It is official – the Christmas season is upon us and I couldn’t be happier. Christmas is my favorite season of the year. The early rhythms of the season have already begun. The Tree went up after Thanksgiving and the First Presidency Christmas Devotional was yesterday, on Dec. 6, 2020. In order to celebrate the season for the rest of the month, once a week I will be releasing articles relating to some aspect of Christmas, whether that be historical, spiritual, or other. Hopefully these will help bring the spirit of the season to a greater degree in your life and enrich your knowledge of the season and help deepen your testimony of Christ and His Birth.
This week I thought I would start off my sharing the poem that Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, one of the modern Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ, shared as part of his talk during the aforementioned Christmas Devotional. Elder Holland spent his talk ruminating over the character of both Mary and Joseph and the great as then unrealized potential of the Christ child. At the end of his talk, Elder Holland shared this poem originally published in the December 1907 edition of the now defunct Century Magazine. The authoress, Susie M. Best, appears to be one of those writers who was well-known in her day, publishing many articles, poems, and books, but who has been forgotten with the passage of time. I copy the poem below from the original along with a copy of the original page. After the poem I have included some of my own thoughts on its themes.
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THE MIRACLE DREAMS
by Susie M. Best
That night when in the Judean skies
The mystic star dispensed its light,
A blind man moved in his sleep –
And dreamed that he had sight.
That night when shepherds heard the song
Of hosts angelic choiring near,
A deaf man stirred in slumber’s spell,
And dreamed that he could hear!
That night when in the cattle-stall
Slept Child and mother cheek by jowl,
A cripple turned his twisted limbs,
And dreamed that he was whole.
That night when o’er the new-born Babe
The tender Mary rose to lean,
A loathsome leper smiled in sleep,
And dreamed that he was clean.
That night when to the mother’s breast
The little King was held secure,
A harlot slept a happy sleep,
And dreamed that she was pure!
That night when in the manger lay
The Sanctified who came to save,
A man moved in the sleep of death
And dreamed there was no grave.
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I marvel at the pressures resting upon the Christ child’s shoulders even in the very night of His birth. Imagine being the fulfillment of very man’s hope, every woman’s dream, every person’s yearning for liberation, salvation, and exaltation before you’ve even learned to open your eyes yet. You have this scrunchy faced child, looking like an 80 year old man with male pattern baldness who has somehow been shrunk down to gnome size in that way that almost all newly born male babies look. All he is looking for is His mother’s teat and a nice bed to warmly sleep in, his little shoulders thin as twigs and as easily breakable. Yet, upon them rode everything. All “the hopes and fears of all the years,” met in one person and one place in one time. And that one person couldn’t even hold his head up on his own yet. That is a lot of weight for any adult to carry, moreso for a babe to bear, even the Babe of Bethlehem.
So I can’t imagine what it was like that night around 4 BC when Christ was born. But I know what it means to all of us generally and me specifically. The Prophet Alma taught:
For it is expedient that an atonement should be made; for according to the great plan of the Eternal God there must be an atonement made, or else all mankind must unavoidably perish; yea, all are hardened; yea, all are fallen and are lost, and must perish except it be through the atonement which it is expedient should be made.
For it is expedient that there should be a great and last sacrifice; yea, not a sacrifice of man, neither of beast, neither of any manner of fowl; for it shall not be a human sacrifice; but it must be an infinite and eternal sacrifice.
…And behold, this is the whole meaning of the law, every whit pointing to that great and last sacrifice; and that great and last sacrifice will be the Son of God, yea, infinite and eternal.
Alma 34:9-10, 14
In some sense Jesus was born to die. Even as a baby in the arms of Mary, Jesus was the Christ. He was the only one in all of history who could do what had to be done. No mere mortal could sacrifice himself for the sins of others. We have neither the purity nor the power to do so. Whereas Christ had the ability to hold His Spirit and His Body together even as the brutal pains, sufferings, and punishments of mortality fell upon Him, as He suffered literal Hell itself, you or I would have been crushed beneath such an infinite and eternal load, pulp beneath the sandal of Satan. But Jesus, because His father is the Father, the one we today call God the Father, both physically and spiritual, Jesus could do what was otherwise impossible for all others and endure what no other could endure. He could trod the winepress alone, drain the bitter cup to its foul dregs and then swallow those. He could go through Hell and keep going. Literally.
As a result, He is in every suffering person’s pain. Not as an abstract being, but as one intimate with their suffering and its cure. He has been raped. He has been tortured. He has been stabbed, poisoned, beaten, starved, and murdered. He has had cancer eat away His body until nothing is left but suffering and the hope of its end in death. He has been a paraplegic, a quadriplegic, and been in a vegetative state. He has seen everyone He loves taken from Him. He has lived alone and known that no one loves Him. He has been a slave under the Master’s lash and in the Master’s bed. He has been straight. He has had same-sex attraction. He has had gender dysphoria. He suffered in Auschwitz, stood at ground zero in Hiroshima, and walked the Trail of Tears. In the Garden and on Golgotha, He has been you, he has been me, He has been every person. And by His stripes we can not only be saved, but we can be healed. This isn’t even to touch on how the Resurrection ensures immortality and physical perfection for all, obliterating sickness, illness, handicaps, imperfections, and death.
He Lives by Simon Dewey. Source
Then there are all the blessings. The healings, the teachings, the Gospel, the Church, and every other good thing you can think of that are too numerous to list. I know that my life is the way it is, filled with hope, love, and joy, because of the blessings that have come from accepting the Restored Gospel into my life and living His commandments. And I don’t mean that in an idle generic way. I mean everything from the school to which I went, to the person I married, to where I live, to not drinking or smoking or doing anything else and all the problems and waste of life, time, and wealth that go with those, never having to worry about an STD, HIV, abortion, or a baby out of wedlock thanks to the Law of Chastity, knowing who I am and who I am to become, being able to cut through the confusion of the world, all of it and more comes from Christ, His teachings, His blessings, His work. My life’s course has been laid out before me and like the man in Frost’s poem, I took the path less traveled and it has made all the difference. And I know I am not the only one. In the Restored Church there are millions of us, worldwide billions have benefits from the teachings of Christ in one form or another.
Yes, the night of Christ’s birth was one pregnant with potential and purpose, one that would overthrow the kingdoms of the world not through the taking of life but through the creation of it, one that would found a new kingdom, the Kingdom of Our God and His Christ, not on discord but reconciliation. On this night was born not a prince after the manner of the world, who reigns with blood and horror, but a Prince of Peace. On it everything before and everything since has rested. The hope and purpose of all people and things rested on those slim shoulders.
As we commemorate Christmas every year we celebrate not just His birth but the fact that He bore off that burden victoriously. In that way we are each the blind, the deaf, the disease ridden, the harlot, and the dead dreaming of our new life of purity, healing, and light. Yet, we are not only dreaming, our dreams are becoming our reality through Him as we develop faith in Jesus Christ, repent, are baptized, and receive the Gift of the Holy Spirit – as we are redeemed by Him. To me all these things and more are the very essence and truest meaning of and what I rejoice in most on Christmas. The victory march of the Atonement which climaxed in the Empty Tomb and culminates in Eternity as we sit down upon exalted thrones ourselves began in the Manger of Bethlehem as the Universe paused, took a breath, and acknowledged that her King had been born. You see, Baby Jesus wasn’t simply born to die, He was born to triumph over death and usher in immortality and eternal life, not just Him but for all of those who follow Him. He was born to Live and because He Lives, so shall we!
