Christmas 2021 in America – Jesus Still No Threat

Today is December 25, 2021, Christmas in America, except for the Orthodox who will celebrate Jesus’ birth on January 7, 2022.  I thought a few lines would be appropriate for anyone who reads or stumbles across this blog.

Christmas in a Collapsing America

At least where I live, the local Republican-owned papers print news that unemployment is lower than ever, and that all things Republican are great, but that Crazy Joe is trying to drive the country into the ground, or over the cliff, with his Socialist Agenda.  Yet there is not a millionaire Republican Senator or Representative who wants to get off the Lifetime Government Pension and Healthcare system.  Why?  Well, they say they have earned it.  Forever, after they leave Washington?

However, things do not look so rosy on the street, or in the shopping malls.  The crowds are thin.  The faces, many of them, look worn and dreading the bills to come,  The items for sale mostly are from China, our “#1 Trading Partner” as Hilary Clinton once called that Communist regime.  Not far behind is a variety of clothing from Indonesia, Vietnam, and other low-cost labor “trading partners” where American corporations have operations.  The children with parents and grandparents still have their happy little faces, and their I-Want-for-Christmas lists, and have NO IDEA what is going on in their families’ financial worlds.

Christmas for Jesus, 2020

Just a few days after his birthday in 2020, Jesus found himself dragged to the Insurrection in Washington.  He had taught things like “Turn the other cheek” and “Love your enemies” and “You must serve either God or wealth, but not both,” so he felt somewhat more than a little uncomfortable since he knew so many who called on his name yet were carrying guns, cursing, yelling, and doing all kinds of things he found offensive.

Christmas for Jesus, 2021

Jesus is thinking about that first Christmas, about which he was told by Mary and Joseph.  There was a “multitude of a heavenly army (στρατιᾶς) praising God and saying, ‘Glory in the highest to God and on earth Peace among human beings (ἀνθρώποις) with whom God is pleased!”  He looks at the United States of America, and sees many things.

None of them are connected, none of them, with his direct commandments, his direct orders, on what he wants his people to value, how he wants them to think and plan, how they are to speak to their families and friends and strangers, and how they are to act, in normal situations and in stressful even hateful situations.  He sees there are many preachers and priests, many theologians.  But he fails to see people who are completely subordinate to his command and will.

Everybody is concerned about salvation.  Everybody wants to go to heaven.  But they all are reading an inferior man on that, the Apostle Paul, who took it on himself to write that salvation was by “faith and divine grace and no works at all.”  Jesus thinks about how when he met Paul on the road to Damascus, Paul was a man possessed by his version of religiousness and hyper-obedience, who then found out he could not save himself by religiousness.  But what a mistake, based in his own experience, to tell other people they did not have to do anything to please Jesus.  Wrong, wrong, wrong, and Paul is going to get a HUGE lecture on the Day of Judgment.

Jesus is thinking about what HE SAID was a BLESSED Life, which has nothing to do with Christmas in America.

The blessedness of being gentle.  The blessedness of being really hungry to do what God wants, a hunger which leads to obedience.  The blessedness of being merciful, and knowing it is the doorway to receiving mercy from God.  The blessedness of working every day to clean out bad things in the heart, which will lead to seeing God in the end.  The blessedness of being a peacemaker, which is the precondition to being called a child of God.  The blessedness of being persecuted because your life reflects clearly every day your relationship with God.  The blessedness of being insulted, cursed, and lied about, because of the daily walk with Jesus and his Father.

Jesus is thinking about what HE COMMANDED, which never ever has been seen in any American Leader, or American policy at home or abroad.

Love your enemies, pray for them, speak blessing on them, and do good to them, or else you are no different than anyone else.  If, and only if, you forgive others for their sins against you, then your Father in heaven will forgive you.  And, to make it clearer, if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive you. Make investments in heaven, where no loss ever can happen.  You cannot serve two masters, let alone more than that.  You must love one, and hate the other.  No one, no, no one, can serve both God and Wealth!  Do not judge, and you will not be judged.  Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.  Pardon and you will be pardoned.  Give, and it will be given to you.  By your standard of measure, here on the earth, so it shall be how God measures YOU on the Day of Judgment. If anyone comes to me, and does not hate his own family, and yes, his own life, he cannot be my disciple.  Who does not carry his own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. I can see who really loves me, by who keeps my commandments.  Who has my commandments, and who keeps them, is who loves me, and that one will be loved by my Father, and I will love that one, and will disclose myself to that one, after he loves me enough to obey me. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love.  This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

Christmas and Jesus’ Blessing

Jesus said only one thing about the Devil:  “He was a murderer from the beginning. He does not stand in the truth.  There is no truth in him.  When he lies, he speaks out of his inner nature.  He is a liar.  He is the father of the lie.”  There are two primary characteristics about American POLITICAL history:  murderous wars fought for bankers and corporations and profiteers, and tons of lies every day, spread to the American people and to peoples abroad.  American Political History is predominately satanic.

Some American artist completed this painting.  It shows Jesus in the Oval Office, standing behind Donald Trump, Trump worn out and aggrieved, and reaching back to touch Jesus’ hand, which is on his shoulder.  Now to Trump followers, the picture is true, and the current President is a mockery of the will of God.

So it always has been whenever Americans have been loyal to one President over another, one political party over another.  You could replace Trump with any other person in American history, and so long as that person was the idol of the person seeing the painting, it would be “true.”

Jesus Christ never has been in the American Christmas, and never will be, as will be revealed after the American collapse, after American leaders run into another apocalyptic war, after American Christians refuse right to the Day of Judgment, to let Jesus Christ be Lord and Master of their personal and national life.