Friday, December 21, 2012

Mormon Messages: Good Tidings Of Great Joy

Jesus is the reason for the season, as this new video entitled "Good Tidings of Great Joy: The Birth of Jesus Christ", just uploaded to YouTube on December 13th, 2012, reminds us. This is also part of a series of Bible videos which all show short dramatizations from the life of Jesus Christ.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCxV9CbC180



Some people ask us why we celebrate Christmas on December 25th when some of our leaders have previously proclaimed April 6th to be the birthday of Jesus Christ. Most recently, President Gordon B. Hinckley stated the following, as recorded in the February 1998 edition of The Ensign:

"...Men had no knowledge of the time of His birth, and so they came to bond the celebration of Christmas with the celebration of the return of the sun. While we now know through revelation the time of the Savior's birth [April 6], we observe the 25th of December with the rest of the Christian world."

However, this revelation has not been canonized. It is actually based on Doctrine & Covenants 20:1, which states, "The rise of the Church of Christ in these last days, being one thousand eight hundred and thirty years since the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the flesh, it being regularly organized and established agreeable to the laws of our country, by the will and commandments of God, in the fourth month, and on the sixth day of the month which is called April". However, this verse merely states that that the Church was organized on April 6th, 1,830 years after the birth of the Savior, but does not specifically state the Savior was born on April 6th. Thus it is merely an inference at this time, and so we continue to celebrate Christmas on December 25th.

What's probably more important is how well we reflect Jesus Christ the other 364 days of the year.

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