What
a glorious season! With Wondering Awe, we love to listen to young
children–yes, truly Angels We Have Heard on High and sing hymns and
carols that shout Joy to the World....” In the precious hymn Oh,
Come, All Ye Faithful that we sing at least once or twice at Christmas come
three wondrous strains: “Come, all ye faithful,” “Come, and behold Him,” and
“Oh, come, let us adore Him.”
“Come, all ye faithful”
During
this Christmas season, the faithful followers of Christ congregate to sing
joyous hymns to Him. Note that the Lord did not say, “Come, all ye faithful for
just this season. Rather, the words merely state “Come, all ye faithful.” The
Lord wants us to be faithful every minute of the day, every day of the week, and every
week of the year.
Thankfully, at Christmas time, we tend to listen to our hearts more than our heads, the spiritual more than cerebral, and the perennial more than the ephemeral. We seem to want to fix our lives so that they are in accordance with the Lord's. Yes, we tend to “come unto Christ and adore Him.” Wouldn't it be nice if every year, we had twelve Decembers? Then we wouldn't have to be trying to repent every 12th month. Instead of an annual event of repenting and striving to be like the Father and His Holy Son, it would become a daily activity. Every day would become an act of kindness. We would actually smile because we would have forgotten how to be sad. Every day we would finally reach out to those most in need. Every day we would understand each other’s feelings. Every day would become a glorious one where the sun would shine and brighten lives. Every day would bring us closer to our Savior. Every day we would know whose we really are: For we are the Father’s and He loves us deeply.
As
one poet penned in an “Ode to Christmas”:
An
Ode to Christmas
Decembers
come and go, like winds from the west...
But
for those brief 31 days, our hearts stretch just a bit.
We
sometimes sense in ourselves a gratification
that
cannot be quenched without our first giving
of
ourselves to others most in need.
It
is at that moment, this sense of oneness with our hearts,
when
we finally understand our true place in the universe.
We
come to know that we, indeed, have hearts to give
and
feelings of love to share with others.
This
feeling, if carried for more than thirty-one days,
would
endow us with the true gifts from our Father.
Surely,
then, we would reach out more than before.
Alas,
the essence of the trueness of Christ’s message
would
fold our worrisome cares into large gray bundles,
drop
them humbly in the swiftest part of the stream,
and
watch them thankfully bob in the current
until
they disappear around the bend downstream,
away
from us at last and, perhaps, forever.
Then
for 365 days, we would come and be His again.
“Come,
and behold Him”
The shepherds “came with haste, and found
Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in the manger” (Luke 2:16). After the
shepherds had seen the Christ child, they returned to their flocks and herds,
“glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and
seen....” (Luke 2:20). There also came “wise men from the east to Jerusalem”
(Matthew 2:1) and began asking about: “Where is he that is born King of the
Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him”
(Matthew 2:2). And we know not how many others came to “behold him.”
We
do know that Lamoni’s father, the great king over all of the Lamanites, after
he had heard the preachings of Aaron, said, “O, god, Aaron hath told me there
is a God; and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself
known unto me, and I will give all my sins to know thee, and that I may be
raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day” (Alma 22:18). Thus, we see
that the King also desired to “Come, and Behold Him.” And he did. When he rose
from his spiritual trance, he stood forth “and did minister unto them, insomuch
that his whole household were converted unto the Lord” (Alma 22:23).
Often,
we believe that to “behold God” we must be completely spiritual pure. In one
sense that is correct, but in another, we can behold God–through daily
communion with Him. Plus, our heart can be filled with Him always. Consider the
words of Christina Rossetti (“My Gift”)
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.
Thus, the question hinges on this:”What are
we willing to do in our lives in order to ‘behold Him’”? Are we willing to give
away all of our sins? Are we willing to yield our hearts to God?
“Oh,
come, let us adore Him.”
What
does it really mean to “Come and to adore Him? As I have sung this hymn over
the past several years and in two different languages, I have come to adore
Him. Who is Him? Or in more appropriate English Who is He? According to that
great Old Testament prophet Isaiah, He is called “Wonderful, Counsellor, The
mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace....(Isaiah 9:6)...the
Lord Omnipotent who reigneth, who was, and is from all eternity to all
eternity....Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and earth, the
Creator of all things from the beginning” (Gordon B. Hinckley, “At the Summit of the Ages,” Ensign, Nov. 1999, 72).
The
ancient Prophet Moroni, as he ended his work and closed the abridgment of the
record of God’s dealings with His people, which is the Book of Mormon, called
upon all who read his ending passage: “Yea, come unto Christ, and be
perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny
yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and
strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be
perfect in Christ” (Moroni 10:32).
Elder
Robert S. Wood of the Seventy said: “When we speak and act, we should ask
whether our words and expressions are calculated to invite the powers of heaven
into our lives and to invite all to come unto Christ. We must treat sacred
things with reverence. We need to eliminate from our conversations the immodest
and the lewd, the violent and the threatening, the demeaning and the false" ("The Tongue of Angels, Liahona, January 2000). As
the Apostle Peter wrote, “But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye
holy in all manner of conversation” (1 Pet. 1:15).
We
all know the prophecies of Christ that he “shall go forth amongst men, working
mighty miracles, such as healing the sick, raising the dead, causing the lame
to walk, the blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear, and curing all
manner of diseases...” (Gordon B.
Hinckley, “At the Summit of the Ages,” Ensign,
November. 1999, p. 72). He has already done those things, both when he lived
among His people in Jerusalem and when he visited the Americas after he was
resurrected.
Thus,
the challenge: “Come, all ye faithful....come, let us behold him... [and] come
let us adore Him.” The real goal is to “Yea, Come Unto Christ.”
May
we accept the challenge and experience the glorious days the Nephites had with the Savior that we may at some time "thrust [our own]
hands into his side, and ...feel the prints of the nails in his hands and in
his feet...[that we may] see with [our own] eyes and...feel with [our own]
hands, and...know of a surety and...bear record, that it was He, of whom it was
written by the prophets, that should come... [that when we have] all gone forth
and...witnessed for [ourselves], [we] can cry out with one accord, saying:
Hosanna! Blessed be the name of the Most
High God! And then [we will] fall down
at the feet of Jesus [our Savior and Brother], and...worship him" (3 Nephi11:15-17) who is the Truth and the Light and the Prince of Peace is my prayer
and Christmas challenge....
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