The following Scripture passages are offered to aid beginning fellowships. The readings and commentary for this week are more in line with what has become usual; for the following will most likely be familiar observations. The concept behind this Sabbath’s selection is greater Christendom’s relationship with God.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of December 25, 2010
The person conducting the Sabbath service should open services with two or three hymns, or psalms, followed by an opening prayer acknowledging that two or three (or more) are gathered together in Christ Jesus’ name, and inviting the Lord to be with them.
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This Reading will be a second continuation of the December 11th’s Reading:
The vision of Obadiah.
Thus says the Lord God concerning Edom:
We have heard a report from the Lord,
and a messenger has been sent among the nations:
“Rise up! Let us rise against her for battle!”
Behold, I will make you small among the nations;
you shall be utterly despised.
The pride of your heart has deceived you,
you who live in the clefts of the rock,
in your lofty dwelling,
who say in your heart,
“Who will bring me down to the ground?”
Though you soar aloft like the eagle,
though your nest is set among the stars,
from there I will bring you down,
declares the Lord.
If thieves came to you,
if plunderers came by night—
how you have been destroyed!—
would they not steal only enough for themselves?
If grape gatherers came to you,
would they not leave gleanings?
How Esau has been pillaged,
his treasures sought out!
All your allies have driven you to your border;
those at peace with you have deceived you;
they have prevailed against you;
your bread has set a trap beneath you—
he has no understanding.
Will I not on that day, declares the Lord,
destroy the wise men out of Edom,
and understanding out of Mount Esau?
And your mighty men shall be dismayed, O Teman,
so that every man from Mount Esau will be cut off by slaughter.
Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob,
shame shall cover you,
and you shall be cut off forever. (Obad 1–10 emphasis added)
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God is light. Jesus’ disciples were, while He was still with them, to “believe in the light, that [they] may become sons of light” (John 12:36). And light casts no shadow of itself. It is those things that block light that cast shadows, with unbelief manifested as transgression of the commandments being the thing that blocks the light that is God … unbelief precludes the light that is God from reaching the heart and mind of a human or angelic son of God.
Sin is the naming referent for manifested unbelief, with this unbelief eventually but surely causing the person to transgress the commandments of God. Hence, John identifies sin as lawlessness (1 John 3:4), the breaking of a commandment; whereas the Apostle Paul says that whatever doesn’t proceed from faith, from belief [pistos] is sin (Rom 14:23). They both name the referent—unbelief—as sin. James concurs, writing that committing sin is conviction of transgressing the law (Jas 2:9) … the law is transgressed when a person lusts after someone other than his or her spouse (Matt 5:27–28); the law is transgressed when a person hates another person, or maintains anger against another person (vv. 21–22). A Christian doesn’t need to break the commandments with hand or body to break the commandments and be a sinner, but simply doubting God causes the Christian to transgress the law. Therefore, the Christian who believes God will keep the commandments of God as the Christian’s outwardly manifested expression of belief. To choose not to keep the commandments, with the Sabbath commandment being the one most likely spurned, is an open expression of unbelief.
Because of unbelief, the nation that left Egypt did not enter into God’s rest (Heb 3:19), but perished in the wilderness. Likewise, because of unbelief, the greater Christians Church will not enter into the kingdom of God, but will perish during the seven years of tribulation; for the ultimate manifestation of unbelief isn’t open rebellion against God as would seem the case, but the mingling of the sacred with the profane and calling the hybridized thing holy … Christmas is such a mingling, the day and the season when red-suited men come bearing gifts as if they were the magi and the recipient were the Christ child—
Receiving a gift places an obligation on the one who receives … until overwhelmed by European contact, Pacific Northwest Coast Native societies were organized around potlatches, where gifts were given to all who were invited, with the gifts carrying the obligation to either return to the gift-giver a gift of greater value, or to be subject to the gift-giver. Similarly, European kings were ring-givers, with receipt of a ring obligating the recipient to loyalty to the king.
