Baxter Black's First Cowboy Christmas

 I'm no fan of Christmas.  Its only Reality is that Jesus was born: the One Fact that changes everything.

I'm a fan of the late Baxter Black, "cowboy poet and former large-animal veterinarian."  His take on Christmas speaks its Reality.

Baxter Black's First Cowboy Christmas

Prayer of the Unworthy

Brennan Manning tells of when he was confessor for a nun who couldn't pray the Lord's Prayer.  Sexually abused as a child, addressing "Father" renewed her sense of fear and shame, her unworthiness to address God.

Manning took his lead from Jesus' anguished prayer moments before His arrest, when He asked "abba," His "daddy," to "take this cup" from Him, were it the Father's will (Mark 14:36).

We are told that because He adopted us, put His Spirit in our hearts, we too can call on Father with the same child-like intimacy Jesus did, as "Daddy" (Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6).

The prayer Manning suggested to the nun is one that comes to mind almost daily, knowing I'm unworthy to address my Father except for His love towards me: "Abba...thank you I belong to You."

Christian B.S.

I've gotten some feedback on using the term "B.S." regards the Church' teaching about Christmas.  Some folks evidently consider that well-known expression "street language," and inappropriate for talking about the faith.

Understanding that objection, "B.S." still seems a good characterization of "religious garbage"...including that taught by the Church.

That's what Paul called the fleshly "righteousness which is in the Law" that he had been raised in and trained in; Philippians 3:4-8.  In the NASB's verse 8, he dismisses it all as "rubbish" in comparison to "knowing Christ Jesus my Lord."

Paul uses the word "skubalon"...literally, what is "thrown" (balon) to dogs (kyon).  Vines' says the word refers to "...any refuse, as the excrement of animals, offscouring, rubbish, dregs...[anything] worthless and detestable."

Vines' citations from secular Greek writings suggest that "dung" was the common meaning of skubalon in Paul's time: and so the King James version translates it in Philippians 3:8.

What of our time ?  Is the fleshly "religious" teaching in our churches as "worthless and detestable" as animal dung, unworthy the good news of Christ's reign ?  Can such rubbish rightly be called "B.S." ?

So it is.

Let Earth Receive Her King

Even pastors have a hard time talking about Christmas without the sentimental, or cultural, or political B.S. attached to the holiday.

Most pastors decry the commercialized B.S. of Christmas: but of course, the holiday is the year's biggest "sales-pitch" for churches, same as for Walmart.

Why wouldn't it be ?  The Church invented Christmas, and holds the patent.

So this is best sermon I've ever heard on Christmas: that Christ's birth is God's intervention in human history to save mankind from merciless death by self-rule.  That our HOPE is not in our "kings of men," neither Saul, nor Caesar Augustus, nor Herod, nor Trump.

That God enacts in Jesus' human flesh His promise to every human being, that His unlimited love governs heaven and earth, now and forever, in "righteousness, and peace, and joy."

Sermon starts at the 31:24 mark:  Oh Holy Night

A second sermon, that Christ's birth heralds peace for mankind, starts about 6:05:  Peace on Earth