Christmas And Me

SUN., DEC. 22, 1996, 6:31 AM
FARM, STUDY

Two of your readings this week cast some different lights on this celebration of My birth, as Jesus, that comes up this week. Naturally, I was there, but the details, old or new are not as important as the remembrance. In your “modern” times there is an exact record of every birth (well, nearly), so there is minute, hour, day, and year for everyone born in your culture, but not so in other cultures even today.

It seems strange to you that this birth of Christ may have been 3 or 4 B.C., signifying (because of changes in calendars) that Christ was born before Christ. Was it in a stable, a cave, or both… with animals around, or not… in an infrequently used room around a courtyard? The historic accuracy is not important to Me, and shouldn’t be to you.

As the other article noted it was several centuries before it was decided when Jesus was born, and that this should be celebrated in some way. History suggests that the beginning of winter was a time of celebration, of pagan merriment. Thus, Christmas, the remembrance of My birth, was sorta “superimposed” upon these other festivals, trying to make sacred what was already in place, culturally. Again, you’ll have to assume that if I allowed such to happen it as either good… or acceptable, at least.

If I had a real objection to “scholarship”, that which brings forth conflicting details, I could prevent it. And you’ll never know what I have prevented, in human scholarship. The story behind the holiday is symbolic, and that’s what’s important. The gift-giving, a big part of your culture’s way of celebrating, has spawned this incredible materialism, with some of your businesses doing up to half of their year’s selling in these few weeks. The light displays can be beautiful to gaudy, a modern way of representing a single, bright star. Santa Claus is the dominant figure, with your culture’s concern for being secular, or at least not solely Christian, making him more dominant than Jesus. It’s a sham, but a generally harmless one.

The Gospel stories have their obvious diversity. In Mark, the first one written, there is no indication of My birth. I just appear, as a young man ready to start a ministry. John’s story, the most spiritual, has Me present from the “beginning”… that I always was, and always will be, so the birth wasn’t important. And you can assume, because this was written last, that omission of a birth story was intentional.

Your culture, and most of your Christian churches, put the Matthew and Luke stories together, so that angels, shepherds, and wise men are all together in one scene. The serenity of Luke’s story usually predominates, but the intrigue and escape nature from Matthew tends to be remembered, as a “relief” from serenity.

As the Triune God I have always been and always will be. As Almighty God I appeared to selected people in the Old Testament story, and I still do this, in various ways, though your culture has doubts about most such claims. (It is “safer” to believe I was more directly active several thousand years ago than today, with “real people”.) As Holy Spirit I have never had a body (or so it is believed), but I have been active, “from the beginning”, and work when, where, how, and with whom I choose.

As Jesus I was also “from the beginning”, but then I incarnated as a Jewish baby, had an early donkey ride to Egypt, had one recordable adventure as a child, was baptized, and had about a three year ministry. I told stories, I preached about God’s will for your lives, and I did a few miracles. Finally I willingly gave up My earth life AND it was taken from Me in a painful, degrading way. But in about 30 hours I was back, in My body, but not bound by “earthly laws”.