One of our family’s traditions growing up was where we would go to the dollar store and buy a gift for each one of the members in our family. As I walked the isles of the dollar store I would
As I have grown, lived away from the comforts of home, met people with different cultures, views, and beliefs that I have come to realize that Christmas isn’t all about the gifts we receive; it is about the gifts that we give. These gifts can come in many different forms varying from a gift bout in the store, giving someone the gift of your time, or even a smile. The gifts we give have a way of of warming our hearts and we find that we too have received the most wonderful of gifts. As my relationship with God has grown stronger I have found myself asking this one question as Christmas rolls around: What can I give Him? He has already given me so much what could I possibly give in return? It is about this gift that I wish to write about today as well as the gift that he has given us.
A Broken Heart
What can we give Christ for Christmas? What could we possibly give to the God of the universe who has everything. Ralf Waldo Emerson said, “rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself” (Ralph Waldo Emerson, “gifts,” Essays XIII, 1844). The only thing that we can give to God is the only thing that he does not have and the one thing that he cannot take - the gift of our heart. Omni in the Book of Mormon said “Come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him.” Rudyard Kipling wrote,
“The tumult and the shouting dies;
The captains and the kings depart.
Still stands thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
We are to give the gift of a “broken heart and a contrite spirit” for that is the only thing God does not have. So What does it mean to have a broken heart and a contrite spirit? Elder Bruce D. Porter said,
“As in all things, the Savior’s life offers us the perfect example: though Jesus of Nazareth
The Savior’s perfect submission to the Eternal Father is the very essence of a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Christ’s example teaches us that a broken heart is an eternal attribute of godliness. When our hearts are broken, we are completely open to the Spirit of God and recognize our dependence on Him for all that we have and all that we are. The sacrifice so entailed is a sacrifice of pride in all its forms. Like malleable clay in the hands of a skilled potter, the brokenhearted can be molded and shaped in the hands of the Master.
To be broken in heart and contrite in spirit is to submit to the will of the Father. It is to repent of all our sins and try harder each day to be more like our Savior Jesus Christ. The Savior had, himself, given the ultimate gift - he had died of a broken heart.
“the crucified sometimes lived for days upon the cross, and death resulted, not from the infliction of mortal wounds, but from internal congestion, inflammations, organic disturbances, and consequent exhaustion of vital energy. Jesus, though weakened by long torture during the preceding night and early morning, by the shock of the crucifixion itself, as also by intense mental agony, and particularly through spiritual suffering such as no other man has ever endured, manifested surprising vigor, both of mind and body, to the last. The strong, loud utterance, immediately following which He bowed His head and “gave up the ghost,” when considered in connection with other recorded details, points to a physical rupture of the heart as the direct cause of death. If the soldier’s spear was thrust into the left side of the Lord’s body and actually penetrated the heart, the outrush of “blood and water” observed by John is further evidence of a cardiac rupture; for it is known that in the rare instances of death resulting from a breaking of any part of the wall of the heart, blood accumulates within the pericardium, and there undergoes a change by which the corpuscles separate as a partially clotted mass from the almost colorless, watery serum…Great mental stress, poignant emotion either of grief or joy, and intense spiritual struggle are among the recognized causes of heart rupture. The Psalmist sang... “Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” (Psalm 69:20, 21; see also 22:14.)”
The rupturing of the the heart however did not take place on the cross. In order for the watery serum and the blood to separate the Savior’s heart had to rupture at least 12 to 15 hours before the soldier stabbed him with his spear. This means that the Savior’s heart didn’t break on the cross but in fact in the Garden of Gethsemane as the weight of the sins, sicknesses, and afflictions of all man kind pressed upon him with unimaginable weight. Elder Tadd R. Callister wrote,
“This is a staggering thought when we contemplate the Mount Everest of pain required to make it so. What weight is thrown on the scales of pain when calculating the hurt of innumerable patients in countless hospitals? Now, add to that the loneliness of the elderly who are forgotten in the rest homes of society, desperately yearning for a card, a visit, a call— just some recognition from the outside world. Keep on adding the hurt of hungry children, the suffering caused by famine, drought, and pestilence. Pile on the heartache of parents who tearfully plead on a daily basis for a wayward son or daughter to come back home. Factor in the trauma of every divorce and the tragedy of every abortion. Add the remorse that comes with each child lost in the dawn of life, each spouse taken in the prime of marriage. Compound that with the misery of overflowing prisons, bulging halfway houses and institutions for the mentally disadvantaged. Multiply all this by century after century of history, and creation after creation without end. Such is but an awful glimpse of the Savior’s load. Who can bear such a burden or scale such a mountain as this? No one, absolutely no one, save Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of us all” (The Infinite Atonement). Edna St. Vincent Millay so eloquently penned,
All sin was of my sinning, all
Atoning mine, and mine the gall
Of all regret. Mine was the weight
Of every brooded wrong, the hate
That stood behind each envious thrust,
Mine every greed, mine every lust.
And all the while for every grief,
Each suffering, I craved relief
With individual desire,—
Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire
About a thousand people crawl;
Perished with each,—then mourned for all!
A man was starving in Capri;
He moved his eyes and looked at me;
I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,
And knew his hunger as my own.
