I Thought We Were Beyond This

This is from a recent survey conducted by Trinity College:

The context in which this chart was originally brought to my attention was showing the increase from 1990 to 2001 and from 2001 to 2008 in Americans claiming to have “No religion“.  You know, the “secularization” of America and all that jazz.

I always like to look at surveys like this and see where Latter-day Saints get categorized.  Are we put with the Protestants, just plain Christians, or Pentecostals?  

I thought we were beyond categorizations such as the one in this survey by Trinity College.

Mormons aren’t Catholic — Duh.

Mormons aren’t Baptist — OK, I’m still with you.

Mormons aren’t mainline Christians — I guess I can agree with that.

I figured I’d find the Church here in generic Christian — Nope.

Mormons aren’t Pentecostal/Charismatic??  I always thought of myself as a charismatic kind of guy.

Here we go, I thought I had found the category the Church would be in.  Surely we could find ourselves with Jehovah’s Witnesses.  Right?  Wrong.  Keep looking.

OH!!  Here we are — Other.  Other, really?  

Trinity College honestly put the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the same category as:

Jews,
Buddhists/Hindus,
Muslims,
and those who refused to answer. 

I thought we were beyond this.  Is there any legitimate person in the field of religion that seriously still puts Latter-day Saints into the “non-Christian” category?  Do you know what Jews, Buddhists, and Muslims all have in common?  They all deny the divinity of Jesus Christ.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been telling people about their strong faith and devotion to Jesus Christ since 1830 [When the Church was organized!].  The Church has been ramping up this campaign as of recent decades — because for some reason, after having “Jesus Christ” in the name of our Church, people still haven’t gotten the idea.

With things like this coming out from other “Christians“, it really makes me not care whether we are perceived as being Christians or not.  We are who we are.  I thought we were beyond all this.

Lustful Tragedy

Like a small rock in my shoe, I find that minor quibbles that I have wreak more havoc on my psyche than the large issues.  For example, the Civil War was not a civil war.  When the United States of America declares war on another country, i.e. the Confederate States of America, it is not “civil” war.  Also, the third Monday in February was established by Congress to be a Federal holiday.  The legal name of the holiday was defined as “Washington’s Birthday”.  His actual birthday is February 22^nd, and the third Monday is set aside as a holiday to commemorate the Father of our Country.  There are many Presidents that we have had that do not deserve to have a holiday in their memory.  Calling the day “President’s Day” dilutes the significance and removes the recognition owed to the first President of our Country.

These are minor.

When I noticed that “Banished!!” is my most popular post, it reminded me of another rock in my shoe:

There is a song playing on popular radio titled “Love Story” by Taylor Swift.   Throughout the song, references are made to the man in the song being Romeo and the lady in the song being Juliet.  It bothers me that youth will refer to Romeo and Juliet as a love story. 

Shakespeare had two types of plays [For the sake of my argument, I am purposefully leaving out the third category of History]:  comedy and tragedy.  In comedies, everyone falls in love, lives, and laughs – basically nothing happens.  In tragedies, everyone gets angry and jealous and people die.  The story of two teenagers meeting, falling in love, getting married, having sex, and killing themselves – all in the span of three days – is not a love story.  When Shakespeare says from the very get go:
“ From forth the fatal loins of these two foes 
    A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life; 
    Whole misadventured piteous overthrows 
    Do with their death bury their parents’ strife. 
    The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love, 
    And the continuance of their parents’ rage, 
    Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,”
He is telling us that this is a tragic tale of the cost of bitter family feuding and unbridled teenage passion.  It is neither romantic nor is it an idealistic love story.

Love does not incite suicide.  Romeo’s condition of banishment could have been a time for him to strengthen his love for Juliet.  But their feelings were based on lust, not on love.  They say that absence is to love what wind is to a fire — it puts out the small ones and enlarges the big ones.

The tale of Romeo and Juliet remind me of that of Amnon and Tamar in 2 Samuel 13.  The burning passion that Amnon felt for Tamar is described in verse 2:
“Amnon was so vexed, that he fell sick for his sister Tamar; for she was a virgin…“ 

Amnon and his buddy Jonadab concoct a plan whereby Amnon will pretend to be sick, ask that his sister be brought to his house to take care of him, and then entice her to have sex with him there on the bed.