In the late 20th-Century, advertisers realized that giving a gift obligates the recipient; thus, there was a marketing explosion of store giveaways and direct-mail giveaways. A little thing—a paring knife—was given away to get the recipient to buy, say, a knife set. Product samples were [and still are] given away to get the recipient to buy the product … at a deep inner level, receiving a gift obligates one person to another person; hence, DeBeers markets diamonds at Christmas, when husbands give wives and girlfriends jewelry, with the receipt of the item, usually pricy, not merely being an expression of love but an implied contract to purchase.
This present world is constructed on buying and selling, on merchandising even affections, with gift-giving not being as pure as wind driven snow but the creation of a soft obligation than can only be satisfied through returning to the gift-giver a gift of greater worth.
Receipt of the Holy Spirit [pneuma hagion], a second breath of life, is not an exception; for the gift of indwelling eternal life carries with it the obligation to obey God, to keep His commandments, to give Him the love and honor that the person would have given to a human father … it is for this last reason that Christianity is an antifamily religion, with Jesus expressing these antifamily sentiments when He said,
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matt 10:34–39 emphasis added)
A Christian’s human family—father, mother, siblings, spouse, children—must be of less value to the Christian than is the Christian’s relationship with the Father and the Son. This antifamily aspect of Christendom is what couldn’t be sold in Hellenist Asia Minor; so the Christian message was adulterated with Greek paganism and Roman Mithraism, and a focused-on-the-family gospel was proclaimed … Jesus came to bring a sword, not peace, His words, and the transformation of Jesus into a man of peace has been one of the Adversary’s great miracles; for when Jesus comes again, the slain of the Lord shall be many:
For behold, the Lord will come in fire,
and his chariots like the whirlwind,
to render his anger in fury,
and his rebuke with flames of fire.
For by fire will the Lord enter into judgment,
and by his sword, with all flesh;
and those slain by the Lord shall be many.
Those who sanctify and purify themselves to go into the gardens, following one in the midst, eating pig's flesh and the abomination and mice, shall come to an end together, declares the Lord. (Isa 66:15–17)
And,
Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. (Rev 19:11–16)
Moses did not see the Lord as an infant in a manger:
Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying,
I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously;
the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.
The Lord is my strength and my song,
and he has become my salvation;
this is my God, and I will praise him,
my father's God, and I will exalt him.
The Lord is a man of war;
the Lord [YHWH] is his name. (Ex 15:1–3 emphasis added)
As a man, Jesus the Nazarene had to be born in Nazareth, and had to be born at a specific moment in history. While that moment is generally known, Fall Feast season in 4 BCE, the exact date of His birth is not recorded, nor should it be celebrated; for the cultural imagery of Jesus as an infant—the imagery fostered by nativity scenes that have three wise men giving gifts to an infant in swaddling clothes—is counterintuitive to mentally seeing Jesus as a man of war, bringing a sword to cut down nations—
The infant of Christmas nativity scenes would never condemn a Christian to the lake of fire.
By giving the infant of nativity scenes gifts, Christians subconsciously identify with the magi and at this same mental level obligate Christ to give them a greater gift … clever, that old serpent, Satan the devil, for his use of the color red is extremely subtle, not that the color itself is subtle. For through the mingling of the sacred [Christ Jesus] with the profane [the birthday of the invincible sun, December 25th], the old serpent transforms Christians into red men, who will wield swords for him as agents of Apollyon, king of the Abyss, the rider of the bright red horse who is “permitted to take peace from the earth, so that men should slay one another” (Rev 6:4).
But these red men are jolly old elves, with fake white beards—
No, they are the hated son of promise, Esau.
The absence of light creates total blackness … unless a person goes underground, a person will seldom encounter the absence of light. Rather, the person encounters at night a reduction in the amount of striking objects, with an insufficient amount of light present for colors to be seen. Thus, on a clear winter night in Alaska’s Interior, with ambient light reflected from the moon onto the snow-covered landscape, a person has enough light to carry on outside activities such as running a trapline or splitting wood without artificial light. However, the world in which this person works appears as black-and-white television programming of fifty years ago appeared: everything is a shade of gray. A standing length of wood that is to be split is darker than the surrounding snow. Where the axe strikes the length of wood is darker than the endgrain of the length; so the axe can be brought to bear on the same cut as before, thereby permitting the length of wood to be as easily struck and split as if it were daylight.
