Yesterday was a lovely Christmas season Saturday, with a smattering of early snow to add to the seasonal charm. Many people were busy about their tasks and errands related to the celebration of Christmas: shopping, craft making, decorating, parades, and performances. It was a joy to see worshiping, as hundreds of people were at the nearby Temple of God, participating in the Savior’s work of extending salvation to all who would receive it, both the living and the dead.
Yesterday I participated in ordinances through which families are united together throughout the eternities. Everything that the Savior Jesus Christ does, in the words of a wonderful teacher I met in Murcia, Spain, is para siempre, forever. While we live in the here and now, the here and now obtains meaning by being part of eternity. The Savior time and again and in many ways has sought to have us understand this.
The most important organization in the here and now, the family, is also the most important organization in heaven. The Savior would have our family relationships continue para siempre. So would most people I know.
That is the highest purpose of the Temples of the Lord, the eternal uniting of families. That means the uniting of families in the present, all across the family of man. The vows revealed by God Himself and administered in the present in the Lord’s Temples continue unbroken beyond the grave, as eternal as heaven.
Husband and wife and the children, too, are linked in that loving association forever. Through the linking of the children the generations are joined from the beginning of time until time becomes eternity. As the son of my parents I am linked to my father and mother. They each are linked to their parents, and on to the first parents. No one is forgotten or denied the opportunity to come to Christ and through Him to be united with all generations past, present, and future in one family of all who accept God as their Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, as their Savior.
Fundamentally, that is why Christ came to earth two thousand years ago, to save mankind, and especially to save us as families, literally part of the united family of God the Father. Yesterday hundreds were laboring in our local Temple, and around the world thousands in the other Temples of Christ, worshiping the Savior by continuing His work to unite and thereby save the family units of today and the past. That work will continue until the Savior Himself shall say, “It is done.” That is a lovely Christmas celebration.
