Celebrating the Plan
In my talk, I would like to share
some of the reasons that Christmas is special to me. Christmas celebrates the coming of Christ,
but how often do we ponder on WHY this should be a joyful season? How often do we ponder on Why Christ came,
and especially his role in the great plan?
Bishop Peterson requested that I
speak a bit about the coming of Jesus in relation to the plan of salvation. As I studied and thought about this, it
occurred to me, in the scriptures and in our teaching we refer to this plan as:
The Plan of Salvation, The Plan of Redemption or The Plan of Happiness. As I pondered on the meaning of these phrases
I reflected on experiences in my own life that make me grateful for the
kindness of our Father in Heaven to design a plan to redeem us and the
generosity of His son to atone for each of us.
I lost my parents when I was in high
school. I still remember how I felt the
spirit bearing witness to me of the things that I was taught as I grew up. I knew that death was not the end. I knew I would see them again. The scriptures have continually been a
blessing to me as they bring me peace during the sorrows I encounter.
Nephi in speaking to his people said:
4 For I know that ye have searched much, many of you, to know of
things to come; wherefore I know that ye know that our flesh must waste away
and die; nevertheless, in our bodies we shall see God.
6 For as death hath passed upon all men, to fulfil the merciful
plan of the great Creator, there must needs be a power of resurrection,
7 Wherefore, it must needs be an infinite atonement--save it
should be an infinite atonement this corruption could not put on incorruption.
10 O how great the goodness of our God, who prepareth a way for
our escape from the grasp of this awful monster; yea, that monster, death and
hell…
12… wherefore, death and hell must deliver up their dead, and hell
must deliver up its captive spirits, and the grave must deliver up its captive
bodies, and the bodies and the spirits of men will be restored one to the
other; and it is by the power of the resurrection of the Holy One of Israel. (2
Nephi 9)
Paul in writing to the Corinthians
praised the Savior with the words:
55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
57
But
thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
(1 Corinthians 1)
The gift of salvation from temporal
death is only one of the aspects of the plan to bring us joy as we ponder on
the great meanings of Christmas. We can
also experience joy as we understand that through Christ we overcome the sins
that separate us spiritually from God.
Paul to the Romans said “For all
have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. Being justified freely by his grace through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:23) King Benjamin taught us:
19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the
fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings
of the Holy Spirit, and putteth of the natural man and becometh a saint through
the atonement of Christ the Lord and becometh as a child, submissive, meek,
humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord
seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.
(Mosiah 3:19)
As we contemplate on these reasons to
be joyful and celebrate the life and mission of Christ this season, I hope that
they lead us to the desire of sharing it with others. The prophet Jacob having great concern for
his people wrote:
5 For because of faith and great anxiety, it truly had been made
manifest unto us concerning our people, what things should happen unto them.
6 And we also had many revelations, and the spirit of much
prophecy; wherefore, we knew of Christ and his kingdom, which should come.
7 Wherefore we labored diligently among our people, that we might
persuade them to come unto Christ, and partake of the goodness of God, that
they might enter into his rest,
(Jacob 1:5-7)
The ANXIETY that Jacob wrote about is
not the kind that gives us stress or anguish, if you listen to the last verse,
their anxiousness led them to labor diligently to bring people to Christ and
partake of God's goodness and enter into His rest. Elder Bednar spoke of this scripture and
taught "Anxiety in this verse means anxious regarding concern." This can be a lesson to us, that our faith
and concern for others can lead us to laboring diligently for the benefit of
others.
This Christmas season many of you
have joined others in accepting the church's challenge to #Lighttheworld by
doing the things that Christ did. These
acts of service bring peace and Joy to others and strengthen our own
testimonies and love of the Savior.
In this year's First Presidency
Devotional, Elder Craig C. Christensen said, "Christmas is not only a celebration of how Jesus came into the world but also of
knowing who He is—our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ—and of why He came." He continues,
"By age 12, His expressed desire was to “be
about [His] Father’s business.” That business was to manifest to the world the
Father’s “great and wonderful love” for His children.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, … that the world through him might be saved.”
His Father’s business was to “[go] about doing
good.” It was a work of compassion—“healing the sick, raising the dead, causing
the lame to walk, the blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear.”
His Father’s business was to open the eyes of our
faith, to arouse our spiritual faculties, and to heal our pain, our pride, our
sickness, and our sins. It was to “succor [us in our] infirmities.” And to
accomplish this, Jesus willingly suffered pain, rejection, afflictions, and
temptations of every kind.
His Father’s business was to help us fulfill our
purpose on earth—to “fit us for heaven,” that we might “live with [Him] there.”
In other words, His Father’s business was—and is—“to bring to pass the
immortality and eternal life of man.”
The
advent and atonement of the Savior and all the acts between He was doing His
father's business. When
the prophet Nephi was blessed to see the birth of Jesus in vision, the angel
asked him, "knowest thou the meaning
of the tree which thy father saw?" At this point I think some things became even
more clear to Nephi and he answered, "Yea, it is the love of
God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of
men; wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things."
Christ came to bring the love of God
to the children of men…to teach each of us the way to happiness. Alma, desiring to preach the gospel more
effectively pleaded,
1 O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart,
that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake
the earth, and cry repentance unto every people!
2 Yea, I would declare unto every soul, as with the voice of
thunder, repentance and the plan of redemption, that they should repent and
come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the
earth. (Alma 29)
Christ not only came to redeem us
from death and hell, but to teach us a better way to live. He taught us through His example of being
about His father's business that we too can have compassion for others and
lighten their load. After being
resurrected and appearing to His disciples, Jesus asked Peter in a very
compelling manor to "feed my sheep". That request was not intended
for only Peter, it was to be handed down and asked of every Christian. We must
all feed His sheep, minister to those around us, show love to the unloved, to
be more like Him.
I pray that each of us may reflect on
the blessings of the plan of happiness, that has been freely and willingly
offered to us through the great and eternal sacrifice of the Only Begotten, our
very own brother, Jesus Christ. May we
share those blessings through our acts of love and compassion to those around
us.
