Of Christmas and More than an Infant

Photo by Stephen Andrews on Unsplash

This Christmas many people will sing and speak praises of a baby born in Bethlehem 2021 years ago.  Unfortunately, too many people never get past that story of the “Babe of Bethlehem.”  It is sweet, it is joyful, but it is not enough. 

The birth of Jesus, the Son of God, was miraculous.  Unlike the birth of anyone else, his birth was prophesied over thousands of years, with prophecies fulfilled in every particular, and prophecies that are continuing and accelerating in their fulfillment today.  What does that mean for us?  It means that this is all part of a very big deal.  It is what the prophet Alma said “is of more importance than” all (Alma 7:7).

We love to sing Christmas carols.  The words of carols, however, can at times challenge the vocabulary of little children.  In my younger years of singing “The First Noel” I was certain that the word “certain” in the second line was a verb, not an adjective.  “The first Noel the angel did say/ Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay. . . ”  In my young mind “certain” described what and why the angel was speaking to the shepherds.  The angel appeared in order to certain the shepherds.

Today I am not so sure that I was wrong in hearing a verb.  The angel wanted those shepherds to know, to understand, to be certain of what they saw, and thereby to become witnesses of something extremely important.  The angel explained what was happening, what it meant, where it was happening, how to recognize the marvel, and then the shepherds quickly went to see for themselves, personally.  Immediately afterward they shared with others what they knew. 

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy . . . . For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. . . . And they came with haste, and found . . . the babe lying in a manger.  And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. (Luke 2:8-17, emphasis added)

Following His resurrection, Jesus was careful to make His disciples certain of His resurrection so that they might witness to others of what they knew, enabling others at first to believe and then come to know for themselves by the testimony of the Holy Ghost.

The Father and the Son want us to know so that we might understand—actually, so that we might not misunderstand.  They appeared to Joseph Smith, such that Joseph’s knowledge was, from the first, certain.  He then could testify, “I had actually seen a light, and in the midst of that light I saw two Personages, and they did in reality speak to me . . .” (Joseph Smith History 1:25)

I have gained my own witness that Joseph’s certainty was true.  I, too, have been certained by the power of the Holy Ghost.  I know for sure that God is real and that Jesus Christ is the resurrected Savior of the world.  God has given certain witness to Joseph Smith and the prophets since then, including the prophet today, Russell M. Nelson.  Many have believed and had belief confirmed into certainty by the assurance of the Holy Ghost.

The words to the carol, “What Child Is This?” 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. 

I fear that many modern renditions of the carol miss—or perhaps even avoid—the point. Among the dozen or so recordings of that carol in my possession, I discovered to my surprise that all but maybe four leave out the second of three verses written by William C. Dix, the one that holds a central place explaining why this birth was important.  Some repeat, again and again, the true declaration that this Child is “Christ the King.” Recognition of that reality is essential, but how far does it get you?  Even Herod believed and feared that prophecy, a belief that goaded him to destroy all 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, the answer to which converts our attitude toward Christ from reverence for a Divine Monarch into deeply felt love born of joy and boundless gratitude.  The second verse, too often skipped, explains what is at the heart of Christmas.  Here are the words.

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?

Among the beautiful carols of Christmas there is one that surely seems odd and out of place. The haunting melody is in significant measure responsible for its lasting popularity, but the words are anything but joyful for a joyful celebration. Rather than recount the birth of the Savior, Jesus Christ, the song expresses the inconsolable sorrow of a mother of Bethlehem mourning the cruel murder of her little child. Popularly known as “The Coventry Carol,” it includes these words:

O sisters, too, how may we do,

For to preserve this day;

This poor Youngling for whom we sing,

By, by, lully, lullay.

 

Herod the King, in his raging,

Charged he hath this day;

His men of might, in his own sight,

All children young, to slay.

The song helps retell when jealous King Herod, fearful of even rumors of potential rivals for his throne, ordered the slaughter of all the children in Bethlehem of two years old and younger. Herod had been advised by the wise men of the birth of the future King of the Jews, in fulfillment of prophecy.  Herod missed his mark, for Jesus was no longer there. Joseph, warned by an angel, had taken his little family away to Egypt.

Among those who take it upon themselves to second guess God there are those who would question why God would save His Son, while allowing all those other children in Bethlehem to be slain. Again, these critics miss the mark. They get it wrong by failing to consider the whole picture.

God the Father did not spare His Son from the slaying of the children at Bethlehem. The unfair and cruel carnage begun in David’s city was finished on Calvary. Jesus’ life was spared only momentarily so that it could be offered as the last sacrifice for all. That seemingly doleful song points us to the full meaning of Christmas as part of a story that winds through Bethlehem and leads through sorrow in Gethsemane to death on Calvary.

Importantly, the story continues on from there to a glorious resurrection morning on the third day. Christ was born to save us, in spite of the evils of the world that He most of all could not escape, a salvation that extends especially to the children of Bethlehem and to all the little children of the world.

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 hearts of those men—when they become certain of the meaning 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 certainty mean to them?

Perhaps the Savior’s plea from the cross, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do,” (Luke 23:34) 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 for us 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.  May we decide now, today, that we, when brought into the personal presence of the Savior, will be like Christ's ancient disciples, who did “bow down at his feet . . . and worship him; and . . . kiss his feet, insomuch that they did bathe his feet with their tears.” (3 Nephi 17:10)

Of Discovered Music and Enthroning the Savior

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.

Of War and Virtue

One hundred fifty years ago the United States remained divided in a brutal war of rebellion.  Rather than unusual, such convulsions are typical in the establishment of representative republics.  It does not come easy for a population new to a republic to embrace in practice the idea that matters of life and wealth should be resolved by votes.  It seems that the age old recourse to arms and blood has to be tried again a time or two before people, who have only experienced more abusive government, come to accept that ballots and representation, enshrined in the rule of law, are a better way of deciding a society’s important issues.

One hundred fifty years ago, in 1864, the people of the young United States were still learning that painful lesson.  But the instruction was nearing its end.  Back in July of 1863, at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, the outcome of the war became inevitable.  The rebels of the southern states were going to lose, constitutional government of the United States was going to succeed.  The only chance for the rebels would be if the loyal people of the nation lost their determination to persevere to reunite the nation and reaffirm the constitutional republic.  Often that seemed in the press to be an iffy question, but in reality the republican will remained strong.  The hundreds of thousands who sacrificed life and limb in the field of war, in an overwhelmingly volunteer army (the number of drafted soldiers remained relatively minor), testified to that determination.

