Jonathots Daily Blog
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Jonathots Daily Blog
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A baby being born in a sheep stall in Bethlehem of poor Palestinian parents is not difficult to believe. After all, poverty extracts much of the comfort of good cheer.
Maybe the angels seem a little far-fetched to you (but you know how it is with stories about your young’uns.)
Believing that a year-and-a-half later, a troop of astrologers made their way into town to proclaim this child the hope of the world and the King of the Jews does seem highly unlikely–yet there are always people who have their eccentric ways and live them out because they have enough money to fund them.
Comprehending that there could be a leader of a nation who was so insecure that he was frightened of any competition, and scared a young family away, fearing for their lives, does not seem improbable. Matter of fact, it could be ripped from the headlines. One more refugee family ending up in a foreign land where they have neither kin nor kind is certainly well within the grasp of reality.
Having that young boy return to his alleged home town at age seven, carrying all the trappings and mannerisms of the heathen, would certainly make growing up difficult, not to mention the colliding wills of an every-growing collection of siblings.
Thinking that this boy would have no interest in carpentry, but instead, a precocious passion for humanity and the things of Spirit, is not implausible. After all, he’s the ugly duckling, whom we assume might one day become a swan. He grew in wisdom and stature, and even though he was a foreigner, gradually gained the favor of his neighbors.
It’s not difficult to believe that he lost his Papa, his only real connection with the village of Nazareth, and like many young men, launched out to find some purpose, ending up at the Jordan River, interacting with a wild and wooly cousin named John.
You can certainly believe he got baptized, and probably went out into the wilderness for a while, just to find himself, coming back with claims of interfacing with the devil. You might even forgive his youthful explanation, knowing that to some degree, we all wrestle with our demons.
But the story stalls.
He is rejected by his home town, moves to Capernaum next to the Sea of Galilee, encompassed by a sea of apathy, picks up some friends and followers, and starts traveling the countryside. It is hit-and-miss at best.
It is at this point that many folks who consider themselves to be intelligent and reasonable become cynical about a miracle-worker who calms the waves and casts out demons. But to a certain degree, even those sardonic souls might be able to explain away this and that, but still maintain their interest in the story–especially since he begins to hammer away at religion, loses the favor of the crowd and opens the door of the hierarchy to plot against him, find a betrayer, try him, beat him, nail him to a cross and kill him.
If the story ended there, the baby born in Bethlehem had a life that was a complete failure. His friends are scattered in every direction, his movement was about to become a joke–a piece of farcical history.
So this is where faith comes in. That’s right–you don’t really have to use much to this point. You can just glide along with the story, picking and choosing at will.
But the tale that unfolds, spoken of by those who claimed to be eyewitnesses, is that this baby of Bethlehem rose from the dead.
Now … faith is in full function and also full demand.
Did Jesus of Bethlehem, Egypt, Nazareth, Jordan River, wilderness, Capernaum and Mesopotamia end his life as a failure, beaten down by his critics?
Or did God, the power of the Ethos and the Spirit of the Universe, choose to resurrect him to give the message one more chance?
It’s a very important decision.
It changes this story from a baby shower to a heaven-ordained miracle.
For as we know, several weeks later, a hundred and twenty people in an Upper Room believed it was true. Twelve disciples gave their lives as martyrs, insisting they had witnessed a resurrection.
And at last count, 2.2 billion humans still living two thousand years later have taken their faith beyond the crib, past the crypt … and placed it in the Christ.
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Jonathots Daily Blog
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Troubling.
To see disciples of Jesus line up like sheep, with astrologers and superstitious, ignorant practitioners of religion, to pray their way to a blessing, is truly troublesome.
It is the byproduct of a gigantic misconception: God is in control.Nothing could be further from the truth.
We are told that Jesus came to Earth to give us the power to become the sons of God. He envisioned a church that was fired up to tear down the gates of hell:
He never dreamed that those who chose to take up his cross would end up helpless, fearful, bigoted and hog-tied to tradition.
It is pitiful to see churches worshipping a God they believe has power, but selfishly refuses to impart any of that gift to His children.
When will we start teaching the truth?
Our lives do not spring from the soul. We are not mentally ignited. Nor will stimulation of our flesh make us content.
We are heart creatures. Out of the abundance of our heart we will speak. Out heart is our passion, our feelings, our sentiment.
