Line upon Line

Schools celebrate Winter Break but are prohibited from mentioning the creator of winter and all seasons. Cities string glittering stars across roads but ignore the heavenly light shining “out of darkness” (2 Corinthians 4:6). Stores greet us with “Happy Holidays” but remain timidly silent about the Holy Days.

The reason for the season is Jesus Christ.

The empty Garden Tomb is a testament to the loftiness of a lowly manger. We revere the birth in Bethlehem by honoring the sacrifice of Calvary and Gethsemane.

The spirit of Christmas

Since the invention of language, poets have attempted to describe the love we feel during the Christmas season.

Some describe this love as a warm glow in the hearths and hearts of our lives. Others refer to this love as unbuttoned joy, bright and innocent as puppy fur. Neither the science of words nor the seance of verse can adequately define the love of the season, for it is borne of the Savior’s atoning sacrifice for each of us.

Simply put, the love we feel at Christmastime springs from the singular life of Jesus Christ.

Safe in your mouth

No one ever described this love more poignantly than a four-year-old child interviewed by Art Linkletter. When asked what love is, the little boy replied, “Love is when someone says your name just a little different, and you know your name is safe in their mouth.”

Is the Christ in Christmas safe in your mouth?

True gifts

“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).

Do we honor Jesus in the gift of selflessness and Christian charity–year round? Is Christ safe in our mouths because charity blossoms in our hearts? May we recognize as did Emerson that, “Rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself” (Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Gifts,” Essays XIII, 1844).

Overcoming ourselves

Perhaps this Christmas season each of us will commit to giving more of ourselves and worry less about scurrying through malls in a vain search for the elusive “perfect gift.”

In the process of discipleship, we must all eventually confront ourselves. Jesus referred to this confrontation as being “born again” (John 3:5) and converted to “become as little children” (Matthew 18:3). A Book of Mormon prophet called it “put(ting) off the natural man” (Mosiah 3:19). Another said it is “the purifying and sanctification of (our) hearts” (Helaman 3:35). Alma declared it a “mighty change of heart” (Alma 5:14).

This confrontation is a transformation from the natural to the spiritual man or woman of Christ. It is a childlike rebirth which reminds us of another birth two millennia ago.

Bows and Bethlehem