Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from Jeffrey R. Holland’s book, Our Day Star Rising.
At a Christmas Eve family home evening once, my son-in-law led the discussion and gave a little Christmas message based on a phrase from the hymn “Silent Night.” The phrase was from the third verse, one that we don’t know as well and don’t sing as often as we sing the first verse. In that hymn, it speaks of Christmas as being “the dawn of redeeming grace.”
That really struck me: that the redeeming grace really, technically would not come until the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The redeeming grace that we sing about in “Silent Night” would not be in effect, the real mission would not be accomplished, the success of the plan of salvation would not be complete until that death and Resurrection, until the Atonement of Jesus Christ was complete.
But the birth, the Bethlehem birth, was the dawn of it. It was the beginning, the sun rising, if you will, on the idea of redemption and grace. It would take the Savior’s lifetime—33 years, more or less—for that baby to mature and to finally go to Gethsemane and to the Garden Tomb and the Resurrection. But that little manger scene was the dawn of that and inseparable from it. You would not have the one without the other.
So surely that is why those shepherds were so adoring, and that is why those wise men came. …
Also, a part of that Christmas scene were the angels who came and sang hosannas—legions of angels; the whole heaven was filled with angels. And obviously, they were not just celebrating the birth. The reason they were so excited is that it meant the beginning of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It meant the beginning of the Resurrection and of eternal life. That was the exciting thing.
Without that, this would have been just another baby. Mary and Joseph would have been just another poor couple who did not have enough money to get a hotel room and so ended up in a stable, in a cave in the side of the hill. That night would have been lost in history and would have meant nothing had this baby not been the baby that it was. And the baby that it was, was the baby that was going on to be crucified for our sins and our sorrows and to be resurrected for eternal life, that every single, solitary one of us would be able to enjoy. Every human being who had ever lived or would yet live would be resurrected because of Christ.
And so, when the angels were singing or the shepherds were adoring or the wise men were coming, whether they knew it or not, they were celebrating both of those events. They were celebrating the birth because of the life that would be lived and the triumph that would come to the end of it.
Read More in ‘Our Day Star Rising’
Among the many names of Christ is the Day Star—the sun—that “shineth in a dark place until the day dawn ... in your hearts” (2 Peter 1:19). Our lives will have difficult periods, which may go on for days, months, or even years. But in all of it, somehow, not only when He comes again but also during the anticipation of His coming, we can rest assured that His light will guide us unfailingly through. This book reminds us of the promise that, if we wait for it and watch for it and want it badly enough, our Day Star will most certainly arise in our hearts.
Available at Deseret Book and deseretbook.com.