also given a box, which she was told never to open. Try that out on anybody: “Here is an interesting box. It is yours. DO NOT EVER OPEN IT!” I expect that the result would ever be the same, the box will eventually be opened. As the story goes, it was, introducing into the world evil in all of its forms. Last of all, however, from the bottom of the box, came hope.

I believe hope to be an underappreciated and little understood gift from God. Hope is essential to happiness, salvation, and life. I know of no happiness without it, I cannot imagine any achievement not preceded by hope. In all salvation, temporal or eternal, hope draws us forward. It is foundational to life and living. Hope is ever at war with despair (for example, the Spanish word for “despair” is desesperanza, or the absence of esperanza, “hope”): despair is life-draining, while hope feeds life.

In this understanding of hope, I do not refer to the weak sentiment most common in everyday parlance, the wistful wishing for something better, a wish that seldom acts as a motivator for effective action. I have in mind the hope spoken of by God and His prophets, against which the forlorn reach from despair—as valuable and comforting as that may be—pales in comparison.

Consider how the power of hope is described in this account of the preaching of the ancient American prophet, Ether:

Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God. (Ether 12:4)

Notice the power of this hope, an anchor to the soul, making those who possess it sure and steadfast, the person who has gained it always abounding in good works. Nothing weak or wistful here. Such hope is a mighty, heavenly gift, with mighty results. Also notice the connection between hope and faith, the former being a powerful fruit of faith.

I have thought that a fair definition of “hope” is the personal recognition that something desirable is attainable. By faith we learn of the desirable object as well as gain the recognition that it is within our reach. When that happens, hope is born in our hearts, and we are stirred to action to attain it. That is life itself. Dead things, inanimate objects, reach for nothing, always acted upon, never doing the acting.

There are many things that each of us values and would very much desire to attain, to gain, to build: love, knowledge, wealth, improvement, new abilities, bridges (real and figurative), but we do not act to realize our desires until we first gain the idea that we can be successful. Without hope of success we may go through the motions in a lame sort of way, guided by routine that can become drudgery. We are energized—even beyond what we thought were our limitations—as soon as we gain a vision, as soon as we believe the prized fruit to be within our reach, when we have hope. Then there is little stopping us. Obstacles are overcome, means are found, tools are made, skills developed.

In my reflections I have named my three daughters Faith, Hope, and Charity, as each one seems especially to personify one of these three great gifts of God. My oldest daughter would be named Hope. Throughout her life, once she has gotten it into her head that something worthwhile is within her reach she has done whatever it takes to realize it. Because of that, through great and consistent effort, overcoming many obstacles, she has become rich in all of the eternal things, in everything that matters. Her mother and I admire her for it. Her achievement need not be unique. It is within reach of all of us. Each may have such hope and become so rich.

There are many reasons for the perennial popularity of Christmas. Surely one of these is that it is a celebration of hope offered to everyone. Salvation did not come to earth with Christmas. The sacrifice and atonement that Jesus Christ would work out to bring about all salvation would await another three decades after His miraculous birth. With Christmas, the birth of the Savior, there arrived in Person the assured hope that salvation would come. The angel who appeared to the shepherds at Bethlehem the night of the nativity was filled with that hope, with that assurance, that caused him to rejoice and share with the shepherds his message “of great joy” so that they, too, might have this great and assured hope: “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:10, 11)

The hope of Christ, in all of its power to action and motivation for every good thought and deed, is worthy of general celebration, every year. The salvation of Christ has been placed within reach of everyone. Having that hope can become a personal anchor as we realize its promise, becoming sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, that each of us personally, here on earth, can be filled with “peace, good will toward men.” At least in part, that is what Christmas is all about.

