21 December 2025
As we make and honor our covenants, we bind ourselves to the Savior, gaining greater access to His mercy, protection, sanctification, healing, and rest.
Sacrament Meeting Program
Presiding: Bishop Serge St. Felix
Conducting: Bishop Serge St. Felix
Opening Hymn: #207 - Away In a Manger
Invocation: Chris Riker
Ward Business
Sacrament Hymn: #196 - Jesus, Once of Humble Birth
Administration of the Sacrament
Christmas Program
Primary: Christmas Bells/The Nativity Song
Ward Choir/Congregation: Silent Night
Congregational Hymn: #209: Hark! the Herald Angels Sing
Piano Duet: Leah Stenson and Hannah Blank - "We Three Kings"
Ward Youth Choir: All Because of Him
Message from Bishopric
Closing Hymn: #202 - Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful
Benediction: Brooke Mayo
Messages from General Conference
Humble Souls at Altars Kneel
By Elder Jeremy R. Jaggi
Of the Seventy
The new sacrament hymn “Bread of Life, Living Water” fills my soul. One line in the hymn says, “Now I come before the altar, off’ring Him my broken heart.”
My understanding of those words deepened soon after our family departed Newbury Park, California, to serve in the Utah Ogden Mission in 2015. I received an invitation to tour Hill Air Force Base near Layton, Utah. I had never been on a military base, nor had I met a military chaplain or the men and women who work to provide safety and protection for their country.
Chaplain Harp, like thousands of other volunteer and professional chaplains who serve in our prisons, hospitals, and military installations around the world, inspired and uplifted me. Our last stop on the base was the sanctuary. I asked the chaplain if he administered services for all people who desired to ponder, pray, meditate, and worship. He went to the front wall of the chapel, and he pulled a cross from behind the curtains. He said he used the cross for Protestant and Catholic services. I asked what he used for our Jewish brothers and sisters, and he went to the other side of the front wall, and he pulled out a Star of David.
I then asked, “What do you do for Latter-day Saint services?” He pushed those symbols away and pointed to the large wooden altar in the middle of the sanctuary. He said that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints prepare and bless the bread and water on the altar. I asked if the large, seemingly fixed altar was removed before the services of our Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, or Protestant brothers and sisters. He said that the altar stays in place, for several of those faiths also utilize the altar in some way.
Abraham built an altar, bound Isaac, and was ready to sacrifice his only son, but his hand was stayed, and he declared, like the Lord has declared, “Here am I”! How many times has the Great I Am or one of His prophets volunteered, “Here am I”?
During His Sermon on the Mount, the Savior invited us to reconcile with our brothers and sisters before we approach the altar. Paul taught that we are “sanctified” at the altar through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
The prophet Lehi “left his house … and his precious things. … [Then] he built an altar … and made an offering … , and gave thanks unto the Lord.”
The Bible and the Book of Mormon teach us to worship the Son of God at altars. Why?
Our first parents, Adam and Eve, built and worshipped at altars. After they were cast out of the Garden of Eden and had worshipped for “many days,” an angel visited and asked a poignant question that could be asked of each of us: “Why dost thou offer sacrifices unto the Lord?”
Adam answered, “I know not.”
The angel’s response to Adam’s humble admission is stunning: “This … is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father. … Wherefore, thou shalt do all that thou doest in the name of the Son, and thou shalt repent and call upon God in the name of the Son forevermore.”
The sacrament table and temple altars symbolize the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and His infinite Atonement.
As we make and honor our covenants, receiving the ordinances of the sacrament at church and the endowment and sealing at the temple, we bind ourselves to the Savior, gaining greater access to His mercy, protection, sanctification, healing, and rest.
Elder Jeremy R. Jaggi