In the winter of 1863-64 U.S. soldiers in the field reenlisted in large numbers.  Throughout 1864, and into the Spring of 1865, many thousands more would die, but the battles were becoming increasingly futile for the rebel cause, little more than adding to the destruction and suffering that rebel commanders were pulling down upon themselves and their fellows and families in this national lesson in self-government.

For the rebel soldier, experiencing defeat after defeat to his regiment, his corps, or his tattered army—with only occasional respites and temporary successes—it all may have felt pointless.  The high and growing rate of desertion from rebel armies in those days suggests so.  The historian comes to this point in the conflict and is tempted to describe the remaining rebel heroics and gallant but failing defenses as futile, the casualty lists a bloody tally of worthless and wasted sacrifice—particularly for so ignoble a cause as breaking up the best form of government on the earth at the time.

From the perspective of the rebel “cause” it was pointless, the continued bloodshed and destruction a burden for which the rebel leaders—in the rebel government and at the head of the rebel armies—will surely have to give an accounting before the Judge who weighs the doings of nations and those who lead them.  Does that mean, therefore, that the daily struggle of the individual rebel soldier was meaningless?  His effort could not change the outcome, only affect in some small way its overall cost.

And yet, throughout 1864 and to the end of the war, there were meaningful and often pitched battles fought on every field of action.  The battles to which I refer echo a passage from The Book of Mormon written almost two thousand years before, describing an ancient American people after a very long war:

But behold, because of the exceedingly great length of the war between the Nephites and the Lamanites many had become hardened, because of the exceedingly great length of the war; and many were softened because of their afflictions, insomuch that they did humble themselves before God, even in the depth of humility.  (Alma 62:41)

War, on a very personal level, appears to accelerate moral development.  Individuals become more virtuous or more evil more quickly than they might under more peaceful conditions.

I believe that for the individual rebel soldier, as for perhaps every soldier, the real battle was his own, and in the end it was the most important battle with the most long-lasting consequences.  Abraham Lincoln understated that the world would “little note, nor long remember” his speech at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery, though he perhaps correctly predicted that the world would never forget the great battle fought there. 

In the full scheme of things, in terms of what really matters in the eternal worlds after this temporary one is rolled up and its purposes completed, the individual battles fought by each soldier on each side will be recognized as far more important than the whole Battle of Gettysburg.  The battle of armies is a temporary one.  The battle fought by each soldier, whether he exercises virtues or chooses vices, is the more permanent, the one that has never ending consequences.  The battles of freedom were fought in recognition and preservation of these more important personal struggles we all have.

In the battles of 1864 and 1865 of the American War of the Rebellion the rebel soldier could not change the outcome of the war.  But in each case his own personal triumph or defeat was there to be etched into his character more permanently than the scars of bullet and saber in his flesh.

As my son has often reminded me, everyone who fought in the Civil War died.  And all of them lived.  So must we all die, and yet we will all live again where there is no more death.  By the time each of us leaves mortality, each must face and fight his battles, the ones that really matter far above those recorded in the history books of the world.

Of Good King Wenceslas and Government Charity

Just past Easter and far enough away from Christmas I suppose that it is safe enough for me to write a few words in criticism of what I think is my least favorite Christmas carol.  I love Christmas carols and have many favorites.  There is one, however, that I particularly do not like:  “Good King Wenceslas.”  As I understand the case, the carol was written in Britain in the 1800s based upon legend and traditions dating from many centuries earlier.

Upon reflection I have to admit that I very much like the tune and often find myself whistling it, despite the fact that I very much dislike the words.  Actually, the words can be kind of fun, too, but I find their message repulsive.

Here are the words and message, or at least the first three stanzas, where most of the harm lies.  First stanza:

Good King Wenceslas looked out

On the feast of Stephen

When the snow lay round about

Deep and crisp and even.

Brightly shone the moon that night

Though the frost was cruel

When a poor man came in sight

Gathering winter fuel.

All very pretty.  A wealthy man of power enjoying a holiday associated with charity for the poor.  It is night time, with the moon shining on a smooth landscape of deep, white snow.  It is cruelly cold, but of course the king is surely nice and warm, enjoying the beautifully charming view.  The cherry on this lovely winter dessert is provided by the quaint and appropriate arrival of a poor man trudging through the snow. 

It is almost impossible to have a Christmas story nowadays without someone in poverty to bless the tale.  Poverty is so worshiped at Christmas time that it makes one wonder whether the poor in the stories are poor enough, as if to make one glad for the ready supply of poor people and even tremble at the thought of the supply ever becoming short.  No problem with that in Europe, especially old Europe.  And of course traditional Asian societies and all but few modern African ones rest upon having large and ready supplies of poor people, with the modern doctrines of communism and socialism superimposed upon them to institutionalize poverty and ensure that its alleviation can be an eternal goal ever to be invoked but never to be achieved.  One of the world’s criticisms of America is that our “poor” live so much better than even the well to do of much of the rest of the world, but the current American presidential team has been working mightily on addressing that criticism.

It is very important that you take note of what the poor man of poverty is doing on this bitter cold and crisp evening, the very night after Christmas.  He is gathering firewood, something that it would be more than unpleasant to be without in such a cruel frost.

With the second verse the plot deepens:

“Hither page and stand by me

If thou know’st it, telling

Yonder peasant, who is he?

Where and what his dwelling?”

“Sire, he lives a good league hence

Underneath the mountain

Right against the forest fence

By Saint Agnes’ fountain.”

This tells us much, far more I think than many who sing this song perceive.  In this oppressive cold darkness with only the cold moon for light the peasant had wandered a good three miles from his home in search of something to burn to keep himself warm, three miles (the English league is 5280 yards).  Moreover, it could be expected that the home three miles away was colder still, being in close proximity to "the mountain."  Perhaps these points are not missed by the casual caroler, but does the caroler also note that the peasant lives next to a forest?  As we look at the next stanza, keep in mind this question:  why would someone who lives next to a forest walk a good three miles in search of something to burn?

“Bring me bread and bring me wine,

Bring me pine logs hither.

Thou and will I see him dine

When we bear him thither.”

Page and monarch forth they went,

Forth they went together

Through the rude wind’s wild lament

And the bitter weather.

It is at this point in the song where it is intended that we who sing or hear the words are to begin to be warmed.  Touched by the predicament of the poor peasant, wandering a good three miles the day after Christmas to gather firewood just to stay warm on that bitterly frigid night (we are informed in this verse that the cold was made intense by a rude wind), the good king not only sees to the provision of firewood for the poor man but deigns to deliver the wood himself, along with bread and wine.  This is the core of the story of the song, confirmed in the remaining verses by the miracle of the page, nearly freezing to death on the king’s errand of mercy, finding warmth by stepping in the very snowy footsteps of his master.

