I always loved having my dad read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever to me, but I have come to realize that Christmas is really about the Savior and understanding that His birth marked the beginning of His infinite Atonement. The Atonement of Jesus Christ cannot be confined to just three events—the Garden of Gethsemane, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection. The Atonement was the entirety of His life. It was the perfection of His life and the humility of His birth. Every act of overcoming temptation in His life led to that perfection. That perfection is what ultimately fulfilled the demands of justice and allowed mercy to take its place.
I have been thinking about how that relates to us. I understand how the Atonement of Jesus Christ satisfies the law of justice, but I am still trying to comprehend how His Resurrection enables our resurrection and allows us to overcome physical death. As Elder Holland taught, Jesus Christ was both part man and part God. Being part man meant He inherited the ability to die. Being part God meant He possessed the ability to be immortal.
His divine nature also enabled Him to feel an even greater extent of pain and still survive it. Being part man allowed Him to die, but being part God meant He could rise again by His own power—and He did. It gives me comfort to know that Jesus Christ suffered even more deeply because of His divinity. His divine nature did not lessen His suffering but allowed Him to endure it for a longer period of time. When He said, ‘It is finished,’ it meant He had felt all that He needed to feel. Then, as a conscious decision, He exercised His divine power and allowed Himself to succumb to physical death.”
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