A dear friend whose heart is tender towards her God, kindly sent me a lovely Blue Mountain Christmas card. I wrote her the following (below, with some grammatical and minor edits), in sincere hope that her true hunger would take her into the Tanach scriptures to discover the plan set forth from the beginning.
Hi ——,
Thanks for the Blue Mountain Christmas card. Lovely!
It’s an interesting confluence this year, Christmas and Chanukah being celebrated the same days. The magic falls down a little/lot though, when one researches and discovers that Christmas is functionally a mix-master blender of winter solstice celebrations and the birth of Christ.
Biblically, Luke 1:5-8 establishes John the Baptist’s dad, Zechariah (named after the Tanach prophet) being from the division of Abijah, and serving in the temple when he has an angelic visitation promising a son for him and his wife. Tracking the Jewish calendar and the scheduling of priestly service (including the three annual sabbaths when ALL the priests were required at the temple – two of which occurred prior to Zech showing up) would place baby John’s (Jochanan, most likely) conception shortly thereafter, and his birth around Passover – which is fitting seeing as how other scriptures tell us he came in the spirit of Elijah (Matt 11:14, et al) – and we Jews of course realize a place-setting still remains, in faith, for Elijah during the Seder. Then, Mary (Miriam being her Hebrew name) meets Elizabeth during her sixth month of pregnancy, which places the Holy Spirit conception of Yeshua (Jesus)……:
Isaiah 7:14
14 Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.
….around Chanukah (the declared Light of the world conceived during the Festival of Lights) and then would point to Tabernacles (Sukkot) as the time of birth of Yeshua. Emmanuel, God with us, on Tabernacles (which means the same thing). Sounds more accurate to me and many others, than the winter solstice, Santa Claus, late-December light-a-tree, etc. The God of perfect timing, always. As the Byrds sang – Ecclesiastes 3:1.
Most of “the church”, in alignment and biblically ignorant cahoots with the secular world, has sadly done a remarkable job clouding the perfect plans of the God of Israel to provide His Messiah for all of us. Yeshua’s birth was Advent #1. Stay tuned. Advent #2 is coming up; hence the current worldwide shaking work:
Haggai 2:6-7
6 “For thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Once more (it is a little while) I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and dry land;
7 and I will shake all nations, and they shall come to the Desire of All Nations, and I will fill this temple with glory,’ says the Lord of hosts.
All that said, and to not be Scrooge-like, TODAY our daughters and hubbies and 7 grand-kiddos are coming over as we celebrate and unwrap GIFTS and eat a festive meal (including latkes!) as our tradition, the next few days sort of being a traveling road show to a few other homes in our family tribe (in-laws, etc.). It’s all good. Birth of Messiah, albeit nearly two months late, remains a good thing. Even His first-century all-Jewish disciples didn’t get the then-clouded two-advents plan. It’s clearer now. And it will become clearer,
Blessings to you this season.
1. The family e-card is attached.
2. My anonymous website of a Jewish guy, fully convinced Yeshua is Messiah for all, is: www.ez3728.com
Love ya.
Happy/Merry Both,
–
(All scripture NKJV)
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