Before I continue with my criticism, I will add that I entirely agree with the last lines of the carol, the moral of the story:

Therefore, Christian men, be sure

Wealth or rank possessing

Ye who now will bless the poor

Shall yourselves find blessing.

This is all very true, demonstrated repeatedly throughout history.  I would add that any person, of any rank or means, who gives of himself to bless the poor will find blessings in return, occasionally blessings on earth and always blessings where moth and rust do not corrupt.

And giving of oneself is the point.  Was Good King Wenceslas really giving of himself?  This was the king, giving of the royal resources.  I seriously doubt that the king baked the bread, or pressed the wine, or chopped the wood that he was providing.  They very likely came from some other poor peasants (in some degree even from this peasant himself) in the form of a tax by one name or another.  It is all very nice to be generous with other people’s sweat.  All very Old World, nice and feudal.  That was the way of things in those days. 

Moreover, and in answer to the question that I posed earlier, the poor peasant had trudged three miles, looking for something in the deep snow that he might be able to burn, when he lived right next to the forest, because the forests all belonged to the royalty.  It was a serious crime for any peasant—regardless of how close he lived—to “poach” either firewood or game out of that forest.

That is to say, that Good King Wenceslas, overcome by a moment of pity, was acting to relieve for a moment a misery that he himself participated in causing and inflicting.  Given the age, I am sure that the poor man was appropriately grateful as the king and his page watched the poor man eat in his hovel, and all were appropriately warmed in heart and mind as the king returned to his castle for the rest of the winter.  The perpetuation of the legend has assured that the king received a bountiful blessing of good public relations for his gesture.

This all may be well and good for the land of the nineteenth century British monarchy, but any American should be ashamed to sing this song, other than in mockery.  Our Founders fought a revolution and gave their best efforts, and some gave their lives, to throw off monarchy and end royal forests and feudal domains.  They recoiled at the practices of corrupt monarchies who tried to ward off grievances against royal prerogatives and taxes by tossing the occasional crumbs of “charity” to the masses.  They saw through the game of taxing the people so that the governors could provide a few well advertised benefits to the many while quietly heaping largesse on their cronies.

None of that would be tolerated today in America.  Or would it?  How about a nation hungry for energy while plentiful supplies of energy lie locked up under government-owned lands, and all that the government offers are windmills and algae farms?  How about trillion dollar “stimulus” appropriations bills that build a bridge or a road here and there, while administration cronies walk off with billions of dollars in grants and loans not expected to be paid back?  How about major taxes on job providers to pay for some more government handouts while driving the job providers to cut back or close up shop?  The charity of modern governments is no more virtuous than it was at the hands of the old benevolent despots.

At least in the land of We the People our leaders do not inherit their jobs and can be thrown out for misrule.  Yet, the trick worked in Europe for Good King Wenceslas.  Will America’s own Good King Wenceslas be celebrating another Feast of Stephen in the White House, or will he be packing on Boxing Day?

Of Easter and the Constitution

One morning in Tennessee, 150 years ago, many thousand U.S. soldiers were quietly enjoying breakfast on a beautiful spring Sabbath, thinking of little more than passing a quiet Palm Sunday and sometime soon thereafter continuing the destruction of the rebel army in nearby Corinth, Mississippi.  That was, until the rebels came calling and rudely interrupted breakfast.

By the end of the battle the next day the rebels were in full retreat, but over 13,000 Union soldiers were dead, wounded, or missing, and nearly 11,000 rebels had met the same fate.  Shiloh turned out to be a major victory for the United States Army, opening up nearly the whole western part of the rebel confederacy to invasion.  The impact of the victory was missed by much of the population of the loyal states, however, whose senses reeled from a bill of losses of husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers never seen before in the life of the Republic.  General U.S. Grant, whose coolness under pressure made the victory possible, was mercilessly criticized in the press.

The nation little understood that the casualties of Shiloh would be only the first of many tens of thousands more who would suffer from civil war in the land of Washington and Jefferson before 1862 would be over.  Then there would be 1863, 1864, and 1865 to follow, running the tally of destruction ever higher.  In 1865, near the end of the war, Abraham Lincoln summed up in his marvelous second inaugural address—for a term of office that would last the rest of his life, less than 6 weeks—“Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. . . . Each looked for an easier triumph and a result less fundamental and astounding.”

All Americans today benefit from that profound victory and the others that brought an end to the rebellion and that upheld the Constitution.  It was a strange and new thing for the world that the words on a piece of paper, written by men of an earlier generation, could create a system of government and affect so many lives.  It was the lives of those who fought to sustain the Constitution that gave it that life, men who insisted on living by those words and organizing a free society within the protections of its provisions.

The same is true today, as with each generation:  we are called upon to uphold that Constitution, those words on a piece of paper, and hand it on down, as strong as ever, to our children.  Those men who died at Shiloh cannot do our work for us today.  Neither can the men who fought and died in Europe and the South Pacific and on many other places of battle.  Just as important as those who died to preserve the Constitution are those who have lived to maintain the Constitution.  They, however, could do no more than pass that freedom under constitutional law to us.  We have it today.  What will we do with it?

As Ronald Reagan taught in his 1967 inaugural address as Governor of California,

Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction.

We must not let it become extinct.  It is under challenge from enemies without, who hate the freedom and worth of the individual enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, and it is endangered by those within the nation—some in very high places of power and responsibility— who see the Constitution as a barrier in the way of their plans to replace individual rights, value, initiative, and worth with the ages old system where the government and the governors run the lives of the people and decide who wins, who loses, who gets what, and how much.

Our forebears fought a revolution and crafted a new system in the New World to get away from that rule by the few.  The lesson we need to learn anew, is that it is the job of the many individuals who make up each generation to win that freedom again, because there will always be those eager to impose their will on others and use and direct and take the resources that they themselves did not earn, who will want to have their way with other people’s money and other people’s lives.

No one’s sacrifice is the same as anyone else’s.  Read no unfairness in that, because to sacrifice is to absorb unfairness.  But we cannot avoid the call to sacrifice.  Not even Christ, the greatest of all, could.

As we celebrate Easter we should remember the sacrifices of the Savior, by which He absorbed all unfairness.  Those sacrifices made Easter possible, by which all that is wrong is overcome and ultimate freedom bought for each person born into this world.  We are privileged by Christ to be given the chance to join in that effort to preserve and extend the blessings of freedom to our families, our friends, and to people we do not know and may never meet.

