Category: Christmas

One-world government, Isaiah style.

Isaiah 9:1-7

For Isaiah, Christmas is all about one-world government:

“For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore.”

How is this to happen? Not by conquest, but by making war irrelevant. War itself is overthrown. But how? Isaiah’s answer – people finally wake up and see the light:

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness–on them light has shined. You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder. For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire.”

Isaiah believed that the world could have a happy ending after all, simply as a result of everyone waking up and seeing the light. And I don’t believe that means everyone will convert to Christianity. It means everyone realizes that God already loves them; we don’t have a deity problem anymore. We never did. God is pro-Earth and all its inhabitants. Put it to rest. Forget about the verses that say people are God’s enemies. Re-interpret them. Look at them from a sociological perspective, or reject them outright but whatever you do, don’t believe them. Wake up and see the light, and let’s get governing.

 

The real war on Christmas (in which Christmas won)

The real War on Christmas happened a long time ago, at the first Christmas:

“When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men.” (Matthew 2:16)

You can tell a lot about a person’s mental state by what they fear. King Herod was evidently very intimidated by the thought of thousands of peacefully dreaming children warm in their beds. So that first Christmas, countless dreams were snuffed out; voices were silenced before anyone had a chance to listen, collateral damage in King Herod’s expedient fight for the status quo.

It did not have the effect that King Herod intended.

Herod, if you can hear my voice, know that billions of dreaming children across the planet squeal with delight each year in celebration of what you tried to kill.

The Herods of this world understand that each generation is a threat to the current power structure. All it takes is for one generation to rise up together and say we’re no longer going to run the world through force and violence and lies. And that is a very intimidating and unsettling idea to those who make their living that way. Well, Christmas won. I say let them tremble.

And to the Holy Innocents who we honor today: Though we had to say goodbye too soon, we hear your voice in the joyful cries of every child on the face of Earth who wakes in hope each Christmas morning. May this generation honor you by building a world where children are no longer pursued to their deaths simply for being born in the wrong place and time, and where indiscriminate violence is replaced with indiscriminate love.