A Night of Light

Title

A Night of Light

Magazine

The Latter Day Saints' Millennial Star

Publication Type

Magazine Article

Year of Publication

1924

Authors

Talmage, James E. (Primary)

Pagination

801–804

Date Published

18 December 1924

Volume

86 Issue Number

51

Abstract

This article discusses that, for centuries, members of the Nephite and Lamanite communities looked forward to the time when Jesus would be born into the world. Such an occasion would be “a night of light” unto the world.

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A NIGHT OF LIGHT.

James E. Talmage.

At each recurring Christmastide the thoughts of men revert to a period of supreme importance in the world’s history, an event of which all other Christmases are but commemorations. That period has been named, authoritatively and with surpassing fitness, in holy writ. It is the “Meridian of Time.” The name is no less choice as a rhetorical figure than as a designation at once striking in its plainness and strong in its simplicity.

The birth of Jesus the Christ is well-nigh universally recognized as a new starting point in the reckoning of time. The years that went before—all the ante-meridian centuries—have been renamed by later historians, and are now referred to as years “before Christ,” even as every subsequent event is characterized by a certain “year of our Lord.”

Mohammedan and infidel, boasting atheist and defiant unbeliever, Christian and Jew add to the homage of the ages in their acknowledgment of the majesty of Bethlehem’s Babe. Individual birth and death, whether of pauper, aristocrat or monarch, the setting lip of thrones and the downfall of dynasties, the wars of nations, and the fluctuations of trade, the achievement of man and the convulsions of Nature are all fixed as to time by reference to the birth of Mary's Child. Of the time and the place much has been said and snug. The status of the Jewish people among the nations of that day has been critically studied, and the predictions of their prophets have been analyzed and expounded with the cumulative learning of the ages.

But it was not to the Orientals alone that the assurance had been given; nor was the Saviour’s advent heralded and proclaimed only on the plains of Judea. A division of the House of Israel had been established on the continent of the West long prior to the Meridian of Time. And these people, led away by a power above that of mortals, had not been forgotten in prophetic promise of the Redeemer who was to come, nor were they left in ignorance of His actual advent. For six centuries after their exodus from Jerusalem, the people of Lehi had been taught of the promised coming of the Lord. In vision their early prophets had seen the virgin mother and the infant Christ; the Saviour’s ministry even to the cloud-curtained tragedy on Calvary had been made known in the West while the Jewish captivity endured in the East.

Lehi’s colony lost all semblance of a united community soon after their miraculous establishment in the land of promise. From one small cam]) two nations had sprung, and Lamanites and Nephites strove for supremacy as only brothers with brothers can contend. The Lamanites had degenerated while their Nephite brethren had advanced in the arts of peace. The dark-skinned people of Laman had fallen under the curse, and lived as nomads and outcasts. Yet their history no less than that of the Nephites shows that Divine mercy is withheld from none, and that the bitter fruit of sin is a sure harvest no matter in whose field the foul seed be sown.

During the decade immediately preceding the birth of Christ some among the Lamanites showed increasing righteousness, while the Nephites waxed strong in their iniquities. Evils that flourish best amidst the indolence of luxury, wickedness that thrives on the abuse of prosperity, these had corrupted the people so that they became less acceptable than their dark brethren in the eyes of the Lord.

A Lamanite prophet, Samuel by name, came with a Divine commission, and proclaimed against the proud city of Zarahemla, a second Jonah denouncing another Nineveh. In trumpet tones of inspired wrath he upbraided the people for their wickedness and predicted their eventual destruction. Unlike the Ninevites the majority of the people of Zarahemla turned not from their sins, but scorned the prophet and sought his life.

One part of the message delivered by Samuel the Lamanite has special reference to our present subject. Thus spake he:

“Behold, I give unto you a sign; for five years more cometh, and behold, then cometh the Son of God to redeem all those who shall believe on his name.
“And behold, this will I give unto you for a sign at the time of his coming; for behold, there shall be great lights in heaven, insomuch that in the night before he cometh there shall be no darkness, insomuch that it shall appear unto man as if it was day.
“Therefore, there shall be one day and a night and a day, as if it were one day and there were no night; and this shall be unto you for a sign; for ye shall know of the rising of the sun and also of its setting; therefore they shall know of a surety that there shall be two days and a night; nevertheless the night shall not be darkened; and it shall be the night before he is born.