At Gethsemane, then Golgotha, and from the Garden Tomb, Christ has created the framework that makes freedom possible.  He inspired the founders who built a nation of freedom as the beacon to all mankind that it has been for over 200 years.  As our Easter worship, let us take up the last call given by Abraham Lincoln to the nation as the Constitution was reaffirmed in struggle, who recognized the great value of America for the world:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Of Easter and the Triumph of Life

Spring came early this year, and Easter comes late, and that is fine with me.  Sometimes Easter arrives while winter still lingers, but this year Easter’s message of life and renewal will be fully broadcast in the flowers and trees.  I think I love the bright azaleas and tulips best.

Let their message of perennial life be matched in our hearts, as renewal and rebirth come to our souls through the power of Jesus Christ to make all things new and to make death a temporary pause.  Without the resurrection of Jesus Christ, nothing would matter, for death would prevail as the final statement to each and all.  Since Christ overcame death and rose from the dead to eternal life mortality is converted into the exception to the normal existence of life.  Mortality is to be endured, and more than endured, used to prepare for our eternal existence after we have all died and then risen from the grave to immortality.

To be sure, our mortality is intense and at times all that we can bear, for which reason it is mercifully short, the very oldest of us living not long past a mere century.  If life is so important, does it make any sense for it to be so brief?  If each of us is so filled with love, does it seem right that our love ends so quickly?  With each human so richly endowed with creativity, can it be that all of our creations corrode and fade away to nothing?  Why did my mother’s memory leave before she did, and is our memory of her doomed to the same fate to be lost eventually forever?

The answer of death is yes, all is vain, all will be lost.  Christ’s victory over death means that the answer is no, and that all good things are redeemed and preserved forever, and not just preserved, rejuvenated to live and grow without end.

Which is to say that the continuation of life is reasonable, as it is true.  The joy of Easter is that its story is real, that through the resurrection of Christ life and all of its riches are to be everlasting, as they should be. 

No fact of antiquity is more certain than Christ’s resurrection, no event of the ancient years has left us with more evidence.  To the testimonies of those who walked and talked and ate with the resurrected Christ, as preserved in at least five separate records gathered centuries later into the Bible, the Savior has brought to light the witnesses of His visit to His followers in ancient America shortly after His resurrection in Jerusalem.  Over the course of three days Jesus Christ taught, healed, and prayed with those who had long been waiting for His appearance, as prophesied by their prophets for six hundred years.  More than two thousand of them, one by one, touched the wounds in His hands, feet, and side,

and did see with their eyes and did feel with their hands, and did know of a surety (3 Nephi 11:15)

that this was “Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world” (3 Nephi 11:10).

Those are the ancient witnesses and evidences.  They are to be treasured.  These were not ancient experiences to the people who lived them and testified of them.  They were just as current and real as anything we experience today.  As Christ explained to the Sadducees, God is the God of the living, of life (see Matthew 22:32).  We need not rely on the ancient witnesses alone.  Christ has called contemporary prophets and Apostles living with us and among us in our day, just as He did during His mortal ministry.  Their witness is the same as Peter, James, John, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Paul, Nephi, Mormon, and others who knew with a certainty that Christ rose from the dead as the God of life.  In this mortal life death so often seems to prevail that we all need reminders from those who know of the triumph of life.

You can hear their modern words.  They report the same message that the Savior has shared with mankind throughout history, but God knows that we each have a need to hear it in our own day.

With confidence, as you enjoy the buds and blossoms of spring, take in their proclamation of life made possible by Christ’s victory over death, by which all that is good is saved.

Of Holy Ordinances and Meaningful Lives

One of the benighted ideas that American society inherited from the benighted 1960s is the idea that marriage and other sacred religious ordinances are just meaningless ceremonies.  Forty years later the tracks of trouble and sorrow caused by this and related assaults on marriage should be readily apparent, yet the concept survives, supported particularly by people who see life as a carnival of selfish delights, where one grabs for all of the gratification that he can—and then dies.

That is after all a doctrine of isolation and death.  Sooner or later the commitmentless self-centered world view ends in death, leaving a heritage of broken kewpie dolls, regrettable memories, shallow relationships, and psychological emptiness.  In fact, periodically statistics show us that it shortens the mortality ride.  For those who follow that lifestyle—and most of America’s social leaders do and increasingly seek to impose it on everyone else—life seems short, cheap, and a despairing struggle for meaning of some sort.  When it is over there is a profound sense of loss, not only the loss in terms of the end of life but in terms of the loss of a lifetime that has been lived so bereft of redeeming value.

Many of the acolytes of this doctrine of death throughout the ages have been desperate to extend life but only to live it with more emptiness.  Others who are overcome along the way by the vacuum of meaning in the lifestyle have sought to end it all sooner than later, only to find that they have brought their empty life view with them into yet another life in the world of spirits, where they fearfully await the tallying up of their lives’ events into pitiful sums of value.

Our Heavenly Father instituted sacred ordinances from the beginning as tools to convey and reinforce meaning, each ordinance pointing to the Source of meaning in this life and in the eternal worlds to come. At the core of each sacred ordinance is a covenant and promise between God and man.  The form of each ordinance from God is designed to point the mind to Jesus Christ, whose atoning sacrifice in Gethsemane and on the cross gave meaning and value to this life.

Baptism, the first sacred ordinance offered to men and women in this life, is a useful example.   Through baptism we accept the vicarious suffering of Jesus Christ in our stead so that we do not have to suffer for our sins, in exchange for a covenant and promise that we will change our lives and refrain from sinning, a promise that we will turn away from the meaningless life of self-indulgence to a life rich in meaning and value focused on love, kindness, achievement, and development of virtue.  We are briefly “buried” in water, simultaneously burying our life of death and washing away its filthiness.  We arise from the water to newness of life, cleansed from our sins.

The marriage ordinance provided by God is an eternal pledge between husband and wife of perpetual faithfulness and dedication to the happiness of each other, as a foundation for living a joint life forever, a fitting and appropriate platform for bringing children into the family.  These covenants and promises are made by husband and wife to each other and also to God, whose power changes and unites hearts to reinforce faithfulness and to give these promises power that extends throughout eternity.  Taken altogether, this becomes a highly significant and holy ordinance with profound impact on the memory and the heart.  Compare that with the world’s version:  hey, want to live together?

Glorious versus pitiful.  The pattern is repeated for all of God’s ordinances versus men’s substitutes, the holy versus the hollow. 

Of the Spirit of America and the Spirit of Tyranny

Last week I experienced two memorable events, each in its own way pointing to the spirit of America. One, appropriately enough, was called “The Spirit of America,” the annual presentation of the U.S. Army’s Old Guard, headquartered at Fort Myer, in Arlington, Virginia. The program chronicled the history of the Army from its first days in the War of Independence to the present.

