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I published this column in the Deseret News<\/em> for Christmas 2016:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Behind the tinsel and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, beyond Santa Claus, Christmas represents an enormously serious claim\u2014the incarnation of God or, literally, God\u2019s \u201cenfleshment.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cAnd the Word was made flesh,\u201d says John 1:10, \u201cand dwelt among us.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s a proposition unique to Christianity among the Abrahamic religions; Judaism and Islam make no such claim about the divine.<\/span><\/p>\n In the first chapter of Genesis, God repeatedly observes that his creation is \u201cgood.\u201d\u00a0 And finally, when he\u2019s done, we\u2019re told that \u201cGod saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good\u201d (1:31).\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In the Christmas narratives, however, divine approval is registered even more remarkably.\u00a0 God himself enters into the physical world, and takes flesh, matter, upon himself.\u00a0 As a lesser-known verse of the carol \u201cHark! the herald angels sing\u201d exhorts us,<\/span><\/p>\n Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;<\/span><\/p>\n Hail th\u2019incarnate Deity,<\/span><\/p>\n Pleased with us in flesh to dwell,<\/span><\/p>\n Jesus our Emmanuel.<\/span><\/p>\n Thereafter, he redeems that flesh in the resurrection and claims it forever.\u00a0 The tomb is empty, but the body has not been abandoned.\u00a0 \u201cBehold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself,\u201d he tells his astonished disciples after his crucifixion.\u00a0 \u201cHandle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have\u201d (Luke 24:39).<\/span><\/p>\n This story stands in dramatic contrast to many other faiths and philosophies, which have historically taught that death represents a desirable deliverance from the body and the bondage of materiality.\u00a0 \u201cThe true philosophers,\u201d says Socrates in Plato\u2019s fourth-century BC dialogue \u201cPhaedo,\u201d \u201care ever studying death.\u201d\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because they aspire to live lives of pure reason, freed from fleshly limitations.\u00a0 Thus, the great third-century AD Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus, says his biographer Porphyry, was ashamed even to have a birthday, because it was on that day that his immaterial spirit had fallen into the swamp of matter.\u00a0 Even on the edges of Christianity itself\u2014for example, in the ancient Gnostic heresies that threatened the mainstream Christian movement during the first centuries after Jesus\u2014death was thought to offer an escape from the evil material world.<\/span><\/p>\n Not so in genuinely apostolic Christianity.\u00a0 \u201cGod,\u201d wrote Paul to the Corinthians, \u201cwas in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself\u201d (2 Corinthians 5:19).\u00a0 This earth, physical reality, shouldn\u2019t be rejected or discarded.\u00a0 Both long before the birth of Jesus and decades after his ascension into heaven, believers were promised \u201cnew heavens and a new earth\u201d (Isaiah 65:17; Revelation 21:1).\u00a0 Although fallen and flawed, our material world is fundamentally good and worthy of salvation.\u00a0 Indeed, it will be made worthy of those who eventually inherit heaven.\u00a0 \u201cBlessed are the meek,\u201d the Savior himself taught in his Sermon on the Mount, \u201cfor they shall inherit the earth\u201d (Matthew 5:5).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Some worldviews would ask why anybody would even want it.\u00a0 Who would seek to drag this physical carcass of a body around forever?\u00a0 But Jesus\u2019 literal resurrection from the dead testifies that we\u2019ll do so:\u00a0 \u201cYe men of Galilee,\u201d ask the angels after Christ\u2019s ascension, \u201cwhy stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven\u201d (Acts 1:11). \u201cBeloved,\u201d says 1 John 3:2, \u201cnow are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Matter itself, including our bodies, will be redeemed.\u00a0 Christ, the apostle Paul says, \u201cshall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself\u201d (Philippians 3:21), \u201cand the dead shall be raised incorruptible\u201d (1 Corinthians 15:52).\u00a0 \u201cHe became man,\u201d explained St. Athanasius of Alexandria (d. AD 373) in his treatise \u201cOn the Incarnation,\u201d \u201cthat we might be made divine.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Transcending mere sentimentality about \u201cthe Babe of Bethlehem,\u201d Christmas commemorates the beginning of that redemptive process; the events associated with Easter guarantee it.<\/span><\/p>\n There can be no better news, no tidings more glad than these.<\/span><\/p>\n Hail the heav\u2019nly Prince of Peace!<\/span><\/p>\n Hail the Sun of Righteousness!<\/span><\/p>\n Light and life to all He brings,<\/span><\/p>\n Ris\u2019n with healing in His wings.<\/span><\/p>\n Mild He lays His glory by,<\/span><\/p>\n Born that man no more may die.<\/span><\/p>\n Born to raise the sons of earth,<\/span><\/p>\n Born to give them second birth.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Some of you might enjoy this:\u00a0 \u201cFirst Ever Asia Area Christmas Devotional Now Live:\u00a0Members across Asia come together to retell the nativity story through beloved Christmas music and performances by Asia to the world\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In my blog entry for Friday, I mentioned that there were two points during the Thursday night performance of Christmas with the Tabernacle Choir<\/em> when I was emotionally affected and when, embarrassingly for an unemotional Scandinavian, my eyes began to moisten.\u00a0 But I only actually identified one of them:\u00a0 It was when the Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square performed back to back renditions of two of my very favorite pieces of music:\u00a0 \u201cLo, How a Rose E\u2019er Blooming\u201d (Es ist ein Ros\u2019 entsprungen<\/em>) and Pachelbel\u2019s Canon in D<\/em> (arranged as a choral piece entitled \u201cHosanna in excelsis\u201d).<\/p>\n The other came during Sir David Suchet\u2019s narration of the remarkable story of Nicholas Winton<\/a> (1909-2015), which I commend to your attention.\u00a0 A pleasant surprise for the audience was that Mr. Winton\u2019s son was present that evening.\u00a0 I presume, but I don\u2019t know for certain, that he was there for the Friday and Saturday evening performances, as well.\u00a0 So I didn\u2019t want to mention it, hoping not to spoil the surprise.<\/p>\n