When faced with his proposal to “lie with me“, Tamar doesn’t exactly tell him “no”, but just tells him not to go about it in this way.  If Amnon is serious about his affection for Tamar, then he should just ask the king’s permission and “put a ring on it“.

His lust overpowered her reason and he “would not hearken unto her voice: but, being stronger than she, forced her, and lay with her.”

Verse 15 is the one that hits the story home for me:
“ Then Amnon hated her exceedingly; so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her. And Amnon said unto her, Arise, be gone.”

Love would have endured in patience.  Amnon took her virginity not because he loved her, but merely to “consume it in his lusts“.  Lust takes the feelings of affection and turns them over into feelings of hatred.

Is Amnon’s plan to pretend to be sick to lie with Tamar any more absurd than the Friar’s plan for Juliet to pretend to be dead and then to have Romeo pick her up and live with her happily ever after in Mantua?  

The story of Romeo and Juliet ends tragically because lust is tragic emotion.  Tamar’s other brother Absalom had Amnon killed.  These are tragedies — not love stories.

 

Return to the Garden

I learned some lessons about the nature of sin in my last post, Garden of Weedin’.  

I was outside this afternoon and the clovers have taught me something new.  If sin is not fully removed from your life — then it will return.

This is a picture of a spot of my grass that, to my knowledge, was devoid of clovers two days ago.  Apparently I had left a bit of one clover plant.  I couldn’t see it, but it was there.  All it took as two days and the plant is completely regrown.

Isn’t sin like that?  If it is not pulled out by the root, then it always will rear its head again some time soon.

I decided to research how I could get rid of these weeds other than pulling them, so there’d be no risk of me missing some and then the clovers taking back over.

This, too, taught me something about the nature of sin.  I was reading on this website, that clovers do poorly in fertile soil.  According to the website, “The best defense against any weed, clover included, is a healthy lawn.”

In my experience, the best defense against the spread of sin is a mind that is feed the nutrients of the Gospel.  Scripture study, Church attendance, etc. keep our soil fertile and keep the weeds away.

Our own actions [picking the weeds by hand] are futile in keeping sin [the weeds] away.  It takes the Gospel of Jesus Christ [nitrogen-rich fertilizer] to keep our souls clean [weed-free].

No wonder Adam was given a world with weeds — look how much you can learn from weed pickin’ in the backyard.

Garden of Weedin’

The weather around here is warming up, and I’ve been doing some outside yard maintenance.  The yard has gone more or less neglected over the winter and I quickly noticed that something had taken over the ground in my backyard.

You know, you always hear that clovers are associated with luck – four-leaf clovers, etc.  It is estimated that a four-leaf clover occurs in 1 in every 10,000 clovers.  This rarity may, in fact, be why they began to be considered lucky.  During my research on this topic, I learned that  according to legend, Eve carried a four leaf clover from the Garden of Eden.

This is what I typically think of when I think of clovers.  I say “typically” because I have now had personal experience with a backyard covered in clovers.

You see, the clover plant also has stickers that become dry and pointy come summer time.  Anyone who had football practice during High School in Texas will know about doing bear-crawls in the practice field.  This led to palm-fulls of stickers from these clover plants.

Remembering this, I began working on ridding my back yard of the clover plants before it gets too hot and my daughter goes to play barefoot outside.  During my weed-pulling, I learned an interesting lesson I will now share with you.

I would see a string of clover plant and pull it out.  As I did so, I would notice that particular string was attached to many others.  In fact, I noticed that one clover plant would span out with a 5-12 inch radius from a central root.  This root was dug in about 2-3 inches.  An entire section of our backyard was completely covered with not more than 20-25 clover plants.

The Spread:
Can’t our sins be likened to the growth of this weed?  If left alone, don’t our sins grow from one initial act of disobedience into a widespread, all-encompassing life of sin?

Think about King David.  The root of his sin began as he “arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of [his] house“.  For starters, his country is at war.  Should he not be with the men of Israel?  Besides it is late at night, he should be asleep, nevertheless, he is awake and trouble is sure to find you in such a circumstance.  Secondly,  ”he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.”  Like an internet pop-up or an inappropriate commercial, we are in positions all the time where, when tired, the sight of “a woman washing herself” tempts us to pursue sinful deeds when we should really just go get back in bed.  Instead of doing just that, David then “[sends] and [enquires] after the woman“.  Instead of reacting like Joseph when he was in Potiphar’s house, David goes to enquire after the hot, naked woman he has just been lusting over.  Thus, David’s story culminates as he decides to “lay with her“.  And like the story of Macbeth, David’s is down-hill from there.  He ends up getting her pregnant, having her husband killed so he can marry her, and losing his exaltation in the process.