There is no reliance upon hyperbole in saying that the U.S. Army has been one of the most effective instruments in the history of mankind for the promotion of freedom. Without the Army, independence would not have been achieved and very likely not even attempted (the Army came into being a full year before the Declaration of Independence).

The very existence of the United States has been a beacon and stimulus to people around the world to strive for and obtain freedom. Would the colonies of Latin America have sought liberty without the successful example of the United States? How significant was the example of America to the struggles of the peoples of Europe to cast off their monarchies? To what extent did Great Britain learn from its painful mistakes administered by the citizens and Army of the United States and provide for a gentler path to liberty for its many colonies around the globe? The Army has been a reliable and effective protector of that beacon of American freedom.

With direct action, the U.S. Army became the essential element that gave force to Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Without the victories of the U.S. Army over the rebels who rose up against freedom and constitutional government Lincoln’s Proclamation would have been a scorned piece of paper that offered false hopes to millions laboring in slavery.

In the Twentieth Century the U.S. Army helped bring World War I to its end, the western republics triumphing over the central monarchies. It was the U.S. Army that not only played the central role in defeating the dictators of central Europe and Japan in World War II, but wherever it went the U.S. Army left free republics in its wake, including among the vanquished nations. Again in Korea, Viet Nam, Grenada, and Panama the U.S. Army fought for freedom and against tyranny. Throughout the Cold War the Army—together with the other important branches of the armed services, equally effective instruments of freedom—remained strong and active to protect the free world against totalitarian communism.

This idea did not originate with me. Our grandfathers knew these things. They were commonly understood until recent generations witnessed the armed services and even national defense itself become open questions with left-wing academics seeking to reintroduce into America, and dress in pseudo-intellectual clothes, the exploded Old World programs of tyranny and rule by elites. That the idea of the liberating role of the American military can seem fresh and insightful is a mark of how much the religions of tyranny have found a place in popular media and even in the education supplied in many government schools.

By contrast the spirit of America silhouetted the other event to which I referred. This was the speech of President Barack Obama before a joint session of Congress, outlining his latest plan to restore job creation that has been so effectively undermined by his economic policies. If you reach through the cloud of rhetoric, President Obama’s proposal does not rise above expanding the size of government and raising taxes on successful people and entrepreneurs. That is not the spirit of America.

That is the spirit of the old nations of Europe and Asia from which our forefathers fled to found something entirely different in the New World. That is the spirit where people get ahead by the favor of those in power, and the people in power take what does not belong to them to reward their supporters and hangers on. A leading news story of this week is the scandal of a bankrupt “green” factory that was awarded nearly half a billion dollars by the Obama Administration and used as a television backdrop to announce how government subsidies to “green” industry would pave the road to national prosperity. That idea is today just as bankrupt as the business. It seems that what made this business green was the color of the money that Washington elites poured into it from the U.S. Treasury.

Together the two events demonstrate what the spirit of America is and what it is not. The first is a legacy of personal sacrifice by free soldiers for the freedom of others. The second, the spirit of tyranny, would sacrifice other people for the expansion of government and the power of Washington elites.

Of the Passover and the Knowledge of God

On the night before He was crucified, Jesus gathered His Apostles together to celebrate the Passover, that most sacred of Hebrew festivals, rich in symbolism of Christ and His atonement. The firstborn of every family would die, except for the sacrifice of a lamb, whose blood brought life and safety to Israel.

What were Jesus’ thoughts as He celebrated that Passover with those He loved best, on the very doorstep of when He was to fulfill the Passover ordinance and the prophecy embedded in its symbolism. What were Jesus’ thoughts when He Himself was about to be the Passover Lamb?

Many sacred things happened at that Passover. The Savior introduced the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, the broken bread symbolic of His body, soon to be broken and soon thereafter to be resurrected; the wine symbolic of his blood, in a few hours to be shed at Gethsemane and the next day under the whip and on the cross.

Jesus washed the feet of the Apostles, teaching them that priesthood is entirely about loving service to one another.

And Jesus prayed. What would it mean to you to hear the Savior pray to the Father for you?

Some of the words of that prayer are preserved in John 17, one of the most sacred chapters of all the scriptures. This is how it begins:

These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come;

Indeed it had, the hour pointed to by all eternity, the very meridian of time.

glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:

It is curious to me that there are still some, who must not have read this and other passages of scripture, who say that Jesus Christ never claimed that He was the Son of God, the Messiah. Here is Jesus very plainly declaring His Sonship in prayer to the Father in the presence of His disciples.

And then bearing His solemn witness to the Father and to the Apostles around Him, the Savior declared in His holy prayer, announcing Himself, again, to be the Christ, the Messiah—

And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. (John 17:1, 3)

Before 1820, where was that knowledge of Jesus Christ to be found? How were people to know the Savior, the knowing by which they could obtain eternal life? The Prophet Amos foretold—

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord: And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it. (Amos 8:11, 12)

For centuries the famine had prevailed. What the churches of the day taught about Jesus Christ was all confusion and contradiction.

• Some said He was the Son of a God who had no body, parts or passions;


• or that He was the physical manifestation of a God who could never be seen;


• or that He was a Savior who only saved some and damned others, all regardless of what they did or believed;


• or that He saved everyone who believed no matter what they did;


• or that He saved some because of what they did no matter what they believed;


• or that He had done His work, gone to Heaven, and left men afterward to fend for themselves.

Yet there were many who sought to know the Christ, generations of people seeking the Lord and His saving power, and who could not find Him. Some of their names were Augustine, Thomas, Tyndale, Luther, Casiodoro de Reina, Charles Wesley, and others. Surely there were many more whose names we do not know. There were old and young, neither age nor youth an obstacle to wanting to know the Father and Jesus Christ, and gain the eternal life that They promised. One of these in 1820 was a young teenage boy with an ordinary name, Joseph Smith.

In 1820, the hour had come. In answer to one prayer, added to millions of prayers offered by other seekers over thousands of years, our Heavenly Father appeared to the young Joseph Smith, spoke his name and revealed to him Jesus Christ, His Son. To Joseph Smith the Father said, “This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!” (JS-H 1:17) With those words, the first drops fell ending the spiritual drought of 1700 years.

What did the Savior say to Joseph? Jesus quoted scripture, a prophecy that He had given to the Prophet Isaiah:

they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men (JS-H 1:19).

We call that the First Vision, because many others followed, in which Jesus Christ revealed Himself to the Prophet Joseph Smith, and then to others, and by which others who knew Jesus in their mortal lives passed on to Joseph what the Savior had given to them. Joseph Smith passed on that knowledge and power to us, to all who will today receive Jesus Christ, and come to know Him and the Father, and obtain eternal life, in the way that those did, who observed the Passover with Jesus, in the way that many others have throughout history. The Savior’s Church was on the earth once again to bring hearts near to the Savior through the power of the doctrines of God.

