Santa

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I love Christmas. I’ve always loved it, and in particular Santa Claus. When I little my grandmother made me a Santa outfit, and I had my own elf, my sister! As I’ve “matured” I’ve been curious on the history of Santa and watching an interesting documentary on the subject recently. In case you’re wondering, the original Santa is deeply rooted in the Christian tradition and as such is part of our story. Below you will find some links on “The Historical Santa.” E.g, yeah, Saint Nick is the patron saint for prostitutes! ENJOY!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas

http://www.stnicholascenter.org/Brix?pageID=45

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus

http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/santa.asp

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Jesus and Britian

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Britons who don’t know where Jesus was born
By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent

A survey found 27 per cent of Britons aged 18 and over were unable to identify Bethlehem as Jesus’s birth place, while the figure rose to 36 per cent of people aged between 18 and 24.

One in ten of those questioned thought the answer was Nazareth and a similar number said Jerusalem.

The poll also found that more than one in four people - 27 per cent - were unaware that an angel told Mary that she would give birth to a son, with some saying she was informed by the shepherds.

Most people surveyed believed that Joseph, Mary and Jesus fled to Nazareth rather than Egypt when they escaped from King Herod, and a few even said the holy family’s destination was Rome.

The survey also revealed that just over half did not know that John the Baptist was Jesus’s cousin . . .

angel bethlehem birth place britons cousin egypt Evotational holy family jerusalem jesus john the baptist jonathan king herod petre poll also found that religion correspondent rome Filed under Evotational | Comment (0)

Pure and Simple

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My earthly father taught me from the time I was a young boy that I should never tell a lie, respect all people and to express myself in a simple manner so that I would be easily understood. Sounds like what some call the KISS Method (Keep It Simple Sweetie) does it not? That was pretty good advice for living and things were a lot simpler when I was growing up in the Dark Age. We did not see any Christmas decorations in the stores or hear any Christmas songs enticing us to make purchases until after Thanksgiving and the almighty dollar did not seem to be the little “g” god that it is today. As I recall, people were more concerned with what that time of the year brought to us - remembering the birth of Jesus as Lord and Savior. And now decisions are being rendered by many in authority from the federal government down to the local stores that we should not emphasize the birth of Jesus as Christ but rather to consider this as a holiday season for everyone to enjoy.

Our Heavenly Father and His son Jesus present a very pure and simple plan for mankind to consider year round but especially at Christmas time. The Book of Romans in the New Testament tells us that everyone has sinned and has fallen short of the glory of God. Paul, the author of this book, further tells us that the consequence of this sinning is spiritual death and eternal separation from the presence of God. But God showed His love toward each one of us individually by sending His son to die for us as the ultimate and last blood sacrifice. In order for one to partake of this wonderful love gift, we must confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe not only in our mind but also in our heart that God has raised Jesus from the dead. During this Christmas season may each of us allow Holy Spirit to speak to us about our relationship with Jesus and may we be drawn closer to Him than ever before?

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Lights

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My project has been to hang Christmas lights. And what a project it is. I hunted all over town for red strings of lights, you know the big kind your grandma used to hang. Finally, on Fri morning, I found the lights and bought 10 boxes of those suckers. Now I faced the challenge of hanging them: see, I’m quite afraid of heights. Sat morning I managed to climb on my 10′ roof with a 6′ ladder. I slowly outlined the garage with one strand of bulbs, all the while hanging on to the shingles like spider-man. After borrowing a 10′ ladder, I tried to hang some more on Sun afternoon. Still a precarious situation. I found a 20′ ladder yesterday evening, and when we got home last night at 10pm, I decided to string some more bulbs before bed.

Picture this, it’s dark, cold, and high, as I crawled on the roof. My palms were sweaty and the lights are flung around my neck so I have both hands and feet free to cling to the shingles. As I plopped down to set to work, I realized I can’t see a thing. If I only had some light…then I remembered the strands already strung. After edging my way to the ladder and easing my way back to the ground, I ran to plug in those outlining lights. When back on the roof, it was not only bright enough for me to finish my work but to realized how stupid I was for attempting this at night.

The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned. Isaiah 9.2

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My reply

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It is true that the Jewish sabbath is on Sat. The common consensus is that Sun, the Lord’s day, is the day Jesus rose from the grave (Rev 1.10). That’s the reason we have church on Sun.

Early Christians (many of whom were non-Jews) had debates on how Jewish the church had to be. They debated circumcision among other issues, like eating meat sacrificed to idols, Sabbath day, going to the temple, etc. ( 1 Cor 7.19-20, Gal 5.5-7, Gal 6.14-16) . It’s clear that the early church decided that non-Jews did not have to be circumcised nor did they had to celebrate Jewish holy days (Col 2.15-17). It’s also clear that Christians aren’t under the law: if we were we couldn’t drive to church, eat catfish, or wear polyester. If fact, that was Jesus’ indictment against the law. The scribes and elders placed too heavy burden on the people. On the Sabbath, you couldn’t walk more than x feet, couldn’t lift more than y weights, couldn’t cook any other food than z. If you remember, Jesus himself “broke” the Sabbath when he and his disciples picked grain ( Mark 2.23-28) and even healed on the Sabbath ( Luke 13.10-17)

Instead, many scholars believe that the Sermon on the Mount is designed to outline how Jesus expected his disciples to live, and it’s the Sermon on the Mount and rest of Matthew 5-7 that describe what should be Christian behavior (loving enemy, meekness, etc), not the 10 commandments . So the 10 commandments make sense only through our understanding of Jesus.

I agree with scholars who believe that Christians aren’t governed by moral imperatives but instead, by virtue. That is, Jesus didn’t leave us a list of rights and wrongs, but virtues/characteristics that we live our lives by.

For example, the highest virtue is love–self-giving. Faithfulness is another virtue which means we not only remain true to God but also to our spouse (Command 7). We are people who are radically truthfully (Command 9). There’s no virtue about which day we worship, but living in relationship is a virtue. So we meet with each other and we God on a regular basis.

In short, yes, the Sabbath is technically sundown Fri to sundown Sat. Evidence from the New Testament shows that early Christians did not keep the Sabbath. Based on these conclusions, we aren’t obligated to observed Sat as a day of rest or worship. (It really can’t be more definitive than Col 2.15-17.)

There are a couple of books dealing with these and other ethical issues that might be of interest:
The Moral Vision of the New Testament by Richard Hays
Kingdom Ethics by Stassen and Gushee
Christian Ethics by Norman Geisler
and for good measure The Politics of Jesus by John Yoder

I hope this helps. If I can clarify further, please let me know.

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