As we remember the Lord’s birth this Christmas season, it is easy to take for granted the privilege we have of being able to look back. People can (and unfortunately do) dispute the Savior’s divinity and his teachings, but none can deny that he in fact lived. For thousands of years, that wasn’t the case.
Instead, even though prophets taught and testified of the coming Messiah, many refused to believe, and in fact, openly challenged, ridiculed, and even attacked the prophets who taught that the Son of God would come into the world to redeem the world from sin. Speaking of these devout followers of the unborn Christ, Paul says:
others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.[1]
Nephi, a Book of Mormon prophet who lived just a few decades before Christ, similarly spoke of prophets who were “driven out” or even “slain” because they testified to the people, even “a great many thousand years before his coming” that “even redemption should come to them” through Christ.[2] And Christ himself acknowledged the sacrifice of those who came before when he told the parable of the husbandmen who beat, mocked, and wounded the servants God sent before sending his Son.[3]
And yet, through all of this, those who “saw of his coming” were “filled with gladness and did rejoice.”[4] They “have looked forward,” boldly and without fear, “and have rejoiced in his day which is to come.”[5] And because of their faith, Christ “is with them, and he did manifest himself unto them, that they were redeemed by him; and they gave unto him glory, because of that which is to come.”[6]
So as you look back on the wonderful story surrounding the birth of Christ and rejoice in his day which has come, pause to remember all those wonderful men and women who paid such a heavy price to rejoice in his day which was to come and be willing to make a similar stand in the faith of that which is still to come.