“And behold, there shall a new star arise, such an one as ye never have beheld; and this also shall be a sign unto you.
“And behold this is not all, there shall be many signs and wonders in heaven.
“And it shall come to pass that ye shall all be amazed, and wonder, insomuch that ye shall fall to the earth.
“And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall believe on the Son of God, the same shall have everlasting life.” (Helaman 14:2-8)

Most of the sin-laden Nephites resented the proclamation of the Lamanitish prophet, and in their anger assailed him with stones and arrows. A few, however, accepted the message and sought to make reparation for their sins.

Samuel's prophecy was not confined to a declaration of the people’s sinfulness and the prediction of Messiah’s birth in the flesh; he told further of the sacrificial death to which the Lord would pass and gave signs of that dread event equally marvelous with and more terrifying than the sign of the Saviour’s birth.

Confining our attention to the advent of the Christ-child, we read in the Nephite records how eagerly the believers awaited the appearing of the promised signs, and how bitterly they were persecuted by their nnregenerate fellows. After the delivery of his message the prophet disappeared as suddenly as he had come, and his later doings are unknown to history. So the repentant Nephites watched, waited and suffered, while the rest persecuted and blasphemed.

As the years sped by, the division between the believers and the scoffers became more marked; and at length the persecutors proclaimed a time at which, providing the supernatural signs had not appeared, all who professed belief in the prophecy of Samuel and in the predicted atonement of Jesus Christ should be put to death. The religions leader among the Nephites at that time was Nephi, son of Nephi, and grandson of Helaman. He was greatly troubled over the threatened destruction of his people and sought the Lord in prayer; with what effect let the sacred record itself speak:

“Now it came to pass that when Nephi, the son of Nephi, saw this wickedness of his people, his heart was exceedingly sorrowful.
“And it came to pass that he went out and bowed himself down upon the earth, and cried mightily to his God in behalf of his people, yea, those who were about to be destroyed because of their faith in the tradition of their fathers.
“And it came to pass that he cried mightily unto the Lord, all the day; and behold, the voice of the Lord came unto him, saying:
“Lift up your head and be of good cheer; for behold, the time is at hand, and on this night shall the sign be given, and on the, morrow come I into the world, to show onto the world that I will fulfil all that which I have caused to be spoken by the month of my holy prophets.” (III. Nephi 1:10-13)

There remains but little to tell. The prophecy was literally fulfilled. As the day drew to a close the sun sank beyond the western horizon as ever before and since; yet on this night of nights no twilight accompanied the setting, no darkness followed. Gratitude for deliverance from impending death was secondary to the holy thanksgiving for the Saviour's coming. Verily had the prophets spoken truly: the Lord Omnipotent had come to His own, to live and to die as one of them, and yet as no one of them had ever lived or could ever die.

As the night without a shadow passed away the sun rose in its splendor, and thankful hearts poured forth their praises, for the day—the day on which the Lord would be born. Other wonders followed, and the Star of the West appeared, equaling in lustrous glory the Star of Bethlehem.

Remembrance of these wondrous events was treasured as sacred knowledge to be spoken of with reverence and to be transmitted from parent to child as a holy heritage. A third of a century later, while many of the witnesses of the glorious manifestations at the Saviour’s birth were still living, the tragic counterpart of the prophetic picture appeared in all the terrifying reality depicted by Samuel the Lamanite. The Western Hemisphere groaned in sympathetic agony with the Eastern as the dread drama of the crucifixion was enacted, scene by scene.

And then, after the darkness and the thunders, the earthquakes and the storms, the Risen Lord appeared in person, confirming the reality of the signs of His birth and ministering unto the people as the Messiah, their Redeemer.

Table of Contents

Magazine

The Latter Day Saints' Millennial Star 86, no. 51 (18 December 1924)

McKay, David O.

Subject Keywords

Nativity

Jesus Christ, Birth of

Jesus Christ, Prophecies about

Jesus Christ, Condescension of

Bibliographic Citation

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