What began at one small point, spread to infect his entire eternal existence.

The Depth:
Not only did the clovers spread around the yard with a wide radius, they also dug in deep with a long tap-root.  How deep do my sins go?  How ingrained into my character have I allowed sin to become thru my own negligence of the situation?

We have a fallen nature.  Sin travels deep.  So deep, in fact, that we are incapable of “pulling our own weeds” so to speak.

Working out this analogy is what passed the time as I pulled a yard-full of weeds.  I thought of the command to “harden not our hearts“, and to “have broken hearts“.  Like soil, do our hearts need to be broken occasionally to prevent them from becoming too hard?  Isn’t this whole analogy the point of Matthew 13?  Are we good soil or poor soil for the word to be planted into?  Are we growing in faith like the mustard seed?  Are we a wheat or a tare?

When Adam got his new instructions pertaining to this life, they involved this theme of yard work and weed pulling.  To contrast the Garden of Eden which brought forth only that which was pleasing to the eye and the belly of man, Adam was told what he could expect of the earth in mortality:  ”Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.”  There would now be weeds for man to learn lessons about diligence and watchfulness.  Instead of the Garden of Eden which brought forth its fruit spontaneously, Adam would have to till the earth and work the soil to reap a harvest in mortality.  What valuable lessons this condition of mortality can teach us.

Have you weeded your garden lately?

Mawwiage and Wuv, True Wuv

Beyonce tells some man in a new song:
“Cause if you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it.” 
The message of the song being that a man can’t be mad to see an ex-girlfriend with another guy when he wouldn’t propose to her.

I suggest a modified quote — “If you like it then you should put a ring on it“.

Between homosexuals wishing to be married and heterosexuals finding it to be better to just live together and have sex together without all the legal particulars — no one seems to take marriage seriously.

I work with many other twenty-something people in the frameshop at Hobby Lobby.  Many of them are at the point in a relationship where they should be getting married.  Many of them even tell me that they want to get married to their girlfriend/boyfriend.  My first response?  ”Well then, why don’t you marry them?”  Inevitably it is because of school or money or family or some other excuse.  If you can live with and have sex with a person while still in school, with a part-time job, and with unapproving parents, then you can be married to that same person.  It’s like they are all awaiting some grand sign in the Heavens that will reveal that this person is right for them.  A marriage is based on choice.  I choose my wife and she chooses me.

The old adage goes:  ”Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?”  That is the principle the people I work with are living.  Why go thru a ceremony to “be married” when there seems to be no value placed on the institution of marriage in our society.  Marriage is being made out to be some convient social arrangement or contract.

As ordained by God, marriage is to be between a man and a women.  It is intended to be a high and holy ordinance preformed in a Temple of God.  It is not intended to be “until death do you part”, but instead, for time and all eternity.

Beyonce probably didn’t mean her lyric to be taken along the interpretation road that I have taken it on, but I say that I must agree:

If you like it, then you should put a ring on it.

Choice – A Godly Endowment

This is part 3 in my 3-part post on Chaos, Chance, and Choice.

Freedom of choice.  This is the issue that the War in Heaven was about.  This is what our Constitution is designed to protect. 

Choice.

Adam and Eve had a choice.  Cain had a choice.  The people in Noah’s day had a choice.  Sodom and Gomorrah had a choice.  Pilate had a choice.  The murders who stormed Carthage Jail had a choice.

Harvey Dent had a choice.  He chose to allow himself to become corrupted by the Joker.  I discussed previously that Harvey Dent is the type for those who are tempted here on Earth and do not endure.  He is mankind without a Savior.

If the Joker is the Devil and Dent is mankind with no Savior — then Batman is the Savior.

When Bruce Wayne is considering giving in to the demands of the Joker, he asks Alfred:
 ”What would you have me do?”
Alfred answers:
“Endure, Master Wayne.  Take it.  They’ll hate you for it, but that’s the point of Batman…he can be the outcast.  He can make the choice no one else can face.  The right choice.”
Because Batman is a symbol, an archetype, he is more than Bruce Wayne can be.  Our Savior, too, is more than any man can be.  Jesus Christ came to this earth and voluntarily became the outcast and made the choice that no one else could face — the choice to endure.

