Dale asks us to “show us your Christmas” for the Cosmic Photo Challenge. On my walk on Christmas day I spotted these flowers among others.
My smile this week for Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile is much the same as it has been. In particular I was wondering if I would find anything to photograph on December 25th worth posting to meet Dale’s challenge. Sometimes I’m too distracted. There are times I am so preoccupied I forget to take photos. I smiled with relief when I spotted these flowers. I don’t know why I saw them. I must have missed them on previous walks. Perhaps they weren’t blooming then.
Confucius is dead. Mohammad is dead. Shinto is dead. Buddha is dead, but Jesus is alive and therefore I can believe IN Jesus. I can’t believe in the others. They are all gone.
I love the traditional celebration of Christmas on December 25th especially as Mario Murillo presented it yesterday in his post. However, placing the actual birth of Jesus at the beginning of the Jewish calendar, that is, on Nisan 1, opens up, for me, an unexpected fulfillment of prophecy.
Jonathan Cahn, a Messianic Christian pastor, made the case that Jesus was born on March 20, 6 BC. If you watch the 28 minute video, When Was Jesus REALLY Born??, (Jim Bakker Show November 12th, 2012), look for the following: 1) In the spring lambing season the shepherds would be in the fields at night attending the birth of the lambs. 2) These lambs from Bethlehem were the temple sacrificial lambs. By pointing out the sign of “a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:12 NIV), the angel was telling the shepherds to also attend the birth of Jesus. 3) Central events in the life of Jesus occurred on Jewish holy days: the Lamb Selection Day (Palm Sunday), Passover (Crucifixion), the Feast of First Fruits (Resurrection), and Shavuot (Pentecost). If His birth were a similarly central event it would likely occur on Nisan 1, the beginning of the Jewish calendar. 4) The birth year of 6 BC is suggested by an unusual occultation of Jupiter by the Moon in the constellation Aries that the Magi, or Zoroastrian astrologers, would have noticed in the spring. This would point them to the birth (occultation) of a king (Jupiter) in Judea (Aries). 5) The Tabernacle took nine months to complete like the period from conception to birth of a baby. It was set up on Nisan 1, “on the first day of the first month” (Exodus 40:2 NIV).
As Jonathan Cahn mentioned at the end of the video every time we receive Jesus it is day one, a new beginning. That would include today, December 25th, as well. And so I wish you a Merry Christmas and a new beginning.
Events
The winter solstice doesn’t bother us. It happens this time every year. It comes and goes. A few might care to know, But no one feels any fear.
A birth we celebrate about this time That happened once in ancient days Still moves the heart with joyful gratitude. We rise with shepherds singing praise.
This week for the Cosmic Photo Challenge Dale asks us to feature our favorite photos of the past year under the theme of “cream of the crop”. Above is a fall view of Lake Michigan from the top of the ravine at Lake Bluff, Illinois, and the other shows a cup of goji berry tea next to my prepared notes for a meeting.
What made me smile this past week (for Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile) was a realization of the significance of various personal events over the past year, some very small, which made possible other such events. By contrast many public events of 2020 were awful, but these more private ones I think of now as Red Sea moments (Exodus 14) where I had to go from one side to the other of some situation with a command to do so, or else. When I imagine what my life would have been like today if I had not obeyed these commands I am overwhelmed with joyful gratitude.
I doubt the Israelites felt comfortable crossing the Red Sea given those ominous mountains of water on both sides, but if they had not obeyed, they would have had to face the Egyptians behind them. Imagine their gratitude at the privilege of being guided from one shore to the other.
The realization that made me smile this past week was the sense that I was not alone and I might well have become lost if I didn’t go forward. There are those who might choose to explain such commands or guidance as the workings of my imagination. However, there is a difference between imagining how the Israelites must have felt to experiencing it oneself. Remembrance brings forth gratitude and gratitude put a joyful smile on my face.
Gerald made crosses and dressed them in tarp and rags to look like people blocking the way. He didn’t want anyone to get hurt while he was laying the drain pipes.
He considered using warning cones rather than those scarecrows, or scare-people, but how boring would that have been? Besides Gerald wanted to make them like he wanted to drain that seasonal wetland. In a week he was done.
Rather than keep them away the scare-people attracted his neighbors. They gave Gerald ideas for other scare-critters and new opportunities to use them.
Linked to Friday Fictioneers where Rochelle Wisoff-Fields offers the photo above by Sandra Crook as the prompt.
As Greg approached the store a woman sitting by the streetlight asked him for a dollar and he gave her one.
