The power of Christmas

Joseph Farah, wnd, 22 December 2015

http://www.wnd.com/2015/12/the-power-of-christmas/

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.

He knew that even his very birth would result in

worldly authorities attempting to hunt him down
and slay him in an effort to prevent him from
doing what he had come to earth to do preach
the Word, go to the Cross to atone for the sins of
mankind and be resurrected.
Many Christians have considered the agony Jesus
went through in the garden at Gethsemane and the
humiliation and torture he endured leading to Calvary. But how many of us have considered the decision
Jesus made before that to come into the world as a
helpless little infant?
That's faith. That's love. That's Jesus.
What his detractors don't get is that the battle is over.
The war is already won. It is finished.
You can invent new holidays to try to marginalize
Christmas. You can change the words of "Silent
Night." You can tell little kids they can't say "merry
Christmas" in school. You can do all kinds of things to
try to get mankind to forget about Jesus.
But all it gets you, ultimately, is more company in
hell.
Another reporter asked me: Who is winning the battle over Christmas?
The battle was won a long time ago, about 2,000
years ago, when a little baby was born in Bethlehem, a God-man who would become the savior of
the world. Kings tried to kill him shortly after his
birth. Priests marveled at his knowledge when he
was but a boy. He turned the world upside down
with his teachings. He healed the sick and the
lame. He raised people from the dead.
To this day, we measure time itself by his coming
not just kid-dom but the whole world.
In another week or so, we will turn the page on the
calendar and celebrate the new year 2016. It isn't
because it will have been 2016 years since the beginning of the world. It isn't because it will have been
2016 years since the beginning of history. It's because it's been about 2,016 years since the birth of
the Messiah, the Prince of Peace, the Wonderful
Counselor, the King of Kings.

2015 !!!!! JFarah - The power of Christmas, Jesus' Condescension [eng] 2p xmas ((+)) 24Dec2015 1/2

Joseph Farah emphasizes Christ's sacrifice of "stepping down from heaven"

Celebrating Jesus' "condescension"

Joseph Farah, wnd, 24 December 2015
http://www.wnd.com/2015/12/celebrating-jesus-condescension-4/

And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent

from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,
To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name
was Mary.
And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou
that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee:
blessed art thou among women.
And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation
this should be.
And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for
thou hast found favour with God.
And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and
bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.
He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the
Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the
throne of his father David:
And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever;
and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
Luke 1:26-33 (KJV)

Tomorrow, even tonight, Christians around the world

will be celebrating Christmas attending churches,
saying prayers, singing carols and exchanging gifts in
remembrance of the birth of their Lord and Savior,
Jesus of Nazareth.
We will also be reading from the familiar passages in
the Gospel of Luke that describe the circumstances of
the Virgin Birth an event like no other in the history
of the world.
There have been movies and books about these
events. But most have focused, understandably, on
the notable obedience and sacrifices of Joseph and
Mary in bringing the baby Jesus into the world.
But, have you ever thought about what that experience was like for Jesus?
We all know how Jesus sacrificed himself for us at the
end of His mortal life the excruciating tortures he
endured, the humiliation, the death on the cross. But
at this time of the year, I often think about the sacri-

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