Joseph Smith taught that the contention in Heaven at the foundation of the world was that Satan said that he would ensure that all would return to live with Heavenly Father, and Jesus Christ said that some would not make it back.

So does that mean that Jesus brought all this on us?  Many atheists believe the “problem” of evil proves to be the undoing of God’s existence.  Does it?  Not when we understand that the same free-choice that allows me to sin is the same free-choice that is required to have a loving, covenant relationship with Heavenly Father.  Without my capacity to sin, I would have no capacity for love.

The Joker felt that chaos was the only thing that is fair.  It is equally random and damaging to all.  
Harvey Dent felt that chance was the only way to establish fairness.  Equal chances for all.
Batman knew that choice was the only source of equality and fairness.

When Batman is trying to talk down Harvey Dent, Dent makes his appeal to chance being unbiased and unfair.  Batman points out:
“Nothing fair ever came out of a barrel of a gun, Dent.  What happened to Rachel wasn’t chance.  We decided to act.  We three.  We knew the risks and we acted as one.  We are all responsible for the consequences…You are fooling yourself if you think you are letting chance decide. You’re the one pointing the gun, Harvey.”

Batman makes his ultimate move as Gotham’s “Savior” when, after “dying”, he comes back and saves Gordon’s family from murder.  However, Harvey Dent has made some terrible choices.  All the good that he has fought for must now be undone.  The people of Gotham will loose hope.
“No they won’t,” says Batman.
For, you see, Satan can’t win. 
“I killed those people.  That’s what I can be…I’m whatever Gotham needs me to be.“
Batman takes Dent’s sins upon himself.  He bears the burden because he can.
“You’ll hunt me…You’ll condemn me, set the dogs on me...” 
Batman is condemned and cast out because he can take it.  He can continue to do what is best for the city even if they hate him.  He is the hero they need…not the one they might want to have. 

God has endowed mankind with freedom of choice and moral agency.  Everyday we make choices.  Biologically we are only capable of thinking about one thing at a time; our eyes are only able to focus on one object in our field of vision at a time; we can only listen to one thing at a time; we can only be in one place at a time.  This is on purpose.  With each act or thought, with each passing moment, we are showing where our heart and our focus is.  Are we serving God or mammon?  Are we seeking wisdom or riches?  This is the doctrine of the Two Ways.  You must either love one or hate the other.  Here on Earth we might be on neutral territory.  Both God and Satan invite and entice us to their side equally — b/c if it was unequal there would really not be a choice.  Even thought we are on this “middle territory”, there is not a middle road to take.  To the extant you are turning to one, you are turning your back on the other.

What do your choices say about you?

Power, Lies, and Corruption

 

“Power corrupts; Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
An oft-quoted phrase when referring to politicians or CEOs.  The implication being that great men are generally bad men.  I was reminded of this proverb when I was watching a Discovery channel show on TV about the brain.  The show presented a statistic:  ”One out of every 100 Americans are psychopaths.”  Well, approx. 3 million Americans are not serial killers — so what does this statistic mean?  The show explained that, by far, psychopaths are not the Mansons and Bundys of society.  Psychopaths are characterized by risky behavior, lacking an ability to internalize social norms, and a large identity of self.  Very few are on the continuum of cold, heartless murderers — psychopaths tend to become our politicians and our CEOs.  They are the money-makers and the big-wiggers.  

 

However, according to the December issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, this truism is no longer true.  Much like marital faithfulness, chastity, honesty, etc. — the corruptive power of power is apparently an old-fashioned wife’s tale.  According to the article at livescience.com about the study:
“Strike one against the idea that ‘Washington insiders’ are corrupted by power and can no longer think independently.  Rather, new research based on experiments with college students who were primed to feel powerful suggests that, at least in some cases, power tends to shield people from outside opinions, leaving them to rely more on their own insights.“ 

It seems that an experiment with college students has reversed what has been intuitively and historically true about power corrupting.  This article is immediately linked with President Obama:
“It also suggests President-elect Barack Obama may be shielded from the influence of advisors once he is sworn in this January, said researcher Joe Magee of New York University.  Our research suggests that people may not need to worry too much about power corrupting Obama,” Magee said. “His newfound power might enable the change he desires rather than that power changing him instead.“
So the realization that power actually never has corrupted, as common sense would suggest, is overturned now that Barack Obama is elected President.  Apparently the lesson learned with George W. Bush is immediately forgotten as we anoint this corrupt-less leader.

