REFLECTIONS ON THE CHRISTMAS SEASON
Once again the Christmas season is upon us. What does Christmas mean? To find out I consulted the old and trusty Webster’s Dictionary. Very excellently, it showed me that Christmas is composed of two words, Christ, and Mass, for it is a celebration of Christ Jesus.
It is the year 2021, and might I remind you, we are living in a time of culture wars. These culture wars are very belligerent, and are composed of competing and incompatible ideologies. We have the Godless atheism of Critical theorists, who are Marxists, being opposed to the patriotic freedom lovers who attempt to serve God. It is a battle for control of the hearts and minds of people of all nations.
Jeffrey Bennett has been consistently explaining and arguing for traditional values, and that means celebrating Christmas. He often posts interesting articles at his many web pages, and recently he posted one concerning the culture war and Christmas. https://federalobserver.com/2021/12/22/the-war-on-family-at-christmastime/
I quote the final paragraph from the above selection: “A society that disregards the family is destined for destruction. But the story of Christ’s birth is a promise of hope and purpose for the future. That is why, in spite of the sadness that the Left’s war on family leaves in its wake, we should continue to celebrate and fight for the nuclear family.”
Why should traditional values be upheld in the face of opposition by those who do not believe in them? The reason is that in my opinion, going against traditional values results in physical and spiritual death. Therefore, to pursue a cultural war against traditional values is to pursue ultimately a goal of cultural suicide. For all of the cultural values which are proclaimed by the enemies of Christ, such as child sacrifice, are very ancient, and we know it as the appeasement of Molech.
To return to JB’s timely Christmas themed articles, he has another good one by John Whitehead titled, “The Christmas Baby Born in a Police State: Then and Now”. https://federalobserver.com/2021/12/20/the-christmas-baby-born-in-a-police-state-then-and-now/
I will now quote a few of my favorite passages from the aforesaid article.
“Then again, had Jesus’ parents been undocumented immigrants, they and the newborn baby might have been shuffled to a profit-driven, private prison for illegals where they first would have been separated from each other, the children detained in make-shift cages, and the parents eventually turned into cheap, forced laborers for corporations such as Starbucks, Microsoft, Walmart, and Victoria’s Secret. There’s quite a lot of money to be made from imprisoning immigrants, especially when taxpayers are footing the bill.”
“From the time he was old enough to attend school, Jesus would have been drilled in lessons of compliance and obedience to government authorities, while learning little about his own rights. Had he been daring enough to speak out against injustice while still in school, he might have found himself tasered or beaten by a school resource officer, or at the very least suspended under a school zero tolerance policy that punishes minor infractions as harshly as more serious offenses.”
“From the moment Jesus made contact with an “extremist” such as John the Baptist, he would have been flagged for surveillance because of his association with a prominent activist, peaceful or otherwise. Since 9/11, the FBI has actively carried out surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations on a broad range of activist groups, from animal rights groups to poverty relief, anti-war groups and other such “extremist” organizations.”
“Jesus’ anti-government views would certainly have resulted in him being labeled a domestic extremist. Law enforcement agencies are being trained to recognize signs of anti-government extremism during interactions with potential extremists who share a “belief in the approaching collapse of government and the economy.””
These are just a few very salient points of comparison between then and now.
The time approaching the coming of Christ is known as advent, and this applies to both the nativity and the second coming. For as Eliot implied in THE JOURNEY OF THE MAGI, the nativity also implies the crucifixion.
As evidenced by the Incarnation, when human civilization becomes too out of line with heavenly justice, God steps in to modify human history. Just as in former times, we are today experiencing a move towards the very heinous abuses of power which existed during the Roman Empire.
It is evident today that there are small groups of people who conspire against the many. They would rule by deception, and this is in keeping with Satan being the prince of this earth. For encouraging deceptions can only lead to self destruction, which is why all those who go along with the covid lie are also most likely to not be very serious in their faith.
Civilizations are born, they thrive, and then they die, and this process can happen in accordance with divinity, or not. It depends on spiritual discernment by people striving to see the actual state of living.
The whole cycle of life and death is there in the Nativity, which is why we celebrate Christ’s coming. It is a moment of historical and theological importance which cannot be rivaled by man made belief, or occult practices.
Since 2020 it is particularly evident that we are living in a heightened era of spiritual conflict. For this reason it is more important than ever to grasp the importance of Christ’s coming. For his time on earth showed that the highest good can only be attained by undergoing the suffering that we freely chose to endure. The time has come to take these teachings right down the line. There is a freedom in that which may be similar to the hearts which quickened at the resurrection, and at all momentous and miraculous moments. That is what it means to walk the line. I wish you a very merry Christmas.
Eliot reads The Journey of the Magi
https://allpoetry.com/The-Journey-Of-The-Magi
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
and running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
Faith and Reason 451 