The amount of light necessary for a person to function is relative to the amount of light usually perceived by the person, with the person who is legally blind but able to see images able to function nearly as well at night as during the day, or at least this was the case with blind acquaintances living in Fairbanks, Alaska, three and four decades ago.
To see color requires a greater amount of light to be present than is necessary to see black-and-light imagery … color comes from absorbing and not reflecting—passing on—portions of the light spectrum. Thus, an object that appear red, such as the setting sun when it can be seen over the horizon, does so because shorter wavelengths of the spectrum have been absorbed and only the longest lengths of the spectrum can be seen.
When the light source is God, the presence of “color” discloses that the thing is only partially of God, that the thing mingles the sacred with the profane, with the profane being unbelief … the gold head of the humanoid image that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, saw in vision isn’t important as a soft, ductile metal, but for its color which is associated with a mindset, that of buying-and-selling. The metal coins being exchanged in the temple were of gold, silver, and copper, metals more often used for commerce rather than for weaponry. Bronze and iron were the metals of weapons. Thus, analysis of the colors of the human-appearing image Nebuchadnezzar saw reveal considerable information about mindsets that are not of God, with God using “color” to disclose relationships relevant to Him.
On the December solstice this year, North America experienced a total eclipse of the full moon—eclipses can only be of the full moon—with the bright orb a rusty red color, with the moon’s red color coming from simultaneous sunrises and sunsets: the sun’s largeness prevents solar illumination from being fully blocked in the outer portion of the earth’s shadow, the penumbra, hence bent light rays that have passed through the earth atmosphere at a long angle [with the shorter wavelengths of the spectrum filtered out] color the moon coppery red or rusty red during total eclipses … the moon doesn’t disappear into blackness when it passes through the umbra because of atmospheric refraction of sunlight into the shadow cone [the umbra].
Again, the color red comes from the entirety of the visible spectrum, except for the longest length, being absorbed by the medium that appears red. The redness of the Grand Canyon that photographers have captured comes after the sun has dipped below the horizon and only the longest lengths of the refracted spectrum are able to illuminate the stone canyon walls.
With God, the color red appears just before unbelief completely blacks out a living entity … spiritual Esau as a red man is not hated before birth because of his skin color, but because he—as a son of promise—doesn’t believe God. His relationship with God is typified by how little of the spectrum produces the color red. Only the longest—most distant—aspects of God illuminate these Christians’ relationship with their Father.
If a person will accept it, Christmas isn’t about the birth of Christ Jesus, but about Santa Claus and the merchandising of faith, hope, and charity … the world has it correct. Christmas is about giving gifts that obligate family members to each other. It is the ultimate expression of family. Christmas is even more red than the moon was on the solstice when the moon passed through the umbra. And with the moon representing Israel, with its waxing and waning representing Israel’s relationship with God, the light that Israel reflects, a total eclipse of the moon on the December solstice seems an apt expression of what Obadiah records,
Thus says the Lord God concerning Edom:
We have heard a report from the Lord,
and a messenger has been sent among the nations:
“Rise up! Let us rise against her for battle!”
Behold, I will make you small among the nations;
you shall be utterly despised.
The pride of your heart has deceived you,
you who live in the clefts of the rock,
in your lofty dwelling,
who say in your heart,
“Who will bring me down to the ground?” (vv. 1–3)
Moses spoke these words [among many more] in the ears of all Israel:
For I will proclaim the name of the Lord;
ascribe greatness to our God!
The Rock, his work is perfect,
for all his ways are justice.
A God of faithfulness and without iniquity,
just and upright is he. …
But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked;
you grew fat, stout, and sleek;
then he forsook God who made him
and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.
