Christmas Thoughts: Reflection on Difficulty

This time of year can should be celebratory, but often a different reality underlies the festivity.

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(c) Can Stock Photo / ankihoglund
(c) Can Stock Photo / ankihoglund

This time of year is a joyful, festive time filled with family, days off from work, presents given and received and celebration. At least, that is how we look forward to this time of year. I believe it is for most of us, for the most part, a joyful time of year. But, life is not always so consistent with our expectations and experiences.

I checked Facebook this morning when I awoke. A high school classmate reports that his wife and mother of his daughters went to “be with the angels” last night. A friend I met in college said goodbye to his mother yesterday. An acquaintance I know through wrestling described a colleague, only a few months over 50, passed away yesterday after a two-week bout of pneumonia. A high school friend asked for prayers for his daughter, going on two weeks in the hospital.

I am reading what I wrote two years ago, as I get ready to reblog this article. I just got done reading a post by a friend and colleague: one of his best friends committed suicide this morning.

This time of year can should be celebratory, but often a different reality underlies the festivity. Continue reading “Christmas Thoughts: Reflection on Difficulty” →

Winter’s Ravage

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Canstock csp16495871
Canstock csp16495871

The rush of desolate bone chilling wind
through trees stripped of autumn’s glory
brings comfort within
as the ” I think I can ” stove
fortresses the cold
in a small sheltered space
meanwhile
death itself howls
bearing its incisors
a wolf’s grin with yellowed eyes staring
How gallantly, how merrily
we find solace with warmed brew
and amiable talk
against such a sure footed and relentless enemy
we grasp common courage
and yawn at threats
from winter’s ravage

By Ken Peters, Belmont, NH

Christmas Thoughts: Prophets & Fools

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(c) Can Stock Photo / GDArts

My Christmas Thoughts have taken me to the prophecies in the Old Testament of the coming Messiah. At Christmas, we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Christ, which is the Greek term for Messiah. Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament, and he said the Old Testament is about him.[i]

The concept of a Messiah is unique to the Abrahamic religions. A messiah is a savior or liberator of the people. The Messiah predicted in the Old Testament (Tanahk) is the Savior of the Jewish people according to Jesus, and he is also the Savior of the world. The Messianic prediction goes back to Abraham:

I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” (Gen. 22:18-10)[ii]

Both the Jews and Muslims trace their lineage and heritage back to Abraham, and Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, is traced directly back to Abraham through David.  (Matthew 1:1-17)[iii] That the Messiah would come through the lineage of Judah, of whom David was a descendant, is echoed forward in the prophetic passages in the Old Testament writings.

Continue reading “Christmas Thoughts: Prophets & Fools” →

Christmas Thoughts: The First Prophecy

The first prophecy in the Bible was spoken to Satan about the coming of the offspring of Eve who would bruise his head.

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(c) Can Stock Photo / aleksask
(c) Can Stock Photo / aleksask

We have explored one of the great passages of the Old Testament, written centuries before the Christ child was born in lowly estate in the beginning of the 1st Century, which predicted in great detail this man, Jesus. (Isaiah 53) Isaiah 53 is one of many predictions, prophecies, of the coming of a Messianic one who would be the Savior of the Jews, and of the world.

We will explore a sampling of other foretelling passages of the Old Testament in future installments, including today’s segment. Many of them are stunning in their accurate, specific and sometimes obscure detail. Not so today.

But the passage we will review today is central to the story. We go all the way back to Genesis for this one – Genesis 3:15 to be exact. This is considered the first prophecy in the Bible: Continue reading “Christmas Thoughts: The First Prophecy” →

Christmas Thoughts: What Do the Dead Sea Scrolls Have to Do With Christmas?

When that young Jewish man found a Tanakh, located the Book of Isaiah in it and compared the passage in the Tanahk to the same passage in the “Christian” Old Testament, he was shocked to find that it was virtually identical.

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(c) Can Stock Photo / lucidwaters
(c) Can Stock Photo / lucidwaters

In the first installment of Christmas Thoughts, I left us hanging with a long passage from the Bible. I didn’t give the reference. I wanted the reader to think about it.

If it isn’t familiar to the reader, I wanted the reader to wonder where it might be found.

I have to admit that my inspiration came from a true story. A young Jewish man was presented the same passage and asked to identify where it was found in the Scripture. Like many of us, myself included as a young man, he wasn’t overly familiar with the Scriptures. His knee jerk reaction was that it is from the New Testament somewhere (which he hadn’t read either … but he was Jewish after all).

When he was told where the passage is located in the Bible, he was skeptical – Isaiah 53 … in the Old Testament. His next thought was, “That’s your Bible! I bet it’s not in the Tanuhk!” Continue reading “Christmas Thoughts: What Do the Dead Sea Scrolls Have to Do With Christmas?” →