10/12/2020
Christmas is nigh:
Heralding the Christmas season during the final weeks of an unprecedented year, President Russell M. Nelson and other church leaders addressed a virtual audience about the love, peace, knowledge and joy that comes at this special time of year.
President Nelson began his remarks, offered during this time “when virtually every person in the world has suffered the effects of a global pandemic,” by thanking all who heard and responded to his recent invitation to flood social media with expressions of gratitude.
“Millions responded,” said President Nelson, who on Nov. 20 invited all to and unite in thanking God through daily prayer.
President Dallin H. Oaks, first counsellor in the First Presidency, commented:
“We enter this beautiful Christmas season after a challenging and difficult year,” he said. “We sincerely pray that you will be blessed to experience the peace and hope that comes through the Atonement and redeeming love of our Savior.”
Offering the concluding address during the annual devotional, President Nelson spoke of God who gave his only begotten son so that “whosoever believeth in him should not perish,” and the Son who promised that “whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.
Christmas evokes wonderful memories, he continued.
“Truly, that blessed night more than two millennia ago was a night made holy by the birth of one who was foreordained to bring peace to this earth and to inspire good will among men. Jesus Christ was born to bless all humankind, past, present and future.”
The first Christmas was a “night of wondering awe” when “the hopes and fears of all the years’ were met in the dreams of Bethlehem.”
The irony of the quiet, unpublicized scene was “the fact that no baby had ever been born about whom so much was already known, of whom so much had already been written, and regarding whom so much was already expected”.
The newborn babe was the firstborn of the Father in the world of spirits, foreordained to be the Lamb “slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8).
He would be the grand Jehovah of the Old Testament. His names would include “Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (2 Nephi 19:6).
“He was the Alpha and Omega in the great plan of mercy who would eventually ‘preach good tidings unto the meek; … bind up the broken-hearted, … proclaim liberty to the captives, and (open) the prison to them that are bound,’” (Revelation 21:6).
Recognizing that many this Christmas are isolated or away from family due to the present world conditions, Elder Nielson said, “No matter our circumstances, no matter where we are, and no matter how we may be separated from family or friends, we will remember that he, the Saviour Jesus Christ, is the gift.”
Contributing: Rachel Sterzer Gibson, Sydney Walker