They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods;
with abominations they provoked him to anger.
They sacrificed to demons that were no gods,
to gods they had never known,
to new gods that had come recently,
whom your fathers had never dreaded.
You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you,
and you forgot the God who gave you birth.
The Lord saw it and spurned them,
because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters.
And he said, “I will hide my face from them;
I will see what their end will be,
For they are a perverse generation,
children in whom is no faithfulness.
They have made me jealous with what is no god;
they have provoked me to anger with their idols.
So I will make them jealous with those who are no people;
I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.” (Deut 32:3–4, 15–21 emphasis added)
That foolish nation the Lord used to provoke the children of Israel to jealousy is the Christian Church. Paul writes,
So I ask, did they [Israel] stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean! / Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches. / But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith [pistos— the belief]. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. (Rom 11:11–23 emphasis added)
The red men, the hated son of promise, that dwelt in the clefts of the Rock, were—in a mixing of metaphors—wild olive branches grafted onto the Root of Righteousness, the Lord, but these red men did not continue in belief but became as the natural branches were, unbelievers, with no more relationship with God than a red sky has in the morning.
Jesus gave one sign that He was of heaven, the sign of Jonah, which is a context-specific sign as is a red sky:
And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” So he left them and departed. (Matt 16:1–4)
Do endtime Christians know how to interpret the signs of the times? No, they do not. A red sky has one meaning when it appears going into darkness and another, opposite meaning when going into daylight: the meaning of the sign comes from the context in which the sign appears. And such is the case with gift-giving … comprehending dual referents is seen in a toy AK-47 representing a real AK-47, and in a crucifix pendant representing the cross on which Romans crucified Jesus. Both the AK-47 and the Roman cross represent means to kill opponents, or simply put, murder weapons. Whereas the AK-47 has become the symbol of revolutionaries, of freedom fighters, of tyrannical dictators and of rebellion against tyranny worldwide, the cross reaches back into antiquity as a symbol of the establishment, of law and order, of the status quo, of the State’s ability to suffocate its opposition. The cross was the means the Adversary employed to kill Christ Jesus, who had to die from loss of His breath, with His physical breath becoming a representation of His spiritual breath [pneuma Christos], without which no person can have indwelling eternal life.
The crucifix is the small referent that represents the cross upon which Christ Jesus hung until He lost His physical breath and by extension, His physical life. The person who wears a crucifix wears a reminder that Jesus died on the cross. So the crucifix and the cross are paired referents as a toy AK-47 and the assault rifle itself are paired referents. Likewise, a Christmas tree is a scale model of the trees in which desperate Vandals and Goths hung infants as they migrated into Europe as the nursery rhyme, Rock-a-bye Baby, records … the popular nursery rhyme and lullaby [Roud Folk Song Index #2768] was first printed in Mother Goose’s Melody (London, 1765) with the following lyrics set to a variant tune of Lilliurlero, the satirical ballad about Jacobite support for James II:
Hush-a-by baby
On the tree top,
When the wind blows
The cradle will rock.
When the bough breaks,
The cradle will fall,
Down tumbles baby,
Cradle and all.
In 1796, the word “Hush-a-bye” was replaced by “Rock-a-bye.”
The claim that the lyrics of the popular lullaby come from infanticide practices of Germanic peoples in their westward migrations can be disputed, but the words cannot be disputed: a baby is left in a tree until the bough breaks when baby and cradle tumble down.
The bobbles placed on Christmas trees—trees associated with the birth of the infant Jesus of Nazareth—served as small referents, as remembrances of babies left hanging in cradleboards as the carts of these Germanic people continued their almost relentless westward trek. The guilt stemming from this infanticide practice is, for Germanic peoples, absorbed by Christ Jesus, the son of God killed by human beings, with the Christmas tree being a referent for an ancient and nearly forgotten practice that should turn the stomachs of all Christians.