Of Blood Sacrifice and the Sacrifice of the Savior

For some 4,000 years the ritual sacrifice of a first-born, unblemished lamb played an essential part in the worship of the God of Heaven. This was an ordinance that dates from Adam, was practiced by Abraham, and was given renewed emphasis through the prophet Moses to the children of Israel, only recently released from slavery and oppression.

Also since the days of Adam, blood sacrifice as prescribed by revelation has been copied and horribly distorted by followers of many other religions not authorized by God. The disciples of these other religions, and also many less understanding subscribers to the religion of Jehovah, have acted as if they believed that the blood sacrifice itself did something, accomplished something, in some way mattered.

In truth, in the whole history of the earth there has been and will be only one blood sacrifice that matters at all, from an eternal perspective. That was the blood sacrifice of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the sacrificial Lamb of the Father. His sacrifice was the only one that in and of itself possessed any virtue, for that sacrifice made possible the forgiveness of the sins of men and women throughout time. All other sacrifices conducted under divine authority derived all of their virtue from that one sacrifice of the Savior.

That was why the Lord was so strict about how those sacrifices were to be conducted, so that each one referred directly to the Savior’s sacrifice. All sacrifices not conducted in the manner prescribed by revelation from God and under His authority were solemn hoaxes, pointing away from the Savior, diverting attention away from the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and were diabolical at their root.

Consider the sacrifice offered by Cain. Rather than offer the blood sacrifice prescribed by God by revelation, tied to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that would heal sins from Adam down to the last child born on earth, Cain offered a sacrifice of fruit. Cain acted as if there were some virtue in the sacrifice itself, rather than recognizing that a sacrifice could only derive virtue from the only sacrifice that could generate virtue, the sinless sacrifice of Christ. The Lord rejected the sacrifice and reminded Cain that he could not please the Lord without obeying the Lord (Genesis 4:3-7). Obedience to God was not part of the plan of Cain, who thereafter descended from his mocking sacrifice to the bloody murder of his own brother.

The sacrifice prescribed by revelation from God was rich in symbolism, the death of the unspotted firstborn lamb directly representative of the death of the firstborn and sinless Son of God. The actual death of the sacrifice was a powerful, real, tangible reminder for the disciples of Jehovah of the reality, the literalness, of the sacrificial death of the Messiah. The ordinance was intended to be impressive to the minds of the worshipers—the physical death not only representing the physical death to come of the Messiah but also driving home the point that matters of spiritual life and death were at stake.

These blood sacrifices were only temporary, however. For the people who lived before the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, they were intended to bring more reality to the promise of an event that had not yet happened. After His sacrifice and resurrection the Savior proclaimed an end to the ordinances.

And ye shall offer up unto me no more the shedding of blood; yea, your sacrifices and your burnt offerings shall be done away, for I will accept none of your sacrifices and your burnt offerings. (3 Nephi 9:19)

Modeled after the image of the Savior’s sacrifice, they were fulfilled when His atonement was accomplished. To continue the blood sacrifices after that would suggest that the Savior’s sacrifice was not sufficient, that somehow the Savior’s suffering for our sins was incomplete, that the sacrifice of an animal in and of itself could provide forgiveness. Remember, there never was any virtue in the sacrifices other than as they pointed to the future sacrifice of the Christ. Continuing the ordinances after Christ’s death and resurrection would actually be a denial of faith in Christ and His atonement rather than the expression of faith in Him that they were prior to His redemption.

Do we living after the resurrection of Jesus Christ have no need to be reminded of His atonement? Of course we do. In place of the blood sacrifice of old, the resurrected Savior called for a new sacrifice:

And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost . . . (3 Nephi 9:20)

This sacrifice is also connected to the Savior’s sacrifice, for that is how we receive the forgiveness of sins that His redemption made possible. That is how we are brought within the circle of the atonement whereby Christ’s suffering takes the place of our suffering. Our sacrifice is to receive Him and qualify for His sacrifice in our place.

But the Lord still draws upon physical ordinances to remind us of spiritual realities. The night before the crucifixion Jesus instituted the ordinance of partaking of ceremonial bread and wine to remind us of the union of His sacrifice and ours. The bread points to the body of Christ, that He gave up in death and reclaimed in resurrection. The wine points to the blood that He shed in Gethsemane and on the cross.

The promise is pronounced in the words of the prayer that the Savior prescribed to be offered. As His disciples partake of tangible symbols of even more powerful spiritual intangibles, they do so in witness “that they do always remember him, that they may have his Spirit to be with them.” (Moroni 5:2) The saints of ancient days and modern times are united by powerful and appropriate ordinances in their focus on the central event of history, the sacrifice and atonement of Jesus Christ.

Of Controlling Events and the Wrath of the Crowd

When Jesus Christ rode into Jerusalem on the Sunday before He was crucified, few in the crowd really knew who He was or what He was doing. Even his closest disciples little understood what was happening and unfolding. All knew it was momentous, but all but the Savior Himself misunderstood why.

To the cheering crowd Jesus was an unstoppable miracle worker come to change their political—and surely many even believed their religious—world. The Savior understood how fleeting this popular acclaim would be. His understanding was akin to that voiced by Oliver Cromwell some 1500 years later, when similarly the focus of the hurrahs of the streets Cromwell said, “Do not trust to the cheering, for those persons would shout as much if you and I were going to be hanged.” Jesus knew that the crowd would be shouting again on Friday.

None of this was accidental. It was all prophesied hundreds and even thousands of years before, and Jesus was in control of all of the events and the fulfillment of all of the prophecies. For an omniscient and omnipotent God, nothing happens by chance.

Jesus had long been warned not to go to Jerusalem, that the local leaders would seek His life. In apparent avoidance of the reach of the authorities in Jerusalem, Jesus had largely confined His ministry to Galilee, beyond their jurisdiction. In a surprise move one time before (and in demonstration that He was always in control of events), the Savior had quietly gone to Jerusalem for the Passover, but once there He made His presence public. On that occasion the authorities were too awed by Jesus’ popularity to move against Him. He came and left His city without harm.

For this final visit of mortality, the Savior made His approach well known. His fame, especially of His miracles, had been building. It was brought to a crescendo shortly before and only a short walk away from Jerusalem when the Savior, before a large crowd, called forth Lazarus from the dead. That Lazarus had been dead, just as Jacob Marley, “dead as a doornail,” there was no doubt; he had been in the tomb four days. That Lazarus was alive again was apparent to all. What kind of a Man was this?

