Maybe Christmas Means...A Little Bit More

A short 8-10 minute lesson on the true meaning of Christmas. Includes two audiovisuals. Emphasizes that the true meaning of Christmas is more than just Christ’s birth, the true meaning of Christmas includes a change of heart.

LESSON ON THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS

To start out, I have a short little video I’d like to show you. It’s of a 92-year-old woman named Wanda Goines and she recites her poem entitled, “The Gift Wrap and the Jewel”.

I love that poem. It is a poem spoken from the heart of a beautiful lady. AND what a wonderful message for each of us to remember, especially at Christmas Time.

Why is it that we celebrate Christmas?

Is it for the Christmas Trees and Christmas lights?

Is it for the Christmas music or the receiving and giving of gifts?

Is it for the Christmas movies, the Christmas parties or just the being with family and friends?

Those ARE some of the reasons we celebrate Christmas and some very good ones too. I LOVE Christmas lights and Christmas music and I LOVE being with family & friends.

And even tho all those things are good and nice, sometimes even those can distract us from remembering the true meaning of Christmas.

Some of you might be saying, “but wait a minute, I remember Christ at Christmas time. I remember His birth and being born in a stable. I sing about it, I put up nativity scenes. I’ve even watched little kids act out the nativity scene. I remember the Savior’s birth at Christmas time.” And even though, all of that is well and good, I have another question for you, but FIRST…

Let me remind you of a scene from the Christmas movie “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” by Dr. Seuss.

There is a scene in the movie where the Grinch (someone who hates Christmas) thinks he’s won; he’s stolen all the Whos’ presents and decorations—even their Christmas food! But here’s the kicker: the Whos down in Whoville are having Christmas, presents or not. When the Grinch sees that, he has an epiphany.

There’s a line spoken by the narrator that says:

He puzzled and puzzled till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. Maybe Christmas, he thought…doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps…means a little bit more!

Now here’s my question:

What does Christmas REALLY mean?

In the Book of Mormon, when King Benjamin finished his address to the people in the land of Zarahemla, the people all cried with one voice that they believed his words. They knew of a surety that his promises of redemption were true, because, they said, “the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent … has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.” (Mosiah 5:2.)

President Ezra Taft Benson has said:

“When we have undergone this mighty change, which is brought about only through faith in Jesus Christ and through the operation of the Spirit upon us, it is as though we have become a new person. Thus, the change is likened to a new birth.”

(Ensign, October 1989, A Mighty Change of Heart By President Ezra Taft Benson)

Christmas IS the time that we tend to focus mainly on the SAVIOR’S birth, but let us not forget that “Maybe Christmas, perhaps…means a little bit more!”

Elder Holland once said,

“You can’t separate Bethlehem from Gethsemane or the hasty flight into Egypt from the slow journey to the summit of Calvary. It’s of one piece. It is a single plan… These are God’s gifts to us—birth and life and death and salvation, the whole divine experience in all its richness and complexity.”

(Excerpted from “Shepherds, Why This Jubilee?” by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland)

Christ’s birth is just a part of all that Christmas represents. His birth, His life, His ministry, His death and resurrection, His atoning sacrifice – ALL of it, is God’s gift to us, and not only at Christmas time but all year round.

Just as the Savior was born, let Christmas be a reminder to each of us, that we too can experience a new birth. By inviting Christ into our lives, we too can experience a mighty change in each of us; we too can have a change of heart, and just like in the days of King Benjamin, we too can have no more disposition to do evil.

It does not matter what wrongs we have done in the past, it does not matter what we look like on the outside, IF we let the true meaning of Christmas change our hearts, as the poem by 92-year-old Wanda says, we will be purified and strengthened and we will polish up the jewel inside each one of us. One day our jewel will be set free, to radiate God’s glory through all eternity.

In conclusion, I would like to end with a beautiful song that goes along with this and it is called, “Do You Have Room?”