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

Gaza

 

Before the Battle of Mons Graupius in 83 A.D., the Roman historian Tacitus attributed to the Caledonian chief Calgacus a speech in which he famously said Roman armies "make a desert and call it peace."

This photo of Gaza was taken almost a year ago, months before Israel's "final push" to wipe out Hamas.  Israel's leaders say this destruction, and all that inflicted on Gaza since, is the only way to secure "peace."

Undoubtedly more of these buildings have been leveled since this photo was taken, and more of these people killed.  But Israel hasn't yet declared peace.

Gaza makes me remember most of all Jesus' words to Jerusalem as His death at the hands of its leaders, Roman and Jewish, approached:

"If you had known...the things which make for peace !  But now they have been hidden from your eyes" (Luke 19:42).

This and other photos of Gaza also remind me of Jesus' words about satan's works, that "...the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy..." (John 10:10).

Israel's campaign in Gaza mirrors Calgacus' words about the actions of Rome's armies.  Even more, Jesus' words about satan's works.

How is it we hear Christians justifying Israel's actions in Gaza ?