The crucifix should turn the stomachs of Christians but does not … is it any wonder that the Lord will make Christians small among the peoples of this world once the Second Passover liberation of Israel occurs? If the Romans had executed Jesus by beating Him to death, would miniature whips be hung from ears and around necks? But because Rome used the cross as its preferred means of administering capital punishment to political prisoners, Christians have adopted the crucifix as their identifying symbol, little realizing that the mark of the beast, Chi xi stigma, from Revelation 13:18 [Strong’s #G5516] is the tattoo of Christ’s cross. Hence, every Christian marked by the cross is marked for death … they are that baby left in a cradleboard in a tree. They are a bobble that looks pretty, but that is as lifeless as a Christmas tree ornament. And it is sad that the Adversary has deceived the whole world (Rev 12:9), but most of all Christians who should know better since they handle the writings of Moses whenever they pickup the Bible.
The resin of fir trees, resin that seeped from breaks in the bark, lubed the axles of Germanic carts as proud peoples left behind infants they couldn’t feed nor care-for in migration after migration, with these infants never forgotten, not even to this day; for these peoples have co-opted the world in their remembrance of what they had to do to survive … over the centuries, memories dim unless kept alive in a borrowed festival that the world will not neglect, celebration of the birth of the sun. And the man Obadiah reveals what God thinks of the promised son that uses the color red as its identifier. It isn’t accidental that red and green are Christmas colors:
Alternate lyrics for Rock-a-bye Baby, published in The Real Mother Goose (1916) are,
Rock-a-bye, baby, thy cradle is green;
Father's a nobleman, mother's a queen;
And Betty's a lady, and wears a gold ring;
And Johnny's a drummer, and drums for the king.
It might well be that Esau, like the northern kingdom of Samaria, fled both south and west as well as north and east in the days of Ahab’s drought, with Esau staying with his brother before Assyria took all of the people remaining in the northern kingdom into captivity, exiling them to the regions around the Black Sea. If this is the case—and the case has been reasonably well made by some modern scholars—then the proto-Hebrew speakers that appeared in 8th-Century BCE Carthage could be either Esau or Israel. Likewise, the ancient peoples of the steppes could include both Esau and Israel, with those tribes included in the late 20th-Century Northern Alliance in Afghanistan … some of northern tribes identified themselves to Western forces as descendants of the ancient House of Israel, remnants of the Lost Ten Tribes, remnants that having been in situ since the 8th-century BCE.
But it isn’t physical Edom as a 21st-Century people that will be utterly slain and cut off forever … the red men are not Eastern Native Americans, already badly abused by Christians in the 17th through 19th Centuries. They are not Afghans. They are, instead, your neighbors with their Christmas displays and Christmas lights and holiday good cheer. They are basically good people who want to serve God, but instead serve physical things through mingling the sacred with the profane. And again, it is difficult to place enough emphasis on the desire to have fine things, regardless of what those things are, being of this world (see 1 John 2:15–17), with Christmas being the ultimate expression of that desire, with the tree transforming infants into ornaments that can be annually remembered through the birth of one infant in particular, Jesus the Nazarene. The only problem is that Jesus was born while sheep were still on pasture, not on December 25th, the birthday of Mithra
What is wrong with celebrating Christmas? The color red is what is wrong with this mingling of the sacred and the profane, this mingling that causes the justifiably hated son of promise, spiritual Esau, to become murdering agents of Apollyon … there is very little of God in Christmas traditions, about as little of God as there was sunlight shone onto the moon’s surface on the just past solstice.
A Christian can read secular sources about Saturnalia, about Mithra, about pagan celebrations of the rebirth of the sun, with these celebrations going back to about when Moses led Israel out from Egypt—the solstice backs up about one day every 900 years; thus about 3,600 years ago the solstice would have been on December 25th … did Egypt’s celebration of the rebirth of the sun on December 25th lead directly to the Passover liberation of Israel four months later? That is a field of study someone could pursue, if the Second Passover liberation of Israel occurs on the second Passover this coming year.
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The person conducting the Sabbath service should close services with two hymns, or psalms, followed by a prayer asking God’s dismissal.
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"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."