JackTrade's Blog

     Merry Christmas, everyone!

      I am so sorry if that salutation offends some readers.  I really feel sorry for the people  who take offense over a simple seasonal greeting.   They clearly do not understand the reason for the season.  (The glittering generality "Happy Holidays" is  O. K., but it tells me more about what those who use it think about the meaning of Christmas than anything else.)  It is strange: The root meaning of the word holiday is "holy day," and Christmas is a holy day.

      Call me ignorant, stupid or any of the other childish names I've been called because of my beliefs if you wish.  I promise you, I won't be impressed.  It is the people who demean others with this terminology who don't understand.  They think they are smarter than the God they deny.  Some also think their right not to be offended supersedes that of people of faith to enjoy their holidays.   I could not disagree more.  In fact, I am offended by the tiny minority who take away public exhibitions of faith, like Nativity scenes, away from the public.  No one is forcing them to go look if they don't want to.  They may turn off the TV if they don't like Christmas shows, just like I am not forced to go to movie theaters to see pornography. 

     I believe the Christmas story.  I believe the Christmas story is the reason for the season.   I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came down to  earth to die for the sins of mankind.  The story of His birth is the story of Christmas.  It is the story of  a miracle which fulfilled a number of Old Testament prophecies.  

     By the way, the name Jesus means "salvation" in the original Hebrew.  Matthew 1:21 says Joseph and Mary were instructed to "call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins."

     Isaiah 7:14 says, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and his name  shall be called Emmanuel.  The name means "God with us (Matthew 1:23)."    Yes, I believe that Mary was a virgin when she conceived Jesus in her womb.  She conceived by the Holy Ghost just exactly as the angel Gabriel said she would (Luke 1:34, 35).

      Another prophecy that was fulfilled when Jesus was born was Micah 5:2: "But  thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel, whose going forths have been of old, from everlasting."  This told the exact town in which the Saviour would be born.  Luke 2:4 and 15 tell us that Christ was born in Bethlehem.  The prophecy says more than that:  Since "his going forths have been of old, from everlasting," Jesus is God.

     Those who wish to rationalize that the prophecies were written after the fact are free to do so.  But they are taking a hugeand unnecessary risk, one that could haunt them for eternity.   Jesus was born to die for  their sins as well as mine.  This is the purpose for his coming.  He was the first, and ultimate Christmas gift.

     God gave His Son "to save His people fron their sins,"  and that, my friends, is the reason for the season.