CHRISTMAS MESSAGE 2014

December 25, 2014

By: Norberto Betita

The nativity---from Google

We are once again celebrating the glorious event, even the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. However, as we go by the excitements of the celebration and run through the tide of commercialism that accompanies the festivities we seemed to forget the true and real message that the joyous season brings. There still appeared in commercial advertisements and even in our personal posts and greetings in the social media the word XMAS, palpably and deliberately eliminating the very name of the Christ which is the true spirit of the season. It is a continued clear indication and blatant disregard of the very personage whose birthday we joyfully celebrate. To eliminate the first syllable and mark it as X is kind of an insult to the celebrant of whose birthday the word Christmas was formed. 

Recently I attended a birthday party of a friend. All of those who speak acknowledged and cited the name of the celebrant honoring him. In contrast, I once attended a Christmas party of a group of intellectuals with their families. All who spoke during the program acknowledged the names of the guests and the most prominent, but I never heard them even mentioned in passing the name of Jesus Christ, until it was my part to speak and I reminded all of those present that we need to remember the celebrant even Jesus Christ. Then I quoted for them the nativity of Jesus Christ as it is recorded in chapter 2 of the gospel of Luke. It is sad that until this time this type of merry making---forgetting the Christ during Christmas, is still common in the world. 

From google

The Lord Jesus Christ was denied the comfort of even just an available room for His mother to give Him birth and for Him to lie on. Instead he was afforded an animal stable where he was finally given birth and was “wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid…in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7). In that most humble nativity there appeared an angel from on high and together with Heavenly hosts praising God announced the glorious tidings of great joy saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men” (Luke 2:14) He was long prophesied to be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, but since that humble birth, He was simply known as the carpenter’s son. He walked the lonely road of Jericho, performed miracles for the lonely, the distressed, and the afflicted. On one occasion, He performed miracles to ten lepers, but only one ever returned to express gratitude to Him by whose miraculous and powerful hands relieved the men from their sufferings and afflictions.

We wonder if we even have the Lord, His mission and His sacrifices, come into our thoughts at this blessed season of the year. We wonder if even one out of ten had ever raised their voices of gratitude after He suffered in the garden of Gethsemane and died on the cross at Calvary’s hill, saving us from our sins that we might not suffer even as He suffered.

From google

Materialism flaunt even more clearly each Christmas. The humility and simplicity exemplified by Jesus Christ at His birth is now seen as a pathetic display of prideful sumptuous feasts and commercial covetousness. While we celebrate the birth of the one who exhorts us to “lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees” (D & C 81:5), and who reminded us that if we would do these unto one of the least of the brethren we have done it to Him (see Matthew 25:37-40), we spend more for our own self- gratification and overindulgence.

The Lord Jesus Christ whose birthday we celebrate would rather, that we remember Him in daily quiet reflections of His Atoning Sacrifice not only until the end of the festive season but the whole year through. MERRY CHRISTMAS!