Here’s the way Jesus intended it to be:
We start with the heart. This is simply what we feel. It does not need to be right–it just needs to be truthful. Having found the confidence to share our heart gives us the boldness to believe.
This leads to our soul. Our soul benefits us by teaching us how things work–both the tenderness of the Father and the practices of Mother Nature.
Once we’ve allowed ourselves to be students of the planet and the love of God, we’re ready to take our brain and see what we can do. Not what we wish we could do, but the ability within us. So we learn to be contributors instead of complainers.
And then we take this magnificent body–our strength–and go out and do it well. For as we run the first mile, we anticipate the second. We come prepared.
This is the teaching of Jesus.
The barbaric notion that God plays with human lives as the devil taunts them may be the foundation for other religions, but it is spiritually and intellectually unacceptable in the Jesonian.
The Jesonian is when we realize that our heart–what we feel–gives credence to our soul, where we learn how things work. This renews our minds, to find out what we can do, and then we take our energy to do it well.
Such a unity creates healthy human beings–instead of faltering followers.
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Jonathots Daily Blog
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I read it over twice just to make sure.
But even with this double scrutiny, I was unable to find the mention of any children in the original Christmas story, except for one baby born in a manger.
The tale contains a king, three astrologers from Mesopotamia, shepherds, a confused purported virgin, a bewildered carpenter-in-training, a prophet and a prophetess, a greedy innkeeper, and many souls who were finding their situation quite taxing.
But there was no one under the age of fifteen who was mentioned except the little fella with straw for a pillow.
Yet today you would assume that Christmas was conceived in the minds of the Madison Avenue elite, who were desiring to come up with a holiday that focused on “tots before they were teens.”
Politics loves this populie, because it provides new stumping ground extolling the family and high-sounding ideals.
The entertainment industry certainly focuses on kids because it frees them from having to put a spiritual spin on December 25th, but instead, advertises Santa Claus, candy canes and overgrown elves.
And religion can barely contain itself, trying to yank that baby out of the wooden cradle and on to the cross as quickly as possible.
In the meantime, the significance of “peace on Earth, good will toward men” dissipates into the background in favor of sitting back in our easy chairs, shaking our heads in awe as the youngsters rip open their presents.
Attention one and all: Christmas is for us. It may be our only chance.
It offers three very important possibilities which tend to escape us by the middle of January, and certainly have run away in horror by April 15th, when the IRS drains our sensibilities.
1. We are all the children of God.
If Christmas is for children, it is only because we live in the household of “Our Father which art in heaven.” We have lost our innocence. We favor a jaded outlook. We have resigned our place in the human family, running away to live in an orphanage, simply to make ourselves seem abandoned.
2. Children need to be taught.
For a very brief moment, we begin to look at the Jesus-born-in-the-manger as the life coach he was intended to be instead of the human sacrifice we have thrust upon him. After all, the angels foretold of “peace on Earth, good will toward men,” not a sacrificial blood-bath that ends up with us forming religious institutions with dark, dank corridors.
3. Going forward means going back to pick up what we lost.
There is nothing more precious than being nine years old on Christmas morning. To reject that memory as being idealistic, foolish or silly is to lose one’s soul before dying.
It’s not so much that “Christmas should be in our hearts each and every day of the year” as it is that our hearts should never surrender Christmas and the memories that make us chill with anticipation.
Bluntly, if you’re not excited about what’s going to happen next, you need to change what’s next.
So be careful with the populie that says “Christmas is for children,” because you soon will find yourself angry at the holiday, and also at the little fellows and ladies who keep trying to hang the holly and trim the tree.
It is only true that Christmas is for children as long as we understand that to gain a true spiritual and emotional sensibility… we must all become as a little child.
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Jonathots Daily Blog
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He was called a bastard because his mother got pregnant before she was married.
He was born in poverty in a stable reeking with animal manure.
Even when his family tried to establish a life in the little town of Bethlehem, they were visited by astrologers from the East who brought gifts, but also brought down calamity on their lives because they accidentally passed on information to a jealous king who put out a contract of death on the little boy’s life. So they were forced to go into exile, into the land of Egypt, where they were strangers, and for about six years tried to subsist and carve out a life, as additional brothers and sisters were added.