As Jesus entered Jerusalem, in clear token of the Messiah, “the Son of David,” the people filled the streets. But their cheering had little to do with yielding their hearts to God and doing the works of righteousness. It was the expectation of having a Messiah who would do their will, One who could and would feed the thousands, heal the sick, and even raise their dead, and maybe restore the greatness of the kingdom of David. Christ would do all of these things, but only on His terms, and those terms the people were not ready to accept. When that became clear, they would call upon the hated Roman rulers to crucify the last real King of the Jews.

Jesus knew and expected this reaction. With the power of God to make all things work for good, through that unfair sacrifice Christ made His “soul an offering for sin, . . . bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:11, 12), as He and the Father had planned from before the creation of the world. On the third day, Jesus the Messiah Himself rose from the tomb. The Christ had gained the victory over all, including death and hell, and extended that victory freely to all—before and since His sacrifice—who will receive it and Him, on the terms of Him who paid the whole price alone.

Of Carols and Carnage

Among the beautiful carols of Christmas there is one that surely seems odd and out of place. At least that is how I, as a young child, thought of it. The haunting melody is in significant measure responsible for its lasting popularity, but the words are anything but joyful for a joyful celebration. Rather than recount the birth of the Savior, Jesus Christ, the song expresses the inconsolable sorrow of a mother of Bethlehem mourning the cruel murder of her little child. Popularly known as “The Coventry Carol,” it includes these words:

O sisters, too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day;
This poor Youngling for whom we sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.

Herod the King, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day;
His men of might, in his own sight,
All children young, to slay.

Then woe is me, poor Child, for Thee,
And ever mourn and say;
For thy parting nor say nor sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.

The song helps retell the sad chapter in the story of the early days of the Savior's mortal life when jealous King Herod, fearful of even rumors of potential rivals for his throne, ordered the slaughter of all of the children in Bethlehem of two years old and younger. Sometime before, Herod had been advised by the wise men of the birth of the future King of the Jews. The wise men mistakenly thought that Herod would rejoice with them at the news of the birth of the Messiah and freely told him what they knew. Under cloak of feigned rejoicing, Herod sent the wise men to Bethlehem, the place prophesied in the scriptures as the city where Christ would be born. He urged them to report back when they found the child, that he might come “and worship him also.” (Matthew 2:8)

But worship was far from what Herod had in mind. Herod’s reaction was typical of many throughout history when confronted by the work of God. He saw only danger to his own power and sought to destroy God’s work if he could. The Lord warned the wise men, who avoided Jerusalem on their way back home. Herod struck out in anger and ordered the death of all of the young babies in Bethlehem. Again as throughout history, Herod missed his mark, for Jesus was no longer there. Joseph, warned by an angel, had taken his little family away to Egypt.

Among those who take it upon themselves to second guess God there are those who would question why God would save His Son, while allowing all those other children in Bethlehem to be slain. Again, these critics miss the mark. They get it wrong by failing to consider the whole picture.

God the Father did not spare His Son from the slaying of the children at Bethlehem. The unfair and cruel carnage begun in David’s city was finished on Calvary. Jesus’ life was spared only momentarily so that it could be offered as the last sacrifice for all. That seemingly doleful song merits an essential place in our Christmas celebration. It points us to the full meaning of Christmas as part of a story that winds through Bethlehem and leads through sorrow in Gethsemane to death on Calvary.

Importantly, the story continues on from there to a glorious resurrection morning on the third day. This saddest of carols reminds us that Christ was born to save us, in spite of the evils of the world that He most of all could not escape, a salvation that extends especially to the children of Bethlehem and to all of the little children of the world.

Of Fairness and Sacrifice

From time to time one or the other of my children would complain that this or that was “unfair.” The complaint could range anywhere from one getting more or less of something than another to being required to do some work or suffer some consequence that another avoided. “Suzy got a higher grade than I did for doing a poorer job.”

Those of course were little examples, the kind that all children seem to face growing up. There were more consequential examples of unfairness as my children matured. Such was the case of one of my children who was denied admission to a particular college to make room for a less qualified but racially-favored applicant. That was unfair to my child, and it was unfair for me, who gets to subsidize with my taxes the government-run college that operates admissions along racist lines.

My explanation to my children for these unfairness episodes usually contained elements of the following. My first point might be, who said life has to be fair? Then I might follow that up with the observation that mortality is all about unfairness. The real issue is how we react to the unfairness, what we do to overcome it.

If given enough opportunity, I could explain that things may appear unfair if we think that the score is final while in fact the game is still going on. Mortality is a small and temporary part of life, and many things that look like advantages here become serious liabilities later. Even in mortality we often see that demonstrated, such as the person who struggling against great opposition as a child develops skills and abilities that lead to far greater success than the person who seems to have an easy childhood. Identifying who had unfair advantage might then become more difficult.

In a discussion with my wife the other day, she pointed out how unfairness lies at the core of sacrifice. That is to say, that a sacrifice is the willing acceptance of unfairness. It is unfair that a mother has to go through so much pain at childbirth, but she sacrifices, she accepts that unfairness, in order to bring a child into the world. It is unfair that a father works at his job to earn an income that he shares with all of the members of his family, but he accepts that unfairness as a sacrifice that he makes for the benefit of his family.

Why does the mother do it? Why does the father do it? If they willingly accept that unfairness, they are making a sacrifice. I have often thought and said that it is hard to love someone for whom you have not sacrificed. I believe that is so, because very often the driving force in that sacrifice is love. We act out our love and make it real as we sacrifice for someone. Loving parents willingly and often sacrifice for their children—most of which sacrifices the parents may not even notice—because of their love for their children, begun by their love for each other. That, by the way, is one of the essential reasons for being organized as families and why no social institution has ever been found that develops love in people more than the family does. That, however, is a topic to fill many discussions on other days.

I think that each of these answers to my children is a good answer, and they are all related. Perhaps the best answer to the unfairness question is that no one in this life escapes unfairness. In fact, the greatest of all, Jesus Christ, suffered the greatest unfairness. He paid the price for all the sins of all who would accept Him, having committed no sin and having caused no offense against anyone. He willingly accepted that unfairness, He volunteered for and carried out that sacrifice, because of His love for us.

With the Savior’s sacrifice, with His acceptance of unfairness, all of the apparent unfairness to all of us is made right. In the end, by accepting the Savior and the power of His sacrifice, all of the unfairness that we might seem to experience is overcome. As the Prophet Joseph Smith proclaimed in April 1843,

All your losses will be made up to you in the resurrection, provided you continue faithful. By the vision of the Almighty I have seen it. (Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.296)

Given that perspective, perhaps the only real and lasting unfairness is the unfairness we may do to ourselves. We cheat ourselves by not accepting the Savior’s sacrifice so freely extended to all of us, by which every unfairness can be overcome.