As with all things that come from isolated academia, their conclusion, seems to me, to be the opposite of what common sense would say.  ”Powerful people, such as CEOs and other higher-ups, including Obama, might be protected from corruption, especially if it goes against their personal values.”
So, Obama’s newly received power will actually protect his character instead of corrupt it.  All this from a study with college students.

Scripture tells us quite the opposite:
“We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.”
God has revealed to us that power indeed does corrupt.

Even the same site, livescience.com, has an article explaining how power and corruption go together.  This latter article states, “Power has been and will forever be entangled with corruption for various reasons.”  Psychopaths indeed.

Characteristic behavior of power-corrupted individuals typically includes lying.  This psychopathic sense of invincibility leads them to believe that they can say whatever they want with no consequences or accountably.  Sound like our politicians and CEOs?  From Eliot Spitzer to Enron; from Clinton’s “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” to Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” — corruption’s main diagnostic symptom is lying.

Science says, “Around age 2 or 3, children realize that they’re not under constant observation by an all-knowing, all-seeing Eye of Truth.”  
The Gospel says that God never stops observing.  We don’t “realize” that no one is watching; we just stop caring that God does watch.

We lie to others, we lie to ourselves, we lie to God.  However, God is not mocked.  He knows the truth — he knows the truth that is in your heart.  You cannot lie to Him anymore than you can flap your arms and fly.

The same is true with corruption.  Corruption might yield you power and gain temporarily in this life, but once again — God will not be mocked.
“When we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.”
Priesthood authority can never be corrupted or unrighteously used.  As soon as we begin to do those things, the Spirit withdraws and our actions cease to be authoritative.

Power corrupts; corrupted people lie.  It has been true since this world began.  It is still true.

You Make Your Own Luck

This is part two in a three part post on Chaos, Chance, and Choice.

What sort of things would you leave to chance?  Harvey Dent gave away his agency to the whims of chance.  Dent was a good guy.  He seemed be Gotham City’s ray of hope, a hero who didn’t need a mask.  However, when tragedy struck he proved to have a weakness to large to endure the tribulation.  At the lose of his fiance, he broke — he could not be true and faithful in all things.  He is the type for all men who cannot endure the furnace of affliction.  The debate in Heaven before the creation of the world was over the fact that some would not make it back.  Jesus Christ knew that we must have the choice to fail if we are going to have the choice to succeed.

Harvey Dent believes that by leaving things up to chance, then that will somehow absolve him from any wrongdoing.  When he is interrogating a thug, he tells him that he wouldn’t choose to shoot him, but that is why he won’t leave it up to himself — He chooses to flip a coin.  However, we make our own luck.  Mortal life is about choice.  Harvey chooses to flip the coin, it is he who chooses the outcome of either side of the coin.  When he wants to go on a date with Rachel or when he wants to take the lead in court — He makes those things heads and then proceeds to flip his double-headed coin.  When his flip doesn’t allow him to kill a mob boss, he chooses to flip again and kill the driver of the car — which, in turn, kills the mob boss.  We make our own luck.

As the ultimate surrender of agency, Dent says, “It’s not about what I want.  It’s about what’s fair.”  You are never a slave to the circumstances.  Can we be decent people in an indecent time?  Surely we can — how else can we build a Zion in the midst of Babylon?

Why does Satan choose us then?  Because we are bad and are prone to do evil?  No — if we were prone to do evil, then it would take very little poking to turn us loose.  As Batman points out, it is because we are good that we are tried and tempted.  Satan wants to prove that someone as good as us could fail.  We can leave the battle between us and the adversary up to chance, or we can choose to endure — to make the hard decisions — we can choose to find our safety in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Ultimately, Harvey Dent gave up his right of choice for the seeming safety of chance.  It is what cost him his life and his soul.  As Harvey Dent ends his part in the movie holding a gun and pulling the trigger — all the time fooled into thinking that chance is acting, not his own will.  He is the type for fallen man.  Harvey Dent is man without a Savior.  He has two sides to his coin, yet he seems to always manage to choose evil.  So to with us — without the Savior, the charred side of our nature holds sway over our decisions.  

