Christ's Birth and Beyond
and a few hidden tidbits.
The hidden tidbits: In case you are a new reader, be sure to click on the embedded links. You’ll discover widely unknown facts about parts of our human history and a rabbit hole or two for fun.
WIPs: 1) I want to do a piece on the Catholic Church. Millions of hoodwinked parishioners are tale-spinning from the current Pope’s take on gay marriage. What saddens me (and why I use the word, hoodwinked, is that I’ve learned much about the origin of Catholicism and the symbology at the Vatican, and I believe generations of sincere God-seekers have been taken for a ride by their forefathers. What I mean by this, is that Catholicism is largely a faith of family tradition where even future spouses often have to become Catholic in order to marry their bride or groom. Tradition? Loyalty? A binding to Catholicism exists that has caused many of my former Catholic friends to be SO glad they shook off its shackles. Other denominations in the Church have issues, for sure, but Catholicism, from my understanding, is in a different league.
Self-Sustenance - 2) I’ve been expanding my knowledge of herbs for medicinal purposes. God has a purpose for everything He created and it is good! I look forward to sharing more about my attempts to learn how to garden well, which in the last few months meant preparing the soil for a new year.
3) 2024 - What is ahead? Lord knows. But in the next few days, I will write some exciting thoughts down.
Now for today’s piece:
The birth of Jesus of Nazareth did not occur on December 25th, this was the birth date of a pagan god of light. “As the story goes, the last day of winter, the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, was thought to be December 25. On that night, Mithras worshippers celebrated the Great Mother Goddess giving birth to the infant sun god, Mithras. Dies Natalis Solis Invicti means birthday of the unconquered sun because the sun was returning to vanquish the cold, dark winter. In fact, Sunday was held as sacred throughout the year and is (evidently) where we get that name for the first day of the week.”
Despite not knowing the exact date of the birth of God in human flesh, we pause to remember and celebrate God’s love for humanity. He choose to wear our skin. He choose to walk in our shoes—experiencing temptation, loss, good food, friendship, and even the exhaustion of ministry. His world was similar to our current state of affairs: corrupt politicians, self-serving religious leaders, and pagan gods being worshipped through sex practices, cultural traditions and grand edifices.
Jesus’ conception was more the next step—a passageway if you will, to fulfillment rather than the first stage of a journey for the King of Kings. God’s reconciliatory journey began before the foundation of the world—suggesting His plan to correct man’s misalignment was accomplished in His mind before the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary.
Jesus’ birth connected the unseen with the visible in a way that trumped the incursion of the Watchers in Gen 6. These heavenly beings “left their estate” and begat children with human women.
So much of Jesus’ intercessory work before he came to earth, while he walked on earth, and even today has to do with the rectifying of cosmic chaos. God needed to resolve more than the lawful theft of human beings in Gen 3. The end of holy alignment for all of creation—seen and unseen—with Himself brought about a kingdom that was never supposed to exist.
My husband ventured into this deeply theological rabbit hole almost fifteen years ago when he started a family bible study one summer. “If God is Creator, did He create evil?” Boy, if you could have seen the looks on the faces of our three teenagers as they grappled with what they knew about God, the Bible and the implications of any answer. For all of us, a big takeaway of this summer study was this: Jehovah, as Creator, endowed to created beings the ability to imagine and bring forth what He would desire and what He would not. This perspective gives a different take on how He handles His sovereignty, particularly with the development of evil. (see below)
For you and I, He had to deal with sin—the imaginations of our hearts and the works of our flesh, and for the fallen elohim, the Bible says in 1 John 3:8: Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. (Sin was just one of those works.)
Ez. 28:14 You were an anointed guardian cherub.
I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God;
in the midst of the stones of fire you walked.
15 You were blameless in your ways
from the day you were created,
till unrighteousness was found in you.
Strong’s H4672 “was found” affirms that our Creator cannot think evil. A few translations of the verb are to learn, to come upon, and to find. Are you scratching your head thinking, I thought God knew everything? Well, take a back step and consider the nature of God. Evil imaginations have no place in Him. He cannot be tempted with evil, neither does He tempt anyone. There is no unrighteousness in Him. He is pure good. Personally, I have concluded that just as the Most High could not fathom unrighteousness, iniquity—a twisting of what is good, neither can He imagine evil—the works of darkness that started in the minds of the fallen ones, and later affected humankind via sin.
Christ’s birth represents a major step in the plan of God, our Creator to align what had been misaligned. The whole of the gospel narrative, the legal defeat of evil on the Cross, and His mysterious mission to the underworld were steps that did not only affect humanity’s bondage, but the bondage of all creation! Think about it, ancient runes and witchcraft spells disorder, bind, and manipulate. High level sorcerers manipulate the energy of the seen and unseen realms (with the help of demonic spirits) in ways most of us believe are fake. However, even the Bible warns against these dark arts, 2 Chron 33:6, so we know these practices wield real power. Have you heard of weather witches? I have. Pharmakeia, where the word pharmaceutical derives, means to alter a state. In Greek times, this word was used for witchcraft. I don’t understand how this type of manipulation works, but I do know that God’s plan involves ending what has been altered from His intents, whether it is our health, the weather, the focus of our worship, the use of the planet’s natural resources, the treading of the Church over all the power of the evil one (Luke 10:19), etc. The cosmic chaos will end. Jesus, the fulness of the Godhead in flesh made sure of it.
Colossians 1:15-20, He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by[f] him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
The Cross, the act of bruising of the head of the serpent, who is the representative of all that misaligns and alters from God’s intents, sealed the death certificate of sin and darkness. Will we see the culmination of His plan in our lifetime? What events are to come in 2024?
More to come…