Of Christ and Christmas Spirit

I find Charles Dickens’ famous Christmas Carol character, Ebenezer Scrooge, usually overly maligned. In the end his only significant fault was that he little appreciated, or enjoyed, what he had. He was a miser, a rich man who lived like a pauper.

Was he so different from you and me, we who possess untold riches, eternal riches, and enjoy so little of them? Oh that we could be visited by angels to stir us from our false poverty! How we would enrich ourselves and the lives of those around us!

It was Scrooge’s admirable nephew, Fred, who first tried to explain to his uncle the joy of Christmas. Do you recall Fred’s words?

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 Christmastime, 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 the people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not some other 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!

Such were the words of nephew Fred, early in the eve before his uncle was to receive the visits of the Christmas spirits. Many await the visitation of Christmas spirits. It seems that each season we hear someone say, “I just can’t seem to get the Christmas spirit this year.”

I have long thought about the Christmas spirit. I may even say that I have given it some study. I have concluded that there is not one Christmas spirit today. I believe that there are at least five Christmas spirits abroad in the world. Although there is only one Christmas spirit that will bring lasting happiness, lasting joy, fortunately it is one that we can have always, anytime we wish, every Christmas, every day.

The first of these Christmas spirits is the HEDONISTIC spirit, the eat, drink, and be merry spirit, the indulging of physical pleasures, an excuse to cast aside restraint, to indulge the appetites and give them a loose reign. Under the influence of this spirit we invoke Christmas to justify things we might not usually do. But if the food is not right or not enough, the music poor, the entertainment inadequate, the money too short, then we might not feel that we have the Christmas spirit, this Christmas spirit. And there is always a price to pay for entertaining this Christmas spirit, a morning after, a bill that comes due, and a satisfaction that fades.

The second Christmas spirit is NOSTALGIA, some longing for the past. In its best form it is the use of tradition to focus our hearts and minds, to gather and strengthen family, to reinforce our worship. Too often, though, it is a sad, often heart rending, sometimes destructive effort to recapture a pleasant experience from the past, whether the pleasant experience really happened or not. From a benign, pleasant musing by the glowing fireside, this spirit uncontrolled can become a brutal dictator. There is almost no limit to the sacrifices it will demand of you and those around you to try to recreate a phantom memory. But the memory is never quite recreated, things are never quite the way we had remembered, and all too soon the favorite ornament is broken, the Christmas tree not quite right, the choir not as good as it was, the dress faded. The sacrifices made and the efforts to recreate the memory are lost but create darker memories of their own.

From nostalgia we come to the third spirit of Christmas, CELEBRATION. We have holidays in order to celebrate, and Christmas has become chief of them all. What would Christmas be without celebration? The Christmas celebrations can range from merriment and frolicking to enjoying the company of others, and on to momentous pageantry and festivity. Times of celebration can be times of great joy, great fun, and bring exhileration to the soul. But this Christmas spirit can be hard to capture. Celebrations can be hit or miss. The event might not come off as planned. An important person might be missing, a part forgotten, the weather might not cooperate, or things might get out of hand, people carried away. After the celebration, there is often a let down and the question, now what?

I believe that the fourth Christmas spirit is GIVING. Christmas giving can range from the mere exchange of gifts—an economic transaction more or less forced—all the way to the generous sharing of the soul in our love for others, rewarded by the joy of being in the service of God, expressing and experiencing the pure love of Christ. Gift giving has been a part of Christmas as long as I can remember or discover. The key here is the intent, the why the gift is being given. The gift is only as good as the why. But as good as the Spirit of Giving is, I believe that we still remain as Ebenezer Scrooge, living far below the enjoyment of the riches available to us if our Christmas rises no further. The spirit of gift giving is available to, and thankfully practiced by, people the world over, Christians or not. Genuine disciples of Christ can live a deeper experience.

Which brings me to the fifth spirit of Christmas, the one I believe to be greatest of all, that incorporates any and all the good of the other spirits, a spirit that “neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal” (3 Nephi 12:20). This Christmas spirit you may always have each and every year—and every day—of your life. It is the spirit of WORSHIP.

By worship I have in mind the full rededication of our souls to the One perfect being who created the earth, who has guided His children throughout its history, who was humbly born into that world, who lived, died, and rose again so that we might have every good thing. Through this worship of Christ we become like Him, we do His works, and we receive His gifts: as the Savior prayed the night before He was crucified, that we “all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.” (John 17:21) In that way we have it all, all that matters, and that is very much.

Of Fasting and Unity

The practice of the fast, particularly of Fast Sunday, among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is a feast of unity. Its chief effect is to reinforce the oneness of the saints. The mechanics of the fast are simple: refrain from food and drink for two consecutive meals, all the while emphasizing prayer and all that directs the heart and mind to God.

First of all, there is a oneness in the voluntary collectivity of the monthly fast. The whole membership of the Church, worldwide, is engaged in the fast together. They are further united in purpose, to bless and provide for the poor and needy while approaching spiritually to God.

The blessing of the poor and needy comes from the donation of the cost of the foregone meals. The entire amount of this donation goes directly to benefit those in need, not a penny used for administrative expenses (administrative costs are borne by the tithing donations of the members). Properly done, there is no cost to the donor, since he is merely offering the financial value of what he would have eaten, and yet there is significant direct and real benefit to the recipients of the donation.

Of even greater significance, though, is that through this fast spirituality increases. I do not refer to a spiritualism of familiar spirits, but rather to a spiritual communion of divinely revealed knowledge through the influence of the Holy Ghost. All observing this fast partake of the same Spirit and are tied together thereby. They increasingly become of one heart and one mind, the heart and mind of Christ. The saints thus know and understand one another. As the Apostle Paul wrote, "ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God" (Ephesians 2:19).

This spiritual growth is manifested in a spiritual feast joined in by all in a special Sunday worship service: the Fast and Testimony meeting. Here the saints share with each other spiritual insights and knowledge of the Savior and His work, revealed to them through the Holy Ghost. These testimonies are born of the Spirit of the Lord that unites the membership of Christ's church. Members give vocal expression to the testimonies obtained by the Spirit, and by that same Spirit these testimonies are received by those who hear. Speaker and listener are both edified and understand one another.

The unifying Spirit, access to which is facilitated by fasting, flows within us, wells up and flows out through the sharing of testimonies--the sharing of spiritual experience--and then is received by that Spirit and continues to flow and to grow within us. Hearts become knit together in mutual testimony of the risen Christ and His mission. This is the communion of the saints.