The Chattanooga Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at 3067 Ooltewah-Ringgold Road, will host a Christmas Music Devotional on Saturday from 6:45-8 p.m. for the greater Chattanooga community.
Everyone is welcome. The event is free. Kathy Wolfe, stake choir director, will conduct. Jesse Ellsworth and Florence Ashby will accompany on organ and piano, respectively. Other instrumentalists – including those who play the harp, cello, violin and bells – will also accompany.
The choir will sing traditional Christmas songs, including Joy to the World, O Holy Night, Silent Night, Hallelujah Chorus, The First Noel, What Child is This, Carol of the Bells, O Come All Ye Faithful, among others. The congregation will sing along with three of the musical numbers. Small group performances will also be featured.
Music and narration will focus on the birth and life of Jesus Christ. Like all Christians, Mormons believe that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God. They believe that He was born of Mary and “laid in a manger” “because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7). Mormons believe that Jesus walked the earth, healed the sick, raised the dead, and gave His own life that we might live again, said church officials.
Mormons, or members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior and Redeemer of the world. They believe that He rose again on the third day, that He lives – that “His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). Mormons believe that only through Him and by Him can we be saved, and that there is no other way. The sole purpose of the Book of Mormon is to stand side by side the Holy Bible as a witness of Jesus Christ.
President Gordon B. Hinckley said that the Lord Jesus Christ “has done for us what we could not do for ourselves. None can fully comprehend the splendor of His life, the majesty of His death, the universality of His gift to mankind. We unequivocally declare with the centurion who said at His death, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God’” (Mark 15:39). And so, we honor Him, we worship Him, we love Him…. we sing His praises…. whose atonement came as an act of grace for the entire world” (Hinckley, A Testimony of the Son of God, 2002).
All prophets since the world began have declared these “good tidings of great joy” (Luke 2:10). They have prophesied of Christ’s coming – of His birth, His Atonement, His resurrection. They also prophesy that Christ will come again for the second time as foretold in Acts when the Apostles looked up into the heavens and the angels said: “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go” (Acts 1:11).
When He comes again, “every ear shall hear it, and every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess” that Jesus is the Christ (D&C 88:104). When He comes again, Jesus Christ will be greeted as “Lord of lords, and King of kings” (Revelation 17:14).
And so, LDS members invite everyone in the greater Chattanooga area to Come and adore Him – “to repeat the sounding joy” – singing “”Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:14) – “for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth – Hallelujah.”