I saw at sea a great fog bank
Between two ships that struck and sank;
A thousand screams the heavens smote;
And every scream tore through my throat.
No hurt I did not feel, no death
That was not mine; mine each last breath
That, crying, met an answering cry
From the compassion that was I.
All suffering mine, and mine its rod;
Mine, pity like the pity of God.
Ah, awful weight! Infinity
Pressed down upon the finite Me!
My anguished spirit, like a bird,
Beating against my lips I heard;
Yet lay the weight so close about
There was no room for it without.
And so beneath the weight lay I
And suffered death, but could not die.
We cannot fully comprehend the magnitude of the suffering of the Savior of the world all we know is that he did it. He was victorious over death and sin and he did it for us. C.S. Lewis said, "He [Christ] has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. He does not have to deal with us in the mass. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created. When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only man in the world." Elder Merrill J. Bateman said of this intimate sacrifice,
The Gift the Father Gave
As we contemplate of the Savior’s ultimate sacrifice we can’t forget the sacrifice his Father endured. “In [the] most burdensome moment of all human history, with blood appearing at every pore an anguished cry upon His lips, Christ sought Him whom He had always sought – His Father. “Abba,” He cried, “Papa,” or from the lips of a younger child, “Daddy.” This is such a personal moment it almost seems a sacrilege to cite it. A son in unrelieved pain, a Father His only true source of strength, both of them staying the course, making it through the night together” (Jeffery R. Holland, “The Hands of the Fathers”). The perfect son, who had never spoken ill, nor done wrong, nor touched an unclean thing was now in the Garden praying “Father remove this cup from me” … This was the Son that had taught all that His Father had taught him one of those lessons being “As, and it shall be given you.” For the first time this Son was asking something for himself “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done.” It was not a simple plight the Savior was asking if there was not another way, but for him there wasn’t. The Father’s answer was no and with that the unimaginable anguish pressed upon this perfect Son.“the Father loved him dearly, and yet he allowed this well-beloved Son to descend from his place of glory and honor, where millions did him homage, down to the earth, a condescension that is not within the power of man to conceive. He came to receive the insult, the abuse, and the crown of thorns. God heard the cry of his Son in that moment of great grief and agony, in the garden when, it is said, the pores of his body opened and drops of blood stood upon him, and he cried out: “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me.”
I ask you, what father and mother could stand by and listen to the cry of their children in distress, in this world, and not render aid and assistance? I have heard of mothers throwing themselves into raging streams when they could not swim a stroke to save their drowning children, rushing into burning buildings, to rescue those whom they loved.
We cannot stand by and listen to those cries without its touching our hearts. The Lord has not given us the power to save our own. He has given us faith, and we submit to the inevitable, but he had the power to save, and he loved his Son, and he could have saved him. He might have rescued him from the insult of the crowds. He might have rescued him when the crown of thorns was placed upon his head. He might have rescued him when the Son, hanging between the two thieves, was mocked with, “Save thyself, and come down from the cross. He saved others; himself he cannot save.” He listened to all this. He saw that Son condemned; he saw him drag the cross through the streets of Jerusalem and faint under its load. He saw that Son finally upon Calvary; he saw his body stretched out upon the wooden cross; he saw the cruel nails driven through hands and feet, and the blows that broke the skin, tore the flesh, and let out the life’s blood of his Son. He looked upon that.
In the case of our Father, the knife was not stayed, but it fell, and the life’s blood of his Beloved Son went out. His Father looked on with great grief and agony over his Beloved Son, until there seems to have come a moment when even our Savior cried out in despair: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
In that hour I think I can see our dear Father behind the veil looking upon these dying struggles until even he could not endure it any longer; and, like the mother who bids farewell to her dying child, has to be taken out of the room, so as not to look upon the last struggles, so he bowed his head, and hid in some part of his universe, his great heart almost breaking for the love that he had for his Son. Oh, in that moment when he might have saved his Son, I thank him and praise him that he did not fail us, for he had not only the love of his Son in mind, but he also had love for us. I rejoice that he did not interfere, and that his love for us made it possible for him to endure to look upon the sufferings of his Son and give him finally to us, our Savior and our Redeemer. Without him, without his sacrifice, we would have remained, and we would never have come glorified into his presence. And so this is what it cost, in part, for our Father in Heaven to give the gift of his Son unto men.” (Melvin J. Ballard)
Our Gift to Them
The gifts that the Father and the Son gave us can never be repaid, but they ask that honor and appreciate the gift that we have been given. Melvin J. Ballard said, “How do I appreciate the gift? If I only knew what it cost our Father to give his Son, if I only knew how essential it was that I should have that Son and that I should receive the spiritual life that comes from that Son, I am sure I would always be present at the sacrament table to do honor to the gift that has come unto us,” As Christmas approaches may we remember the gifts we have been given and choose to follow God’s commandments a little better. Whether it be attending the temple more often, keeping the Sabbath day a little more holy, reading our scriptures every night or trying be a little more patient. I pray that we will ponder what we can do for Christ this Christmas and as we are finding the perfect gift for our loved ones this let us prepare the ultimate gift for Christ - the gift of our heart.