As a side note:  I wonder, is this any different than people taking the miracle of creation out of the hands of the Creator and placing it in the hands of the blind forces of random events?  Life happens by the choice of God, not by the chaotic chances of a cold universe.

We are not created to be acted upon by chance, but to act by choice.

“You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”  I’ve observed something about this life — you can’t make it out of here alive.  You will either die righteous or allow Satan to break you.

An Agent of Chaos

This is going to be part one in a three part post on Chaos, Chance, and Choice.

Does Satan really look like a guy with a plan?  Heavenly Father has a plan.  Satan has been trying longer than anyone of us can remember to upset this plan.  Since before this Earth was formed, Satan has been actively seeking to take Heavenly Father’s plan and turn it on its head.  He has had various times of seeming success.  He rules from the rivers to the ends of the earth — The Savior refers to him as the Prince of this World.  However, he has one weakness — he is not God.  

God has told us that he will loose.  Heavenly Father’s Plan is going to happen as it is planned to happen.

In the recent movie, Batman:  The Dark Knight, [if you haven't heard of it, I'll assume that means you live in a cave with no access to the Internet -- wait, how are you reading this?] the Joker is the symbol for the adversary of us all.  He is a type for Satan.

“If you’re good at something never do it for free,” says the Joker — as if he cares about money.  ”You can buy anything in this world with money“,  says our Adversary — as if he cares what we buy or for how much.  He only cares that we sell ourselves.

As Alfred points out:
“Some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money.  They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with.   Some men just want to watch the world burn.” 
Satan has no real objective.  His objective is an anti-objective.  He wants only to stop Heavenly Father’s plan.  He cares for little else.  That is why he is miserable.

The Joker’s role and Satan’s role are quite the same.  That is to push and tempt us to see how long it takes until a person breaks.  As the Joker puts it:
“Their morals, their code — it’s a bad joke.  Dropped at the first sign of trouble.  They’re only as good as the world allows them to be.  You’ll see — I’ll show you.  When the chips are down, these civilized people, they’ll eat each other.”
This resonates with an older speech made by the tempter when speaking to the Divine Council:
“Doth Job fear God for nought?  
Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.  
But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.”

Satan just wants to try and prove deep down, we’re all as ugly as he is.  Heavenly Father allows him to try and to tempt us — to see if we will break like Harvey Dent, or if we will endure and be incorruptible like Batman.

“You have these rules.  And you think they’ll save you.”  The Joker believes the only sensible way to live in this world is without rules.  Our Heavenly Father knows that compliance to Divine Law is the key to our progression.  His “rules” will save us.

What is going to happen when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?

Immanuel – The Christmas Gift

I could watch the Polar Express to see what the first Christmas gift is going to be, but I already know.  I could go peeking thru the boxes my wife has placed under our tree, but it wouldn’t help.

Immanuel — which being interpreted means “God with us” — that is the Christmas season’s big gift.  God in the flesh.  That is why Christmas is all about.  That is what Christianity is all about.  

“And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.”  These are Paul’s words to Timothy.  Mincing no words, Paul teaches that God chooses to show Himself to us in the flesh — as a human.  

The very God who created Heaven and Earth not only made Himself a mortal human like us, but before that, a child who was subject to His parents — and before that, a helpless baby who relied on His parents to nurture Him — and even before that, an embryo living and growing in the womb of Mary.  Why did He do all that?  It is a part of the Plan of Salvation.  Alma 42:15 tells us that the Plan of Salvation “could not be brought about except an atonement should be made; therefore God himself atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice that God might be a perfect, just God, and a merciful God also.”  God with us.

I’m quite perplexed how traditional Christianity misses this portion of the Christmas message.  God with us, God manifest in the flesh, the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, etc.  The story of Christmas tells me that if you believe Jesus Christ is the eternal God of Heaven and Earth, then you must then believe that God has a body of flesh and bone.  Jesus Christ, being in the “form of God [the Father]“, which is the form of a man, thought it not robbery to equal with God, which is an exalted man.  Jesus Christ thought it not robbery, because it is the Father’s goal to “bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man“.  He descended below all things to enable us to rise above all things and be made one with God.

This is the Divine incarnation, this is the Atonement, this is Christmas.  

Merry Christmas.