A Savior Is Born

I've been trying all day to write you a beautiful blog post that explains why it's so important that a little baby was born in a stable in Bethlehem 2,000+ years ago.

The manner of Jesus Christ's birth is not incidental to his life. He wasn't a normal baby that grew into a person who did amazing things. He was predestined for greatness literally from conception. And even before--my church believes that He was foreordained to be our Savior.

We humans need a Savior. After death, we can live with God forever. But only if we meet the conditions of being cleansed of our imperfections and of having eternal, resurrected bodies.

For us to be cleansed of our imperfections, someone has to suffer for them: suffer for our sins, our mistakes, our missteps. For us to be resurrected, someone has to "break the bands of death." That's the phrase they use, which in my personal interpretation means that if somebody willingly sacrifices himself and then comes back to life under his own power, death is destroyed. A door that once only opened inward is suddenly swinging on loose hinges, allowing people to both go in and come out.

The problem here is that, to my understanding, a prerequisite for suffering for other people's sins is to have no sins yourself. Mortals by definition are imperfect. Also physically incapable of withstanding that kind of suffering. And without the power to raise themselves from the dead. A god is perfect, and physically capable, and powerful, but a god has a resurrected body that cannot die.

The Savior could not be a mortal. He could not be a god. So God arranged a way for Him to be both. Born of a Heavenly Father and an earthly mother, Jesus Christ had the perfection and the capability and the power of a god but the mortality of, well, a mortal. He, and only He, could willingly suffer and die for us so that we might be cleansed and resurrected. That was literally what He was born for.

That's beautiful to me. I hope it's beautiful to you, too.

Merry Christmas.