Having recently heard a Texas preacher and politician cite the story of Mary and her choice as support for abortion (yes, you read that right), I refer you back to my past post, Politically-Correct-“Christmas”.
Short version. God did not ask Mary, “Would you like to do this?” Through his angel God told Mary the future he had chosen for her and she submitted (“be it unto me according to thy word”).
...too good to not be true.
Two days before Christmas, a woman frantically shopped to get some last-minute gifts. She had her four-year-old daughter in tow. The woman dragged her daughter from store to store. Exhausted, in a rush, and fighting the crowds, the woman felt more irritable by the minute. Finally, they made their last stop.
As they left that last store, the mother grumbled to her daughter, “Did you see that? That man at the checkout counter gave me a mean face!”
The little daughter replied, “No mommy, you had a mean face before you went into the store.”
Henry Beer wrote the following Christmas hymn. Beer was an elder of the Apostolic Christian Church, and according to the historian Perry A. Klopfenstein, “The Babe of Bethlehem” “is one of the most popular ‘Christmas carols’ in the Apostolic Christian Church.” Of the hymn Klopfenstein wrote, “As a florist, [Henry Beer] noted how worldly people put up nativity displays at Christmas. To them the displays apparently had little meaning, and there was no representation of the Cross of Christ. So he wrote a song about it.” (Marching to Zion: a History of the Apostolic Christian Church of America, 1847-1982, Fort Scott, KS: Sekan Printing Co., 1984, p. 475) “The Babe of Bethlehem” is No. 36 in Hymns of Faith, a Sunday School song book which Beer helped compile. The music is ascribed simply to “M. Y. R.”
Henry Beer was born November 14, 1900 in Richland County, Ohio, the son of Simon Beer and Kathryn Meister. He married Alice Getz in 1924. Henry Beer died June 29, 1983, after over 50 years in ministry. Alice Beer died in 1985. She and Henry are buried at the Milford Cemetery in Milford, Kosciusko County, Indiana.
There are Christians who spend a great deal of time saying, “Keep Christ in Christmas” or “Put Christ back into Christmas.” (Other Christians would say he was never part of it!) For the first group, “put Christ back into Christmas” is a retort against the use of “X-mas” in the place of “Christmas.”[i] I have heard this most of my life. However...
Chi (Χ or χ) is the twenty-second letter of the Greek alphabet. Used in X-mas, it is not leaving out the name of Christ, but substituting or abbreviating it by using the first letter in the Greek name Christ (χριστός) for Christ. Abbreviations can make communication easier – if you understand the abbreviation. We use them in most aspects of life, especially in writing. In this abbreviation or substitution, X = Christ. X-mas = Christmas.
Some secularists say or use X-mas thinking they deliberately leave Christ out. Some scrupulous Christians substitute the X instead of using “Christ,” thinking they avoid combining the title of Jesus “Christ” with the Roman Catholic “Mass.”[ii] Nevertheless, there is longstanding documented sacred history of Christians using Chi (Χ or χ) to mean, stand for, or symbolize Christ. X-mas does not avoid putting Christ in Christmas, no matter how you slice it.
Here endeth the history lesson.[iii]Henry Beer, an elder of the Apostolic Christian Church, wrote the following Christmas hymn. It was first printed in his book My Garden of Verse. Titled “The Nativity,” it is No. 35 in Hymns of Faith, a Sunday School song book which Beer helped compile. The music is ascribed simply to “H.G.”
Beer began to minister at the church in Milford, Indiana circa 1931. Prior to this, about 1921, he translated some hymns from the Zion’s Harp hymn book from German into English. Afterward, he received the approval of the church to translate all the remaining hymns into English, which – with the help of several others – he accomplished.
Born in 1900 in Richland County, Ohio, Henry Beer was the son of Simon Beer and Kathryn Meister. He married Alice Getz in 1924. Beer died in 1983. He and his wife are buried at the Milford Cemetery in Milford, Kosciusko County, Indiana.
Beer wrote his last poem, “Farewell Thoughts,” about two weeks before his death.
“This volume is like a beautiful old picture which has come down to us in a state of extraordinary perfection.”
Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863) is best known as author of the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (also known as “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.”[i] Additionally, Moore was Professor of Oriental & Greek Literature and Divinity & Biblical Learning at the General Theological Seminary in New York City – a seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church (i.e., the Anglican Church in the United States). He compiled A Compendious Lexicon of the Hebrew Language, in Two Volumes (New York, NY: Collins & Perkins, 1809).
On November 14, 1825, Clement C. Moore gave a lecture at Christ Church in New York City. Professor Moore’s lecture was reported in the February 1826 issue of The Christian Journal and Literary Register (Vol. X, No. 2, pages 51-52). The author said Moore’s “description of the Bible is unequalled.”