His father, a man who believed in guiding his life by dreams, returned them to Judea, only to find out there was still danger, so they settled back into the community where the original gossip about his conception had brought them such pain.
He struggled to learn how to become a carpenter, even though deep in his heart, there was a strong calling toward other missions and goals.
He was made fun of by many of the local children because his customs seemed foreign, his demeanor was simple and he had not learned the letters of the Jewish law in their time-table.
He spent years in a small-town life without ever taking a wife of his own.
When he embraced the aching wishes of his heart and began to share a message of love and hope, which included not only Jew but Gentile, the local townsfolk pushed him to the edge of a cliff and threatened to murder him.
He escaped to a nearby fishing village, where he began to teach and discovered there was often healing, and miracles which followed when the people brought their faith to the situation.
His brothers and sisters thought he was crazy and came to retrieve him, so he was forced to alienate himself from them. He would not see them again for two years.
Even though his message did nothing to hinder the well-being of the Roman Empire, all the factions of the religion of his countrymen turned against him as one, plotting his demise.
Yet he persisted.
The advancements he presented in his teachings are still a stumbling block to many fundamentalists today:
Eventually he was betrayed by one of his closest friends, accused on trumped-up charges and killed for a crime of sedition, which was the furthest thing from his doctrine–for he believed it was important to render unto Caesar the things that were Caesar’s and unto God the things that were God’s.
He was abandoned by his friends and tucked away quickly in a borrowed tomb so that the surrounding faithful could honor the traditions of their religiosity.
It was in that tiny enclosure that he was finally able to manifest the true essence of his power, by being allowed to rise from the dead.
But after nearly two thousand years, a name that was reviled, persecuted, rejected and cast aside from his brethren is now the central figure in the history of the world.
Because when war has finished tallying all of its victims, there will always be a need for the voice of peace. And the voice of peace was found in his throat and resounded through his message.
Do you know him?
How much do you know about him?
Because the more you know, the lighter your load.
The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity
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A voice writing in the wilderness
G-Poppers … December 2nd, 2016
Jonathots Daily Blog
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G-Pop was wondering what it would have been like if Facebook had been around for the birth of Jesus.
What would have grabbed the attention of the average Facebook reader in Judea?
Let’s look at the classic elements of the story:
These would more than likely have been deemed boring, averaging seven likes, zero comments and no reposts.
Even if someone had inserted the statement, “a baby was born in a manger,” the single repeating comment would have been, “Come on, Joseph. Get a job.”
Facebook demands drama.
Facebook seeks attention.
Facebook feeds off frenzy.
Facebook is selfish.
No, for the Christmas story to have worked on Facebook, one would need to hand-select the elements, and twist them a bit to make them of interest to the market:
“Pregnant teen and her boyfriend snub traditional marriage”
“Bonnie-and-Clyde-style crazy kids hold shepherds hostage in stable”
“Foreigners, astrologers, wanted for questioning by authorities for smuggling in unknown drugs”
“Lights in the sky! Could it be aliens?”
“And here is a picture of my ‘fur son,’ Jehoshaphat, the cat, as he rubs up against a little immigrant boy in the barn. Isn’t he cute? I mean the cat.”
G-Pop contends that we have become a society of “I’s” who include a few “we’s” if they agree with “us.”
To get likes, shares and comments, the entry has to be insipid enough to have universal appeal to those who find most of the universe unappealing.
But there will be a persistent few who insist on planting the notion of salvation, joy, humanity, brotherly love and peace on Earth.
And who knows?
Maybe in two thousand years, if that is done, they might call us Wise Men.
Don’t let another Christmas season go by without owning Jonathan’s book of Christmas stories
Mr. Kringle’s Tales …26 Stories ‘Til Christmas
An advent calendar of stories, designed to enchant readers of all ages
“Quite literally the best Christmas stories I have ever read.” — Arthur Holland, Shelby, North Carolina
Only $5.99 plus $1.25 shipping and handling.
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on December 2, 2016 at 3:07 pm Comments (1)Tags: a Savior is born, aliens, angels on high, astrologers, birth of Jesus, Bonnie and Clyde, brotherly love, Christmas story, Facebook, fur son, G-Pop, glad tidings of great joy, immigrant, Jehosophat, Judea, likes comments and reposts, manger, peace on earth, pregnant teen, Prince of Peace, rejoice, salvation, smuggling drugs, star of David, wise men