Christmas is a time for stories, said President Boyd K. Packer.
So while addressing 220 members of the BYU Management Society on Dec. 9 during a monthly luncheon at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City, President Packer chose to present a Christmas story instead of a traditional address.
President Packer, acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve, said he wrote the story, titled "A Christmas Parable," to teach a simple spiritual truth.
The story began as Christmas approached. For the first time, a farmer — a natural-born family man — was bothered by Christmas.
"And it bothered him that Christmas bothered him," explained President Packer. "Christmas was home and family and fireplaces and happy times with presents and good meals and memories of better times. Christmas symbolized things that mattered most to him."
But this had not been a good year. The crops were poor, the mower had broken and there had been an accident, he said. Another year like this and the family could lose the farm.
"For the first time in his life he wished Christmas would not come. Why could they not hurry on to January, and then spring would come and bring hope of a better season," said President Packer.
He said the farmer and his wife talked, then because of "bone-tired weariness" went to sleep. The farmer began to dream.
The farmer found himself in the shed, stripping parts from his broken mower, when his wife called him for supper. The farmer went to wash.
"And then it happened," explained President Packer. "For some reason the dirt would not come off.
"At first he thought the water was too cold, or it was a poor soap. He briskly rubbed the soap into suds, but the dirt did not come off. . . . What was the matter with him?"
As the man looked at his hands, each stain began to emerge from the others. "His memory was quickened and he remembered when each had been put there — and he remembered washing each one away."
President Packer said the farmer had always kept himself clean. But now it was as though he had not washed in years.
"Then as can happen in a dream, he was caught in a swirl of humiliation and futility," said President Packer. "He was pulled apart by opposing forces of misery and fear. For the first time in his life he experienced absolute despair."
Then, said President Packer, the farmer awakened, realizing the experience had been just a dream.
The next morning while washing up for breakfast the man remembered the dream. His wife reminded him it was Sunday and he encouraged her to go to church with their children. He wanted his children to attend church even though there had been very little church in his growing up. This Sunday, however, his wife urged him to come along too.
President Packer said at Church the couple sat in gospel doctrine class, listening to a struggling teacher talk about baptism. "He could hear the teacher reading a scripture. Though he was not really listening, two words hit him with great force. The words were 'washed clean.' He startled his wife by asking the teacher to read the scripture again. It was his first-ever response in a Sunday School class: " 'And after they have paid the penalty of their transgressions, and are washed clean, (they) shall receive a reward according to their works, for they are heirs of salvation' " (Doctrine and Covenants 138: 59).
A class member asked the teacher to define baptism and she said it was an ordinance to wash away sins. Then the farmer felt a feeling he had felt before, only not as strong. It was a feeling he had about family, farming and Christmas.
President Packer said the gospel doctrine teacher did not realize that the lesson on baptism had been a lesson on Christmas.
A day or two after the lesson, the farmer read on a Christmas card: " 'Behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus. For he shall save his people from their sins' " (Matthew 1:20-21).
President Packer said for the first time the man knew what that meant.
"He was a man with little-boy feelings about Christmas. This birth of the Christ had always been more or less present for him in that season. But now the symbols of Christ which he loved had real meaning. Gifts from the wise men now represented something, as did the tree and the star. But now, the promise of redemption had entered the scene. He had lost nothing from the appealing traditions of Christmas; in fact, they now had greater meaning.
"He understood! For the first time he understood what the gift was. The problems of life were not lessened by his new understanding, but there was a new power working within him. The problems remained, but the troubled heart did not. . . . Now he understood that, just as he could wash up for supper, there was a way to become spiritually clean. Because of the first Christmas and what followed it, he could get clean and he could stay clean."
The man finally understood that everyone is given a precious gift wrapped in scenes of home, family, trees and traditions — a gift so beautiful on the outside that it is never really opened. But with troubled times or as the family scene is torn apart, the gift is opened. It is then, said President Packer, that a person finds all that is printed on the wrapper is not lost, but inside. When all is lost, a person can look inside themselves and "find who we are, who He is, and what gift He offers us. Then each may follow his own star to Bethlehem and kneel there to worship."
So, concluded President Packer, "ends a Christmas parable. I have opened that gift and have seen inside; I have heard His voice and received a witness, even a special witness of Him. I pray God that each of us this Christmas will at last open the gift and discover who we are, and who He is. Then we will know what Christmas means and what the gift is. This is my Christmas prayer for all of us."
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