There are any number of things to celebrate this, and every, Christmas. The Contrarian view of Christmas and more will be shared in Part II. But first up today in Part I is author Patrice Lewis, courtesy of the WND News Center to MHProNews. Lewis’s commentary speaks for itself.
Part I
REAL AMERICA
Come in from the cold
‘I wish you all, believers and unbelievers alike, a blessed and gift-filled Christmas’
By Patrice Lewis | December 20, 2024
There is a passage from a book called “Not Buying It” by Judith Levine. Disgusted with what she sees as a consumer culture in New York City, this progressive author and her “partner” embarked on a year-long project to buy nothing but necessities. I find it an interesting, if cynical, read.
But one particular passage always leaps out at me. While taking a late-evening walk on Christmas Eve to visit some friends, the author (an atheist) and her partner spontaneously slip into the back of a small church during the candlelit service. To her surprise, Ms. Levine finds herself weeping. “[P]erhaps I weep in envy of faith,” she writes. “The comfort of knowing anything without skepticism. An atheist never really comes in from the cold.”
The aching pathos of those words haunted me from the first time I read them. They are a naked glimpse into an atheist’s soul. She’s right, of course. An atheist never really does come in from the cold. This realization seems especially poignant at Christmas when so many people are rejoicing.
The Bible references celebrations all the time. Jesus’ first recorded miracle took place at a celebration (the wedding at Cana). But in all cases Scripture makes it clear these celebrations have a point, a purpose. And the purpose in each of these celebrations is to honor a guest, whether it’s a king or a bridegroom or a foreign diplomat or a passing visitor or a Messiah in a manger.
A feast without a guest of honor is meaningless, like a wedding without a bridegroom. It’s merely an exercise in gluttony and excess. Overindulgence is kind of fun, to be sure, but don’t mistake “fun” with “meaningful,” because they’re not the same thing.
Christmas, of course, celebrates the ultimate Guest of Honor. Everything we do – sing carols, give gifts, smile at strangers, donate to charity, decorate our homes, build gingerbread houses, see “The Nutcracker,” sing Handel’s “Messiah” as a flash mob in a mall – all these things consciously or unconsciously celebrate the birth of a very special baby, the ultimate Honored Guest.
When unbelievers feel a keen ache from their lack of belief – as is written in the passage above – it’s because they’ve caught a glimpse of that Honored Guest but know they won’t meet him. Or more precisely, they refuse to meet him. They deny He exists. They cannot or will not take the opportunity to say hello, and in doing so they miss out on unbelievable richness and joy.
They also miss out on the biggest gifts of all: forgiveness, grace, salvation and eternal life. These are the ultimate gifts that keep on giving. Nothing purchased from Amazon can ever equal them in value.
It’s an interesting development to watch those who don’t like the Honored Guest do everything in their power to make sure others won’t ever catch a glimpse of Him either. They’re grudgingly willing to permit a celebration (“winter parties”), but they insist on making it a party without a point (a wedding without a groom, a book without a plot, a song without a melody, a birthday party without a birthday). They simply cannot swallow the idea that most people celebrate for a reason. We instinctively recognize there should be an honored guest at a party. We understand that a celebration without a point is, well, pointless.
Atheists can fill their lives with material goods. They can fill their lives with love for their spouse and kids. They can fill their lives with good works and charity. But there will always be an emptiness inside them, that classic God-shaped hole in their heart, whether or not they’re willing to admit it. And the thing is, it’s so easy to fill that hole.
But unbelievers resist. They stay out in the cold, pressing their noses against the windowpane and seeing inside a room filled with warmth and light and joy. Even though entrance is free and their presence would be warmly welcomed, they prefer to stay outside and ridicule those who choose to go in and enjoy the party.
The key point so many unbelievers miss is that faith seldom comes in a blinding road-to-Damascus flash. Rather, it takes time and practice. I would never hand you a violin and shove you unprepared in front of an audience at Carnegie Hall – the experience would traumatize you and make you hate violins and fear performances.
But years of steady practice would overcome that fear and hatred. Practice allows you to squeak and screech and make mistakes and get discouraged in private. But you’ll improve. You may never perform at Carnegie Hall, but you might share the joy of your violin music with family and friends.
For most people, a belief and faith in God also takes time and practice. A lot of atheists were, sometime in their past, shoved onto the stage at Carnegie Hall unprepared (so to speak). The experience traumatized them. They learned to hate God and loathe religion.
As a result, many never practice believing. They never attend church. They never read the Bible. They never talk to anyone whose gentle guidance might help them ease that fear and loathing and discover the joy of faith. It’s not hard to accept faith as a little child at first. Children don’t comprehend their gifts, they just accept them. Comprehension – faith – comes later.
And so, unbelievers stay out in the cold, hating God and rejecting His gifts. Since the magnitude of those gifts cannot be grasped, understood, or appreciated until they’re accepted, unbelievers continue to scorn them as unnecessary. They tell people who have already accepted those gifts that they’re weak, ignorant and wrong. Some even take those gifts and spit on them before throwing them away.
And that’s sad, achingly sad … because the gifts available at the celebration are fabulous. They’re greater than us, greater than everything. They’re also available to everyone, regardless of whether someone accepts them or not.
Thankfully, unbelievers are welcome to join the party anytime. They’re welcome to help themselves to the gifts, anytime. They’re welcome to meet the Honored Guest anytime. There are a lot of freebies out there, available for the taking. Anytime.
So for anyone who hasn’t yet come in out of the cold, for Pete’s sake open the door and come inside! There are gifts aplenty. I think you’ll find that party is a whole lot more fun when it has a purpose. And the Honored Guest is a pretty neat guy when you get to know Him.
