How is Christ’s Birth Significant to me
Talk on 12/20/2020
Good Morning Brothers and Sisters &
Merry Christmas! Heavenly Father must
know my preferred method for giving a talk is procrastinating because I have
been called to fill in last minute on many occasions. However, this is the first time it’s happened
on Christmas Sunday. But I am happy to
be here with you and I’m so grateful for technology that allows us to meet and
worship together, especially during this Christmas season. I’m not gonna lie, this is weird speaking on
zoom. I much prefer being together and
making eye contact with you and seeing your encouraging smiles. So please bear with any awkwardness I may have.
When initially asked to speak, Brother Smith
gave me the topic of “How Christ’s birth is significant to me.” My initial response was, could that topic be any broader?
But then gratefully he followed it up with “Particularly from the
prospective of being a mother.” Just him
saying that sentence opened my heart and mind, brought me so much peace and I
actually felt excited to give this talk.
I have had many names, roles, and jobs throughout my life but the one I
hold most dear is that of being a mother.
So taking some time these past few days to reflect on Mother Mary and
her significant & divine role has in turn strengthen my testimony of my own
divine role.
In a talk by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland called
“Behold Thy Mother” (which I’ll be referencing a few times) he said: “Bear, borne,
carry, deliver. These are powerful, heartening
messianic words. They convey help and hope for safe movement from where we are
to where we need to be—but cannot get
without assistance. These words also connote burden, struggle, and
fatigue—words most appropriate in describing the mission of Him who, at
unspeakable cost, lifts us up when we have fallen, carries us forward when
strength is gone, delivers us safely home when safety seems far beyond our
reach.…But can you hear in
this language another arena of human endeavor in which we use words like bear and borne, carry and lift, labor and
deliver?” Oct 2015
I’ve thought a lot about that first
Christmas night during the past month as I’m sure most of you have. I really love the newest video of the
nativity, it is called “The Christ Child.”
Hopefully you all have been able to see it by now, if not I encourage
you to watch it today. I love the
feelings this short yet powerful video gives me. It helps me see and feel and almost witness
the birth of Christ in a new way. But
one of the main reasons I love it is how it portrays Mary. Large with child not happily meandering until
He comes but we can see these word’s Elder Holland uses come to life. We see her bear, carry, labor and then
deliver. We see the pain and struggle
that went along with that most glorious night.
Having had the sacred privilege of
bearing my own children I can relate to this video. It somehow captures how
difficult it was for Mary, how unfavorable the circumstances, yet also shows us
the miracle that it was and the peace and joy that followed. Despite how long it may last, or how painful
it is, deliverance comes and when it does comes an abundance of God’s love follows
(And I feel like it is important to note that that is true for any kind of deliverance,
not just birth). When a new child is born the distance between heaven and earth
seems so small. I feel so lucky that one
of my dear friends just had a baby a month ago and even though I wasn’t there
for the delivery just holding that brand new baby who is so fresh from heaven reminds
me how thin the vail is. Holding her
reminds me again of how much God loves us.
And isn’t that what Christmas is truly about, God’s love for us.
John 3:16
16 For God so loved the world, that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not
perish, but have everlasting life.
A question I pondered while studying
is how do we know God Loves us?
How does he show us? Elder M. Russell Ballard said: “A mother’s nurturing love arouses in
children, from their earliest days on earth, an awakening of the memories of
love and goodness they experienced in their pre-mortal existence,” he
declares. “Because our mothers love us, we learn, or more accurately [we]
remember, that God also loves us.”
I Love this quote. I have never thought about God’s love like
this before. I have thought about it
from the perspective of a parent and how after you have a child you feel like
you actually get a glimpse of how much our Heavenly Parents love us because we
love our kids more than we ever thought possible. That is an eye opening and significant
experience that teaches us how much God loves us. But I LOVE this notion that our children
learn God loves them because WE LOVE THEM.
Let me read the quote one more time, “From their earliest days on earth,
an awakening of the memories of love and goodness they experienced in their
pre-mortal existence, because our mothers love us, we learn, or more accurately
[we] remember, that God also loves us.”
It’s so interesting to think about
Mary’s role in raising the Christ child.
I feel like we know a lot about her divine call to motherhood, and how
righteous and faithful she must have been to have even been entrusted with such
a calling, but we don’t know much about her as a mother beyond the birth. We get a little glimpse of how she must have
worried about Him the day he goes missing in Jerusalem. She soon discovers He was just teaching on
the steps of the temple. Oh how I wish
we had more accounts of His childhood not only so we can learn from the boy
Christ, but so we can learn how she mothered Him. But I love His nonchalant response, “Why did
you seek me? Don’t you know that I must be about my Father’s Business?” (Luke 2:49) I can picture a
similar conversation between me and my oldest boy who would have been about the
same age as Christ in this story. Me wondering around the house calling for him
only to find him doing his homework and saying “I’m just doing what you asked
me to do.” Obviously very different
scenarios, but the tone in Christ voice reminds me that He really still was a
child. Yes divine, yes perfect, but
still a child. I can only imagine what it must have been like
to be Mary. I feel like I’m learning
from my children every day, imagine how she must have felt. How humble she must have been.
Many past prophets have spoken
specifically of the powerful love of a mother.
President Heber J. Grant said: “There seems to be a
power which the mother possesses in shaping the life of the child that is far
superior… A mother’s love seems to be the most perfect and the most sincere, the
strongest of any love we know anything about.”
And then Elder Holland said: “No
love in mortality comes closer to approximating the pure love of Jesus Christ
than the selfless love a devoted mother has for her child. When Isaiah,
speaking messianically, wanted to convey Jehovah’s love, he invoked the image
of a mother’s devotion. “Can a woman forget her sucking child?” he asks. How
absurd, he implies, though not as absurd as thinking Christ will ever forget
us.7”
Now please don’t take these quotes
the wrong way, I am not trying to give a mother’s day talk. I make comparisons not to belittle what
Christ has done but to help us better understand the magnitude of what He has done. I think it is a significant
perspective to think about as we ponder Christmas and the love of God. It is clear to me from these quotes that in
order to really understand how God loves us, or how Christ loves us, we must
understand how our mothers love us and ponder how we as a mothers & fathers
love our children. As we come to know
and better understand this love we will more fully comprehend God’s love for us
and all mankind. In understanding the
divine role of a mother, we better understand the role Christ plays in each of
our lives.
I want to end by bringing it back to
those words Elder Holland shared, “Bear, borne,
carry, & deliver. These
words describe a burden, struggle, and fatigue. They convey help and hope for
safe movement from where we are to where we need to be—but cannot get without assistance.”
This is what Christ does for us.
He takes us from where we are no matter how broken or how far off the
path we might be and He either bears us up until we make it through or get
headed back in the right direction, or maybe He even carries us the whole way. It is not easy, in fact it is a struggle for
both of us and we cannot get through it without His help. It is only through
Christ that we can be delivered from any sin, pain, trail, or sorrow that we
may experience. But when we make it
through, when we are delivered, we will feel that Love of God again and we will
be that much closer to Heaven.
So why is Christ’s
birth significant to me? In a nutshell,
because it is how I know God loves me & wants me to live with Him
again. I pray that each of you will take
some time to ponder how much God loves you.
I pray that the spirit will testify to you that He does love you. I hope you will think about how He truly gave
us the greatest gift, that of His Son and it is a gift that we can never repay.
But instead we can live worthy of the Gift.
Live worthy of the Sacrifice that He so freely gave. And I pray that we
can all share His gift with the world, especially during this Christmas season
but really all year. Because it truly is
only through Him that long lasting Deliverance, peace and joy can be found.
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