On Memorial Day, we remember our veterans.
On Labor Day, we pause to thank all the workers.
On Mothers Day, we celebrate motherhood and moms everywhere.
On Father's Day, we pay our respects to the fathers, our dads and their dads.
On New Year's Day, we bask in the glow of the previous night's revelry, as a new year dawns.
On July 4th, we recall how Americans declared their Independence.
On Hanukkah, observant Jews take seven days for their unique Festival of Lights.
On Ramadan, the 9th month of the Muslim year, is their time for fasting, "ar-ramaḍ," means scorching heat or dryness in Arabic.
On Christmas we celebrate the prophesied Messiah, meaning "the anointed one," Jesus Christ.
Jesus was of a royal line, of the House of David, yet his birth was in a stable, not in a palace. Herod would have killed him as a potential rival king, but Joseph and Mary fled with the baby Jesus to Egypt, which fulfilled an ancient prophesy, "Out of Egypt I will call My Son."
The name Jesus comes from the Hebrew – "Yeshua" – or "Yahweh (God) Saves."
The birth of Jesus is so important to billions of people that time itself is set from the date of his birth, "BC = Before Christ" or "AD = Anno Domini = In the Year of our Lord."
So Christmas is not some generic 'winter festival,' as the so-called politically correct may have us believe; rather it's as specific a holiday as the others mentioned are.
Dr. James Allen Francis wrote the following poem:
One Solitary Life
He was born in an obscure village,
The child of a peasant woman.
He grew up in still another village,
Where he worked in a carpenter shop
Until he was thirty.
Then for three years
He was an itinerant preacher.
He never wrote a book.
He never held an office.
He never had a family or owned a house.
He didn't go to college.
He never visited a big city.
He never traveled two hundred miles
From the place where he was born.
He did none of the things
One usually associates with greatness.
He had no credentials but himself.
He was only thirty-three
When the tide of public opinion turned against him.
His friends ran away.
He was turned over to his enemies.
And went through the mockery of a trial.
He was nailed to a cross
Between two thieves.
While he was dying,
His executioners gambled for his clothing,
The only property he had on Earth.
When he was dead,
He was laid in a borrowed grave
Through the pity of a friend.
Twenty centuries have come and gone,
And today he is the central figure
Of the human race,
And the leader of mankind's progress.
All the armies that ever marched,
All the navies that ever sailed,
All the parliament that ever sat,
All the kings that ever reigned,
Put together have not affected
The life of man on Earth
As much as that
One Solitary Life.
So at Christmas, we celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus, the infant king.
Luke 2:7 concludes that Jesus' mother Mary, "…wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn."
From our family to yours,
"Merry Christmas to all!
And to all, a good night…" ##
(PS: If you enjoy this message, please share the link with your friends,
or tweet, FB, etc. Merry Christmas to all!)
(Image credits, WikiCommons)
L. A. 'Tony' Kovach
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