December 24, 2018 - Week 28

Hi Jon.

We've had a busy week with wedding preparations and Christmas. I skied on Monday and Friday thinking that the conditions were going to be not great but actually they were awesome. We haven't had snow in two weeks so I thought the base would have diminished but the groomed runs I love were nearly perfect. The overcast skies quickly cleared and we got lots of sun so the skiing was amazing.

Heber's family arrived from Germany and we went to Illuminaria at Thanksgiving Point with them. They also came to church with us for the Christmas program and then we had a dual family Sunday dinner at our house afterwards.

BYU played their bowl game on Friday and it was the best game of the season by far. Zach Wilson completed 18 for 18 passes which is unprecedented and Tanner Mangum played his last game as a Cougar and also finished perfect and led a touchdown drive. It was a great game.

I love Christmas because I love the Savior. I'm so proud that you are serving Christ this year even if it means you can't be here with us. I want to share with you some of my feelings about Jesus Christ.

Before Jesus became the Holy Babe of Bethlehem, He was the firstborn Son of God. In the councils of heaven, Jesus was chosen and ordained to be the Savior of the human race, the Redeemer of a world that didn’t yet exist. 

Jesus Christ was God the Creator, the God who revealed Himself to Adam and Enoch. He was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the God of Israel, and the God of Ephraim and Judah; He was the God who made Himself known to the prophets from Moses to Malachi; He was the God of the Old Testament and the God of the Nephites. Jesus Christ was Jehovah, the Eternal One.

Knowest thou the condescension of God? This is the question an angel asked the prophet Nephi before showing him a vision of Mary holding the baby Jesus in her arms. Condescension means to descend or come down from an exalted position to a place of inferior station. 

Jesus voluntarily descended to be born of mortal woman, even though He was glorified and exalted. Jesus voluntarily descended to be baptized of man, even though He was perfect and sinless. Jesus voluntarily descended to minister to the humblest of the humble, even though He was exalted. Jesus voluntarily descended to subject Himself to the will of the Father, suffering Himself to be tempted, mocked, scourged, cast out, and disowned, even though He was all-powerful. Jesus voluntarily descended to be judged of the world, even though He was the Judge OF the world. Jesus voluntarily descended to be lifted on the cross and slain for the sins of the world, even though no man could take away His life.

The great God of the universe submitted Himself to the infirmities of mortality to suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death. How much love did Jesus have to be willing to do that for us?

The fall of Adam and Eve brought into our mortal experience pain, sorrow, grief, and sickness. During His ministry on Earth, Jesus performed more than 35 miracles, many involving healing people who were sick, blind, or disabled.

As a young missionary, I knew very little about the power of Christ to heal our bodies and our hearts. One day in the Provo Missionary Training Center, my zone was playing volleyball and Sister White broke her ankle after jumping to spike the ball. She was supposed to go to Chile in two weeks, but the doctor said her recovery would take several months and that she would have to be reassigned to another mission. Heartbroken, she needed a priesthood blessing and out of all the elders in our zone, she decided to ask me. At that time in my life, I had little understanding about what priesthood power could do, but the spirit told me that Sister White needed to be in Chile. 

I had recently read the records of Jesus healing people in the New Testament and we had been learning discussions about how the same power Jesus that used was given to Joseph Smith and could be passed down into our families through the priesthood. So with the assurance I felt from the Spirit, I put my hands on Sister White’s head, gave her the blessing, and two weeks later she boarded a plane for Chile on schedule. I bear witness that priesthood power healed Sister White and I saw it with my own eyes.

In addition to injury and illness, the Fall of Adam and Eve introduced an even more serious problem - Death. Death touches every one of us. It may claim us in infancy or youth, in life’s prime, or deferred until old age. It may occur by accident or disease, by violence, or through natural causes. But come it must - and nobody is exempt. Born of a mortal mother, Jesus inherited the capacity to die; Begotten by an immortal Father, He possessed the power to withstand death indefinitely. 

