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Vol. 11 No. 12 December 2009 |
Page 8 |
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Vol. 11 No. 12 December 2009 |
Page 8 |
T. Pierce Brown
The following letter was sent to the editor of a local newspaper. I send it now to suggest to the readers of this paper that you can do good in season and out of season if you will take the time and effort to do so. You do not need to be a gifted writer to get a letter published in a local paper, and yet, it may do much good to an audience that will never read a Gospel paper.
With the Christmas season approaching, we expect to see the usual kinds of letters to the editor complaining about the commercializing of this supposedly religious holiday, although God did not authorize it in the first place. The fact that many of those who do the complaining about commercializing are spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on cards, trees, decorations and gifts of varying uselessness does not seem strange or paradoxical to them. That the average person professing to be a Christian spends ten times as much honoring some friend or relative than he does in giving support to things that Christ said would honor Him does not seem strange to them. The fact that millions rejoice at a memorial of His birth, which God did not set aside as a religious or holy day, yet disregard completely what God did ordain for a memorial of His death every first day of the week, does not seem strange to them.
Perhaps the fact that the Pope can now uphold the theory of evolution, which was infallibly proclaimed wrong and can plan a Christmas party with Castro and few see anything strange about that may be an indication of many strange events we may expect at this season. It would not be strange to some if he should discover on some Christmas that birth control and abortion are now approved.
The idea that Christ, the Son of God, was born at all seems strange to some. It is even more strange to me that when all historical records we know indicate that shepherds would not normally be out in the fields at this season of the year, and that Jesus was not even born at this time, millions who care nothing for what Christ taught and authorized will celebrate a day supposedly in His honor. Then, they often throw a lavish party in memory of one who became the poorest of the poor for us, and get drunk celebrating what was originally a Christ Mass.
The wise men from the east who were puzzled about the star and the strange events might be even more puzzled about the strange events that go on now. However, the most wonderful and strange thing about it is that the God who made the miraculous birth of His Son be overshadowed by His death on the cross, can overrule even the strange and perverted actions of mankind at this or any other season, and bring glory to Him and even change men’s nature through the faithful presentation of the Gospel story.