Of the Advent of the Savior and the Second Coming of Christ

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.  The signs of the advent of Christmas are all around and growing in number and urgency.  Red and green appear with greater frequency and intensity on people’s clothes.  Each day yet one more house sports Christmas lights.  Our door is growing crowded with Christmas cards.  The calendar is filling with concerts, festivals, and celebrations.  Appeals to buy, sell, and contribute are becoming incessant.  Carols have taken priority for church congregations and choirs, and Christmas themes predominate in addresses from the pulpit.  The anticipation in children’s talk and faces is plainly growing.  You cannot miss it, and it all makes me feel happy, a perfect tonic to the growing darkness of the meteorological season.  Christmas day is imminent. 

And so it was prior to the actual birth of Jesus Christ.  Unlike for anyone ever born to the family of Adam, the birth of the Savior was foretold again and again for thousands of years prior to the event, with signs to encourage the believers of the marvelous day when the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would come to live among men.  As Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, Eve was promised that while the serpent (Satan) would bruise the heal of her seed (the Savior), He would bruise the serpent’s (Satan’s) head.  During the exodus of Israel from Egypt to the promised land the advent of the Savior was linked to the appearance of a star as a sign to Jacob (see Numbers 24:17).  Isaiah comforted King Ahaz by reminding him of the birth of Christ, giving him as a sign that “a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14)  Micah foretold that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem, a prophecy so well known that King Herod directed the wise men from the east to go there to find the Christ child (see Micah 5:2 and Matthew 2:1-8).

Across the oceans, on another continent, the Americas, ancient prophets similarly foretold of the birth of Christ.  The prophet Alma declared,

For behold, I say unto you there be many things to come; and behold, there is one thing which is of more importance than they all—for behold, the time is not far distant that the Redeemer liveth and cometh among his people.  (Alma 7:7)

Another ancient American prophet, Nephi, had lived in the Old World before he and his family were led by God to the New World.  He was given a vision in which he saw “A virgin, most beautiful and fair above all other virgins . . . bearing a child in her arms.”  An angel told Nephi that this child was “the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father!” (see 1 Nephi 11:14-21)

More than 400 years later yet another American prophet, a righteous king named Benjamin, reported to his people the testimony from an angel of the coming birth of the Redeemer:

And he shall be called Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning; and his mother shall be called Mary. (Mosiah 3:8)

These and many other signs of the advent of Jesus Christ to the earth, announced for the encouragement of all who through many ages looked with hope and joy to the birth of the Savior, were predicted and fulfilled as prophesied.  The scriptural record could confirm, “it had come to pass, yea, all things, every whit, according to the words of the prophets.” (3 Nephi 1:20)

Today we stand thousands of years after that event.  Looking back, the signs and their completion are clear to see.  But we need not only look back, for we also can look forward to the return of Christ, not as a humble little baby but as the resurrected and glorified Messiah. 

We too are living in the midst of a season of advent, expectantly looking to the promised arrival of Christ to rule and reign on earth.  As with the Savior’s birth there are many predicted signs of the second coming of Christ, signs that are appearing in greater number and urgency.  For those who watch and are ready, it is a time of joy and happiness, even in a darkening season of the world.  Just as surely as all of the prophecies of Christ’s birth were fulfilled, so can we look with confidence to all that God’s prophets have foretold of His return.  For there will come a day, and not far off, when we, too, can declare, “it had come to pass, yea, all things, every whit, according to the words of the prophets.”

May our Christmas celebration of Christ be enriched by looking to His arrival in the past as the Babe of Bethlehem and forward to His return as King of kings and Lord of Lords.

Of Christmas in America and Life over Death

Welcome to Christmas and the whole Christmas season, doubly welcome this year because of the national focus of the media on the excessively trivial, even while things that matter a lot to a lot of people are happening all around us.  The media masters who have been running the presidential debates and proffering questions that emphasize the banal and the silly over substance and principle could use a vacation.

Welcome Christmas, when we can focus on things that affect real lives and the things that matter in real lives.  Welcome the opportunity to worship the Savior who brought meaning to our lives, while the leaders of men increasingly seek to pull meaning out of our lives or, failing that, distract people from all that holds lasting meaning and value and richness.

I include the routine censures of the “crass commercialism” associated with Christmas.  Those trite criticisms, trotted out at this time of every year since before the lifetimes of any of us, are really beside the point.  Is it wrong for people to seek in a myriad of ways to offer us their goods and services and to be rewarded when we eagerly respond to what they provide?  In a world of human interaction, what can be better than the free exchange of our abundance in the free markets of America.  Surely people can be as shallow in this season as in any other, and shunning bad taste merits no rebuke, but no praise of poverty over abundance will cure these ills.  Far from material things being irrelevant to Christmas, Christ and His creation and His atonement made possible the earth and the fulness thereof and our freedom to enjoy them.

True Christmas celebration comprehends all things important.  That celebration embraces the fulness of the goodness of the physical world in which we spiritual beings have been immersed.  To deny the physical and condemn its enjoyment in full measure is just as mistaken as to deny and neglect our spiritual being.  They must be taken amply together, neglecting neither.  As Christ revealed in modern times, “spirit and element inseparably connected receive a fulness of joy. . .” (Doctrine and Covenants 93:33)

Christ promises to us “every good thing” (see Moroni 7:25).  Unredeemed Death puts all good things out of our reach.  The sacrifice of Jesus the Savior overcame death in every significant way and brought all good things within our reach.

That is precisely why a fulsome celebration of Christmas must be a celebration of all good things, high and low, physical and spiritual.  These are the things that matter to everyone every day.  The brightness of stars, the love of family, the warmth of a home, the goodness of a savory meal, the beauty of music, the satisfaction of work done, the joy of light, the scent of the evergreen, the charm of children, the exhilaration of creation, and many million other manifestations of the goodness of God to His children are what Christmas means and are what power its celebration.

Christmas is the celebration of Life in all its goodness, a rejection of Death and the culture of poverty and decay and their worship by so many who would rip at faith and freedom.  Not accidentally faith and freedom--the very pursuit of happiness--were woven into the founding of American society.  The birth and physical life of Jesus Christ, including His own redemptive death and very real resurrection from the grave, merit all our praise, our worship, and our grateful enjoyment, still celebrated in America more than anywhere else.

I say, bring it on.