I wish you all, believers and unbelievers alike, a blessed and gift-filled Christmas. Come and join the celebration. Come in from the cold.
—
Part II – Dreaming of a Contrarian Christmas
1) You won’t find this first here. Untold numbers of others centuries before our time observed that God is humble. You read that correctly. God is humble and the Creator of All proves it by having Jesus born in a stable. Why wasn’t Jesus born in a palace instead? Because Jesus came for all, including the poor who outnumber the wealthy and powerful by a wide margin.
2) Christmas itself is a celebration of a demonstrable miracle. It may be difficult to prove that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary in some medical and scientific examination sense. But what can be demonstrated, that underscores the virgin birth, is that Jesus’ birth was foretold centuries, sometimes over a thousand years, before his actual birth. Try to find any other person in human history that can say the same thing with substantial evidence for that claim. What follows is adapted from this writer’s column ongoing and eclectic series on the Patch from the link here. It included this screen shot of the Q&A with Copilot below.
3) Let’s share some examples of that claim and weave into it the significance of Hannukah, which this year also starts on December 25.
The Maccabees, Hanukkah reminds us, celebrates a miraculous victory over the Greeks. The Greeks in those days were a superpower, that’s what made the success of the Maccabees a miracle. The founding fathers of America took on the superpower of their day, the British Empire, its king and corporate backers. Faith moved the Maccabees. Faith moved the founding fathers. Faith can move us today to tap into the power of God and overcome the challenges that we face day by day in an all too swampy industry and national government.
Let’s gather round that Nativity scene and picture the wonder experienced by those shepherds who heard centuries of stories about the coming of a Messiah. Let us renew our strength. Then, let us mount with eagles’ wings to prepare for the battles yet to come in 2025.
Matthew 1:23: “Behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel” (which being interpreted is, “God with us”), says Proverbs 31 Ministries. That verse from Matthew harkens back to Isaiah 7:14. In the New International Version (NIV) it reads as follows.
14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you[a] a sign: The virgin[b] will conceive and give birth to a son, and[c] will call him Immanuel.[d]
But a virgin couldn’t conceive a child in the 1st century Roman Empire days, right? Well, that’s what makes it a miracle. The entire universe came into existence at the mere thought of the Creator-God. Hundreds of prophecies in the Hebrew or Old Testament Scriptures point to the coming of Jesus Christ. That is what is celebrated on Christmas. But to better frame that miracle, look at the prophecy that occurred hundreds of years before the birth of Christ in that stable in Bethlehem. From Gemini’s AI is this snapshot.
The prophet Micah’s prophecies about Jesus Christ in the Old Testament include:
Micah 5:2 predicts that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem, a small village south of Jerusalem. This prophecy is recalled in Matthew 2:6, and the birth of Jesus is further described in Matthew 2:1–6.
Micah 5:2 also points to Jesus’s eternal nature.
Micah 5:5 describes a future kingdom where many nations will live in peace and security, and come to Jerusalem to worship Jesus.
Micah 7:6 is adapted by Jesus in Matthew 10:35–36 to describe his own situation, where he came to divide households.
Now, let’s look at Micah 5;2.
2 “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans[a] of Judah,
out of you will come for me
one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times.”
Gemini said this.
The Book of Micah was written between approximately 735 and 700 BC. The book was written by the prophet Micah, who was active during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, the kings of Judah…
Enmity is defined by Oxford Languages as: “the state or feeling of being actively opposed or hostile to someone or something.”
The promised Messiah who would save humanity from the sins of Adam and Eve would be born of a woman and he would be a man. The woman? Mary. The man? Jesus, the God-man.
11 “Ask the Lord your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights.”
12 But Ahaz said, “I will not ask; I will not put the Lord to the test.”
13 Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you[a] a sign: The virgin[b] will conceive and give birth to a son, and[c] will call him Immanuel.[d]
Immanuel, or Emmanuel, is a Hebrew word that means “God with us.” So, a virgin is predicted to give birth to a male child, who will be “God with us.”
There are numbers of articles that MHProNews/MHLivingNews and more recently our eclectic and wide-ranging series on the Patch explore related to the existence of God and the significance of Jesus.
America was founded by predominantly Christian people. Our laws for years were inspired by Judeo-Christian values. As society has become more secular and less Christian it has drifted into the kinds of problems that were resisted and fled by those who founded America. While it may sound strange to some contemporary minds, without the lessons of faith an array of social, business, political and other problems flourish. In contrast, the more that the lessons of faith and the ideals of Constitutionally limited government ‘rule’ the greater the life that can be enjoyed by millions in the U.S.A.
It would be easy to post a simple, and nearly meaningless, ‘happy holidays’ like MHI does. But in fairness, even the ‘holidays’ in that phrase is based on the contraction “holy days.” The holy days like Christmas are holidays.
That noted, far more specific and relevant for Christmas are items like those that follow.
There is a bit of overlap, but much more is found in our smorgasbord of subjects covered on the Patch.
What’s the contrarian view of Christmas? This isn’t a secular holiday; it is originally and still for billions still a religious one. So, while our family and yours likely have a Christmas tree, and presents waiting to be given or opened, let’s not forget the reason for the season.
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By L.A. “Tony” Kovach – for MHProNews.com.
Tony earned a journalism scholarship and earned numerous awards in history and in manufactured housing.
For example, he earned the prestigious Lottinville Award in history from the University of Oklahoma, where he studied history and business management. He’s a managing member and co-founder of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com.
This article reflects the LLC’s and/or the writer’s position and may or may not reflect the views of sponsors or supporters.
Connect on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/latonykovach
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