Talk help: Preparing for Christ

That can’t be the whole 15 minutes, though, nor would I want it to be.

But a drift on that could work. One of my favorite Christmas Stories is Don Black’s “The Little Shepherd.” It is of course fiction but the story is about a young shepherd who shares the same birthday as the adult Jesus. On that birthday night sitting on a hill above Judea watching the sheep Jesus comes unannounced and un-noticed by the young shepherd. The young shepherd is handicapped. His father is also dead. His father was with the shepherds who heard the angels sing. The boy hopes to see the angels on this night. Then this traveler joins him. They eat the young shepherds meager dinner. Share accounts of their lives and note the same birthday. And how both are far from family on their special day.

I could copy the book off and send it to you. It’s a wonderful story about not knowing when Christ will arrive. And yet uplifting, totally Christmas, even inspirational.

To go along with my burblings above is the idea that Christ is always available. We don’t need to wait. In that vein I thought of Uchtdorf’s talk about “Being the Hands of Jesus” based on the broken Christus Statue during World War II. You could tie that in. Then wrap in your “Light of the World” connection with Some of the simple ideas from the Church’s Holiday Video. Encourage us all to be waiting like the young Shepherd. Be Jesus Hands through out the year. To help us prepare to meet The Light of The World.

You will do really well.

Preparing for Christ. That’s a tough draw but I’ve got my go-to message that I try to steer most things towards.

But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre,

And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.

And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.

And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.

Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.

Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.

There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples.

Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing.

But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus.

Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They answered him, No.

And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes.

Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher’s coat unto him, (for he was naked,) and did cast himself into the sea.

Side note: The “disciple whom Jesus loved” in an interesting character that makes several appearances in the Book of John (John 13:23, John 18:15, John 19:26, John 21:7, John 21:20). The unnamed disciple usually shows up to highlight something Peter was screwing up. I think it’s a literary device, a subtle way of saying Jesus loves you when you do these things. Back to my original point that I haven’t yet made…

And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs. [parenthetical note: between 11 and 12 kilometers, big whoop]

And they talked together of all these things which had happened.

And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.

But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.

And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?

And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?

And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people:

And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him.

But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done.

Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre;

And when they found not his body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive.

And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but him they saw not.

Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:

Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?

And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he made as though he would have gone further.

But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them.

And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them.

And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.

Sorry for the lengthy scripture quoting. It helps stretch a talk to fill the time slot but it’s also when you start to lose your audience.

My (belabored) point is that I think we often don’t see Jesus because we’re looking for the wrong Jesus. As members of the church we’ve all taken upon ourselves the name of Jesus (my soap box). The gardener is Jesus. The guy with excellent fishing advice is Jesus. The woman that gives words of comfort to a depressed person on their way to Emmaus is Jesus.

I fear that we focus so much on preparing to meet a Jesus that will manifest himself sometime in the future that we fail to prepare ourselves to see the Jesus that’s in everyone. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren…

#LightTheWorldOrWhateverTheHashtagIs

D’oh. I forgot about that important detail.

Preparing to meet Jesus from the BoM perspective? I’d probably give a talk about making sure your life insurance policy is up to date.

Heaven help us all! 😆

Maybe it’s too simple, but one thing that still moves me about the Book of Mormon is exactly this – the preparation for Christ who hasn’t come. Or maybe the better word is anticipation. There’s an excitement, like in Nephi’s vision with the angel saying, “Look! … Look! …” That thought doesn’t really lead to a teaching bullet point, but it might be nice to just pick some of those anticipation verses to read.

It went well. I was the middle speaker of 3 adult speakers and ended up cutting the talk to about 10 minutes so the concluding speaker would get at least 10 minutes as well. The first speaker went almost 20 (and I might add it was quite boring, although I usually like his talks). Lots of compliments. Anyway, here’s a summary:

I started with noting Christmas is in two weeks and children would be especially excited and then told them I believe in Santa Claus and offered the Faust quote and this one:

(James E. Faust, 1998 First Presidency Christmas Devotional)

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect….

