At the risk of offending those who do not wish to acknowledge,
much less celebrate the Messiah’s birth, I wish one and all a very Merry
Christmas. Yes, I know that Jesus was
not born on December 25th. We don’t even know the exact year, much less
the month and date. The story is long
that which leads us to celebrating Christmas on December 25th. Just one more example of an attempt to make God
in man’s image.
More importantly, as Christians we believe the Gospel reports
regarding the birth of Jesus. The
details are sketchy and two of the Gospels don’t even bother to tell the story.
Matthew and Luke do tell of Jesus’
birth, Luke being the most comprehensive. Mark, generally considered the oldest
of the Gospels, doesn’t even mention it. The closest John’s gospel comes to mentioning
the birth of Jesus is that “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”; which to
Christians is the most important part of the story.
Over 30 years after his birth, the Gospels' details of the
Lord’s last days, crucifixion and resurrection are not exactly the same either.
But the message is consistent. Jesus Christ died by crucifixion, rose from
the grave and appeared to his followers for 40 days before ascending to heaven. Jewish and Roman authorities had nothing to
gain and everything to lose if the story was true. There were simply too many witnesses and too
much evidence to quash it. The more
followers of The Way they killed, the more it grew, eventually even converting a
Roman Emperor.
Today over 30% of the Earth’s population are Christians. Are they all true believers? Of course not, and the same can be said of
all religions. Christianity may well be
the messiest, most fragmented of them all. How could it be otherwise? It was not God’s intention to create another
religion even though he knew we would try to do just that. But despite our best efforts and those of the
devil himself, millions of souls have been saved and God’s will has and is
being done on earth as it is in heaven.
That we don’t have a detailed biography of Jesus’ birth,
life and death is of no consequence to those of us who believe. In fact, if all the Gospels were exactly the
same in every detail, they would be even less credible. How God inspired those who wrote the Holy Scriptures
remains a mystery. In the end, you
either accept it or you don’t.
Merry Christmas to us all; God bless us, every one.
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