“Such, my young friends, is the wonderful volume, to the study of which a large portion of the time to be passed by you in the seminary is allotted. When the difficulties of its language are surmounted, it opens an abundant store of treasures to the antiquary, the historian, the chronologer, the philologist, the grammarian, the orator, the poet, and the divine. Its entire freedom from every thing that makes the least approach to affectation; the unrivalled simplicity of its style; its admirable touches of pathos; the perfect picture of nature in its narratives and descriptions; the beautiful metaphors, allegories, and similies; the noble hymns of praise; the profound strains of penitence and prayer with which it abounds, added to its high and holy import, render it a work of a nature fitted, in every point of view, to excite the most intense interest, and to afford the most exquisite gratification. And I hope it is not presumptuous in a layman to dissuade you from being influenced by the practice of those bold critics who, by conjectural emendations of the original text, attempt to throw light upon such parts of it as the lapse of ages has rendered obscure. This volume is like a beautiful old picture which has come down to us in a state of extraordinary perfection. Some defects and blemishes, it is true, appear; but they materially hurt neither the design nor the colouring; and it is not for modern and obtrusive hands to attempt to repair the injuries done by time to such a venerable and matchless work.”
Moore’s discourse was printed by T. and J. Swords of New York in a booklet as A Lecture Introductory to the Course of Hebrew Instruction in the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States.
[i] The poem was first published anonymously in the Troy, New York Sentinel on December 23, 1823. Moore later claimed authorship.
“At this point, America effectively has two month-long national holidays: Christmas and ‘Pride.’ The first evokes goodwill, love, and humility. The other celebrates self-gratification, lust, and, well, pride.
“These opposite holidays reflect the divided heart of America and go way beyond the battle between ‘Happy Holidays’ and ‘Merry Christmas.’ Look around at the Hallmark movies, corporate ads, and common propaganda pushed by Christmas card companies and you’ll see the same trend: less God becoming man and more man ‘becoming’ woman. A few scrolls down Vistaprint and Shutterfly’s holiday section will confirm that subversion is swiftly on the rise.
“This is a time of year to rejoice in the Word made flesh Who makes us whole, particularly in the messages we send to our family and friends.”
Josiah Gilbert Holland wrote the hymn beginning with the first line “There’s a song in the air.” “There’s a song in the air” excellently expresses a childlike simplicity and joy regarding the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. It seems best considered as meter 6.6.6.6.12.12. It was set to music in Christmas Song by Karl P. Harrington in 1904.
Holland was born in Belchertown, Massachusetts July 24, 1819. He served on the staff of the Springfield Republican newspaper, under Editor Samuel Bowles. He wrote numerous essays under the pseudonym Timothy Titcomb. In 1870, he became editor of Scribner’s Magazine. He wrote several poems, as well as a biography of Abraham Lincoln. “For summer’s bloom, and autumn’s blight” is among his well-known works (from Bitter-Sweet). Holland married Elizabeth L Chapin. He perhaps was a Unitarian. Henry Foote Wilder lists him in American Unitarian Hymn Writers and Hymns.[i] Josiah Holland died October 12, 1881 in New York City, New York. He is buried in the Springfield Cemetery in Springfield, Hampden County, Massachusetts.
[i] Whether because he was a
Unitarian or because “For summer’s bloom, and autumn’s blight” is included in
the Unitarian Hymn and Tune Book for Church and Home (Boston, MA: 1868) is not
clear to me.
The Christ Mass originally became pronounced as one word and the final “S” was dropped to remove future objections. But how in the world did the thing turn out to be adopted erroneously as the birth day of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Below is strictly my opinion, and mine alone. If you agree, “Well.” If you disagree that is also “Well.” Everyone has the right to their own opinions. My opinion has been formed over many years and is based on what others have written on the subject, what I have heard in innumerable conversations, etc.
From my understanding of the Gospels, I see where the family of Jesus – his mother, Mary’s husband, his brothers and sisters – must have known to the very day when their son, and brother, was born. You know when you were born and so do your parents, and probably your siblings.
The Jews of that time kept meticulous records. However, when the Romans burned the Temple, the records burned also. The Romans made a wasteland of the entire country, from North to South, and the Jews that weren’t killed were driven out of the land, or sold into the slave markets of the world. Josephus and historians of that time chronicled it well.
However, the writers of the Gospels knew when he was born. There were direct statements to that effect. And I feel certain there were disciples who companied with him who knew how old he was when he began his ministry. There was no A.D. or B.C. at that early date, but they had a much sense as we do. By the time of the large population of Christians and “Christians” in Rome – about the year of Emperor Constantine around 325 A.D., Constantine decreed Christianity was to be recognized as a state-approved religion. In fact, there was the major council of Nicea in 326 A.D., at which many facets of the faith, such as the approval of the 66 books of the canon of Scripture [occurred], and there may have been discussion of the possible date of the Lord’s birth. I believe Christ was born 6 days before the end of the Jewish Year 3759 on Elul 23. Someone may have said, “He was born 6 days before the end of the year” – meaning the end of the Jewish Year. And since the 25th of December was already the date of sun worship, Constantine, for political expediency, ordered the day be observed as Christ’s birthday, because it was also 6 days to the end of the year.By Grady E. Dearman, Sr., of Laurel, Mississippi, March 6, 2016 – as posted by Hoyt D. F. Sparks, December 25, 2016
