As millions of Americans prepare to celebrate in holy mass and worship services across the land tonight, let us embrace & remember the particulars of the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.
A despotic king had ordered the mass killing of children 2 years and younger in the hamlet of Bethlehem. Soldiers went from home to home, slaying babes in their cribs and spearing their bodies for good measure. Joseph and the Virgin Mary arrived in the town seeking shelter as Mary went into labor, but none was to be found. They then settled into a manger filled with animals for the night, praying the delivery would not cause the young Mary her life.
From the east, three wise men saw the signs some months before and realized the coming of the universal deliverer of the Truth was upon them. As followers of the Wise Lord, they set out to meet and honor the Anointed One--Christos in Greek.
Yet, at the heart of it, a baby was born while a government backed by foreign Western powers sought to oppress and silence their opposition. A Nazarene family struggled to find shelter, with government agents circled around, seeking to capture and kill them. They were refugees and strangers in a not-so different time.
Fast Foward to today, and we find ourselves with an autocrat seeking to imprison and oppress those seeking to escape death squads, poverty and living damnation from their homelands. He seeks out children to jail, and even kill, with a lust as insatiable as Herrod's for his daughter Jezebel. We see strangers take shelter in cisterns, alleyways, and yes even mangers, yearning for the same things Joseph & Mary sought that night in Bethlehem. From the East again, this time wise women, Rashida, Ilhan and Alexandria, have been dispatched to honor and welcome them.
I was a stranger and ye took me in.
While am not a Christian, the Christian story of the birth of Jesus, son of Mary, Messiah of Mankind moves me to tears again this year as Herrod has become Dajjal, and the children sit in camps.
This Christmas Eve, pray for those without hope and light. Those who will celebrate Christmas in camps for the sin of not being born with a blue passport. And ask yourself: would Christ let the temple of democracy remain so polluted?
I was a stranger, and ye took. me. in.
Merry Christmas.