Inside the store Greg bought a single Christmas card for Bill who called him the day before from a distant part of the country complaining that no one wanted anything to do with him anymore. Greg knew long ago that the toxicity of alcohol had been triggering Bill’s eruptions of deluded omnipotence and he was even beginning to become aware of the devious sources manipulating his own personality. Without any expectation that what he was about to do would do any good Greg picked a card that expressed a humble message of joy and he decided to call Bill back on Christmas Eve to see how he was doing.
After paying for the card Greg saw a dollar bill in the change he received and gave it to the woman on the sidewalk. She tucked this additional treasure away with the others.
When Alice saw the rabbit hole, she wondered: “Do I dare to go?” She went. Praise God. Raise gratitude. She found her winding way back home.
Linked to Cosmic Photo Challenge where Dale offers the theme of “snappers’ choice”, or photos of my own choosing. These are pictures taken about a week ago near the beach.
Also linked to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. I was thinking this past week of Matthew 6:13,And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. (NIV)
I smiled when I thought the temptation from the evil one might be for me to get my own way (or its way) when instead I should be rejecting it. When I do get my own way, that is, when my own will was done, I wondered if that were also His will for me? And that made me suspicious of the lyrics in the song, I Did It My Way.
Ahh! Going down that rabbit hole made me smile all the more with gratitude as things started to make sense from that context. Now to find my way back home.
Post and Rope
Crystal Grimes is hosting a Holiday Blogging Party to which I am linking this post. May all of you have a blessed Hanukkah and a merry Christmas.
14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. 15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
I read two impressive blog posts this past week about Christmas. Julie’s post (CookieCrumbsToLiveBy) associated “cancel Christmas” with Scrooge. Mario Murillo’s post pointed out the “supernatural power of Christmas”. There’s more going on with Christmas than meets the eye. I don’t want to miss it.
The thought of politicians, some of whom I doubt were validly elected given the evidence of voter fraud in the US, trying to come up with excuses to make it difficult for us to celebrate Christmas, or to discredit Christmas in some way, makes me want to celebrate Christmas all the more.
And I feel the same about Hanukkah, the Festival of Dedication (John 10:22), the Festival of Lights, that we are currently in. May the fire of your light pierce the darkness of night.
Given his diet Greg knew he shouldn’t eat much of anything on the menu. As a compromise he ordered a huge bowl of nachos with sour cream, guacamole and “the works”, whatever that was, and shared it with everyone at the table. It went well with their burgers and beers and Greg had plenty himself.
“Hmmm,” Greg thought, “Those nachos taste good.” He wondered if he should break his diet and risk ordering a burger and beer.
He thought and thought and thought and thought and decided not to since by that time everyone else had thankfully finished theirs.
When I think of Christmas I think of decorated trees, presents, special food, family, quiet, cold wintry nights – and snow. Here are some photographs of snowy scenes from last year. Annette Rochelle Aben reminded me in one of her recent posts of this Christmas song that may fit these photos:
Michael Bublé, Let It Snow, Rubi Malik’s YouTube Channel.
Christmas is the traditional time to celebrate the birth of Jesus although He was not likely born on this date. Joseph Lenard argued that Jesus was born on the Feast of Trumpets (specifically, September 11, 3 BC, at the beginning of the Jewish civil year, Tishri 1, or Rosh Hashanah). David Pawson argued that Jesus was born later in Tishri during the Feast of Tabernacles. Richard Lanser argued that Jesus was born on March 20, 6 BC, on Nisan 1. There may be arguments for other dates that I’m unaware of.
Pawson, however, pointed out something important in his argument. The supernatural event was not the birth, but the conception of Jesus nine months earlier recorded in Luke 1:26-38. He pointed out that a virgin could theoretically give birth to a baby girl through parthenogenesis, but not to a baby boy. This reaffirms the significance of conception in human life.
Regardless of when Jesus was actually born, winter is a good time for a celebration and Jesus is worth remembering at any time of the year.
I am also linking this to Trent P. McDonald’s The Weekly Smile. I began writing the post on Saturday, December 5th, which happened to be my own birthday. That thought led to a realization this past week that has given me many reasons to smile, with gratitude to all of our parents and to the grace of God, that we have all been assigned to this same time together.
And so, my fellow assignees, may all of you, friend and foe alike, have a blessed Advent and a Merry Christmas.
Snow for Christmas
Crystal Grimes is hosting a Holiday Blogging Party. I am linking this post to that party.
I gave my brother peeled apple slices. He placed them one-by-one on the strudel dough that we older ones helped stretch across a cloth on our dinner table. He put some in his mouth. Then came the raisins to scatter on the dough. When it was finished I held him so he could watch our mother lift the cloth underneath the strudel, roll it into a long, thick pastry that fit on a cookie sheet and place it in the oven.
We made many strudels for Christmas and everyone helped.
I’ve never had a dessert that tasted so good.
Linked to Carrot Ranch where Charli Mills offers the theme of family traditions.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 