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus…. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

(Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus, New York Sun 1897)

I said how Santa is truly Christlike, and we didn’t have to see Santa to know he exists using the quote in the post above (that I had seen Santa).

Then I said we would really be celebrating the birth of Jesus in two weeks not Santa and did a brief testimony of the sacrament because we really should be celebrating Christ every Sunday and a big part of how we do that is taking the sacrament.

I quoted from John 4 (woman at the well) about Christ being the Living Water and John 6 about Jesus saying he is the Bread of Life (both quotes using NRSV) and said I believe the sacrament to be symbolic of these things.

I then offered a synopsis of the story of Samuel the Lamanite, saving time by not quoting scripture.

I did quote 3 Nephi 9:15 & 18 and 3 Nephi 11:11 and testified about the symbolism there in Jesus being literally the Light of the World. (The first guy had done a likening the scriptures to yourself thing, which probably helped here – several people cried in this part).

I followed with quoting 3 Nephi 11:32-39 (leaving out some of the repeated phrases) and the following Elder Christofferson quote related to that passage (GC April 2012):

This is our message, the rock upon which we build, the foundation of everything else in the Church. Like all that comes from God, this doctrine is pure, it is clear, it is easy to understand—even for a child. With glad hearts, we invite all to receive it.

I then bore witness of the simplicty of the gospel and that Jesus only asked that we believe and be baptized.

I followed that with the idea that our minds are very limited and we “see in a mirror dimly.”

“Sometimes in that dimness and because of our own preset ideas and expectations we fail to recognize that Santa is real, that there are angels among us, that our teachers might be people we don’t expect, and that the gospel is much more simple than we sometimes try to make it.” followed by this quote from Pres. Uchtdorf (GC April 2015):

I marvel to think that the Son of God would condescend to save us, as imperfect, impure, mistake-prone, and ungrateful as we often are. I have tried to understand the Savior’s Atonement with my finite mind, and the only explanation I can come up with is this: God loves us deeply, perfectly, and everlastingly. I cannot even begin to estimate “the breadth, and length, and depth, and height … [of] the love of Christ.”

I finished with a testimony that the main teaching of Christ is that we love one another, and we should be especially mindful of this during Christmas (I cut a quote from A Christmas Carol here) and that Jesus is the Bread of Life, the Living Water, the Light and Life of the World, and the Son of God.

I wish I had been there. The only Christmas connect we had yesterday was hymns. God bless the hymns.

At least all three of the talks were about preparing for Christ. The first guy just blew it, I think, he’s capable of much better. His assignment was preparing for Christ from a Biblical perspective. He used Daniel and John the Baptist. Daniel was so-so, I kind of get what he was trying to say (being obedient actually) but most of us don’t relate Daniel to preparing for Christ and he didn’t do a good job at making the connection work. John the Baptist was a little closer, but he focused more on John wearing camel hair clothes and eating locusts that on baptizing, etc. There was no mention of his direct interaction with his cousin except he said he thought John might have been at least a little jealous at first (I don’t know where he got that from). He said he did have some printer trouble and couldn’t print off his talk, but he had it on his laptop so I’m not sure how much of a factor that was.

The sister who concluded was supposed to talk about preparing from a D&C perspective. She did well considering the topic but basically just quoted the well worn passages from the D&C and supplemented with the Bible (and yes, no need to fear, the ten virgins and gloom and doom for those who are not prepared). She is a very sweet sister, but she is also very much a hardline “saved by works” person who believes the second coming is going to be any day now.

It was not hard to be a shining star.

The songs were good. I was disappointed last week because we had exactly one Christmas song int he three hours, it was the closing hymn of SM. I was hoping we’d get our act together this week. I’m not a huge fan of our music person and she didn’t earn any points last week.