Filed under abundant life, atonement, Christmas, despair, eternal life, faith, happiness, hope, individual worth, Jesus Christ, joy, life, peace, salvation, spirituality, wealth, works

Of Farewells and Forever

November 12, 2013 4 Comments

My son considers the final chapters of The Lord of the Rings evidence that Tolkien did not know when and how to end a book. On the other hand, I have always loved those chapters. I find the passages deeply moving each time I read them. In a book rich in art and story they speak to my heart while tying important threads of the work together, completing the grand pattern woven of many tales, valuable to the telling of the greater story.

Part of the attraction for me, as with other great books with which I have enjoyed many a memorable experience, is that I am reluctant to close the cover and say goodbye. These final chapters of The Lord of the Rings are a prolonged goodbye in a trilogy that is at its core a farewell to a whole world that Tolkien spent his life elaborating and never finished.

Like other great books of art, the work brings into bold relief important themes of reality. In this life we experience a continuing series of goodbyes. They fill our hearts with a tenderness, with a longing for lingering.

For those who consider this life all that there is, goodbyes have a dreadful finality without remedy. The dear one is gone, the experience has ended, something cherished is lost. These are finalities that are hard to face. People avoid them or refuse to recognize them when they cannot be avoided.

Notice even in our language of parting that our words have a lingering quality about them, as if there were no break, as if there were an enduring connection, another day. We do not seem to have a parting phrase that means, “so it ends,” or, “it is over, done.” Instead, we use words like, “goodbye,” a contraction of “God be with ye,” as if to connect us by our wishes and thoughts to the one leaving. Similarly, “farewell” carries with it our interest in the future success of our family member or friend. And, “until we meet again,” expresses the expectation, however forlorn, of another day in each other’s presence. Those words, however, cannot mend the finality of it all if there is nothing beyond this life.

If this life is all that there is, there comes a time when there will be no other day of meeting. This life is then full of endings that are absolute and unalterable, the greatest of which is our own ending, when with our departure all existence ceases for all that it concerns us. The awesomeness of that leaves a longing for something more, something to convey meaning that otherwise would not exist. If when we die all is done, if there is no more, then how does anything matter? We intuit, “there must be something more.”

Indeed there is. Rather than finality governing mortality, the defining characteristic of this life is that so much around us is so very temporary. As it should be. This life was designed as a temporary existence, a brief exception to the order of the universe, ever changing with the movement of time. Mortality was not designed to be the end of anything, the only finality being when mortality itself comes to its conclusion and this world is brought back into the realm of the eternities, where real, unending life prevails.

Jesus Christ descended from the eternal worlds into the world of mortality in order to preserve all good things forever. An angel, a messenger from the eternal worlds, explained it to the ancient prophet Nephi as “the condescension of God,” whereby Jesus, the Savior, experienced all things mortal, and suffered for all things mortal, including death itself, gaining power to preserve all of this world worth preserving and worthy of being brought into the eternities (see 1 Nephi 11:26-33). With His resurrection, Christ left mortality, creating the avenue for all of us to leave it as well and bring with us all that we had gained from our mortal experience.

Most important of these gains are our relationships with each other. Most important among these relationships are those of the family, of parent and child and, highest of all, of husband and wife. All that matters, and these relationships matter most, is preserved through Christ.

Without Christ, as everything perished it would be lost. People would die and would be eventually forgotten, their works decayed and vanished. Memories would fade. Relationships would end. All would end, constantly, until the end of the earth itself, a pointless and meaningless existence. Without Christ and His atonement, there would be a dreadful finality to every parting, every last touch, every last glance, every last memory clothed with a hopeless END that nothing could cure. With Christ, every good thing is saved.

By receiving Christ, since entering into His eternal order through the ordinances that He prescribed and authorized, I have the promise that the farewells have become temporary. The goodbyes and the partings have an end. Even death itself is swallowed up as a transient phase of life. I have no fears of losing any good thing but rather peaceful confidence of inheriting all good things forever.

(First published May 26, 2013)

Filed under abundant life, atheism, atonement, baptism, damnation, death, eternal life, family, Jesus Christ, life, mortality, ordinances, resurrection, salvation, time

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