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When I was a kid, Christmas was just about the biggest deal in the whole wide world.
As Jean Shepherd, the late screenwriter of "A Christmas Story," would say, the entire annual calendar of
kid-dom revolved around this holiday.
We'd start thinking about it in September. By
Thanksgiving, there was a feeling of imminent inevitability. Hysteria began to set in by Dec. 1.
We didn't just celebrate Christmas. Christmas Eve
was nearly as big a deal. And we began a countdown
in our household many days before that. Dec. 23, for
instance, would be the eve of Christmas Eve. Dec. 22
was the eve of the eve of Christmas Eve, and so on.
With all the attacks on Christmas in recent years, I
wonder how much of the fun and delight of Christmas
has been robbed from our kids.
But of course, the attacks are not really directed at
Christmas at all. Christmas is only a target of the
secular jihadis of the American Civil Liberties Union
and their co-conspirators at Americans United for
Separation of Church and State; their ultimate goal is
destroying what Christmas represents.
They remind me of the terrorists in the Middle East
who say they want a state of their own. What they
really want is to destroy other states. Because they
haven't been able to achieve their goal in an all-out
assault, they settle for getting there piece by piece.
The real target is not Christmas. It's Christianity.
That's where the real battle lines are being drawn.
And we should expect this. It's just what Jesus told us
to expect:
"Remember the word that I said unto you, the servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you." John
15:20
A talk show host asked me once whether I "fear" this
persecution. I tried to explain that I don't fear it; I
welcome it. Because unless we pay a price for our
belief in Jesus, our faith has not really been tested;
we're not really following in his footsteps.
Think about this: Jesus came to earth as a little, helpless baby.
2015 !!!!! JFarah - The power of Christmas, Jesus' Condescension [eng] 2p xmas ((+)) 24Dec2015 1/2
fice He, the co-creator of the universe, made temporarily to give up His omniscience, His omnipotence,
His almighty powers and His seat at the right hand of
God and to live inside the womb of a young Jewish
girl named Mary and to submit himself to the protection of an obscure Jewish carpenter named Joseph.
He literally stepped down from heaven into a fallen
world of danger and deception. He even, presumably,
had to disengage from His own divine consciousness
to become a helpless embryo. He had to be born under trying circumstances following a rough 70-mile
walk by his parents from Nazareth to Bethlehem.
He gave up all the unimaginable riches and untold
wisdom of the universe to be born in a barn and laid
in an animal trough.
But, most of all, try to imagine what it was like sitting
at the right hand of the Father in heaven contemplating this idea of becoming utterly helpless and, for at
least a period of time, presumably, clueless!
Like any other child, Jesus was born not knowing how
to walk or talk. How many of us would be willing to
trade our own lives and consciousness even as adult
mortal human beings to re-enter the world that way,
again?
That's what Christmas represents to me. It is every
bit as awe-inspiring as contemplating Jesus' death
and Resurrection.
We often talk about and ponder the Ascension. But
what about the Condescension that took place when
Jesus became, first, an unborn baby and later on that
day in Bethlehem, a vulnerable little infant who
would be hunted down by Herod who would grow
up to die an ugly death on the cross?
Believers acknowledge the sacrifice Jesus made on
Calvary. But, truly, we ought to consider the sacrifice
He made the day He willingly stepped down from
heaven in the Virgin Birth, which might also be
termed the Miraculous and Mysterious Condescension.
Merry Christmas.
And thank you, Jesus!
2015 !!!!! JFarah - The power of Christmas, Jesus' Condescension [eng] 2p xmas ((+)) 24Dec2015 2/2