What other man has lived with power to withstand death, over whom death could only prevail through his own submission? Yet Jesus Christ could not be slain until He voluntarily surrendered His life. Jesus was the first to pass from death to immortality. And following His resurrection, many others who had previously died arose, not as spirit-apparitions, but as resurrected beings possessing immortalized bodies:

Several years ago, I accepted a priesthood assignment to home teach the family of Rex and Elaine Peterson. Their family went to church every Sunday and I didn’t understand why they even needed a home teacher at all. But I visited them every month and I grew to love their family. After I had been their home teacher for two years, their 13 year old daughter, Charity, began to have some physical difficulties. After taking several unexplained falls at school, Charity was taken to a specialist who diagnosed her with ALS. As Charity’s disease progressed, her family was suffering a lot and our ward decided to hold a special fast. At the end of our fast, our entire ward joined together in the Relief Society room and knelt to say a prayer. I was very surprised when Brother Peterson pulled me aside and asked me to say the prayer. He told me that their family was asking for a full recovery. 

But this time felt a lot different to me than the blessing I had given to Sister White as a missionary.  I felt that a full recovery was not what Heavenly Father had in store, even though it was what the Petersons wanted. All I could do was to ask Heavenly Father to heal our hearts and to heal our ward and to help us accept his will, whatever it would be. 

That year our ward witnessed a miracle. It wasn’t the miracle we wanted, but the miracle we received was that our ward became more united than it had ever been before, with continuous acts of service and love. When Charity passed away, we felt a peaceful assurance that the Peterson family was not being torn apart but being bonded together forever, with a strength that could never be broken by death. Through that experience, I learned a great lesson about faith and gained a stronger testimony about home teaching.

When the healing power of Jesus Christ does not work the way we want it to, it is natural sometimes to feel abandoned by the very person we were counting on for help. 

There is a well-known poem, you may have heard before, that describes a man walking on the beach. Across the dark sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand, one belonging to him and one belonging to the Lord. At the end of the beach, he looked back at the footprints in the sand and noticed that at many times along the path of his life, especially at the very lowest and saddest times, there was only one set of footprints.

He asked the Lord, why did you leave me when I needed You the most? The Lord answered him saying, during the worst times of your life when you saw only one set of footprints, it was when I was carrying you. 

The Christmas message I want to share with you today cannot be found in the book of Matthew or in the Book of Luke. It is written in the book of David, and I don’t mean psalms. It is written from my heart, from my faith, and from my experiences. My message to you is that Jesus has NOT left us alone. Just like in the poem, Jesus carries us when we need Him the most.

Jesus was with me when I blessed Sister White that her ankle would heal. I felt Him with me in the temple on my wedding day when I had cold feet and was about to bolt for the door. I heard Him say, be still, this will be the best decision you ever make and it will change the outcome of your life and all of eternity.

Jesus was with me when the doctor said my baby girl was very sick, and He carried me through a long drive in the middle of the night, speeding her to the emergency room. He carried me when I laid my hands on her head and I felt Him by my side until the doctor came out and told us she was going to be okay.

Jesus carried me the day my phone screen said Javier was in grave danger and they were doing an emergency c-section to get him out. 

Jesus was with me when my dad called and said they just found out that mom has cancer and there isn’t much they can do for her. Jesus carried me through that darkest year of my life and He carried me the night I held her hand from dusk until dawn right before she slipped away.

How can any one of us bear our tragedies, our grief, and our pain without Him by our side?

I wish that I was there on that silent night.

I wish I could have seen the star in David's town.

That Savior in the manger changed everything.

Sin you have no sting.

Hell you have no power.

Curse you are no more.

Because the son of God has NOT left us alone.

He'll live and die and rise again and then he'll bring us home.

The old will pass away and we will become new.

So go and tell the world that death has died.

Because Jesus is alive.

Love,

Dad