Dealing w/post Christmas blues, Saint Nick the boxer & how this all relates to Kwanzaa.....Oh yeah....& that Incarnation thing.....

Greet'n's 'n' salutations from Branta-Claus, everyone!!!!!

1st things 1st, lemme indulge in my 2 stupid "Christmas" "trads", although belated.....1) Santa Claus says, "Ho, Ho, Ho. But, Branta-Claus says No, No, No!" Just gotta say that every yr! 2) And here’s that silly sweater again!

You may ask, "Why are u so hard on the old guy?".....Because Santa's the REAL grinch who's trying to steal the show. BUT!!! I just heard something about the real St. Nick that made me chuckle. Church trad says that he slapped Arius the Heretic at the Council of Nicea in 325.....Nice-uh? Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk! True or not, I think Santa needs a makeover! Me thinks he should park his sleigh, sell his reindeer, hang up that dumb red coat & put on some boxing gloves! Time for some new trads! 

More on the Incarnation in a bit, but Branta-Claus isn't done w/his “b-rant”. Most scoff at Kwanzaa. It’s just a Black Panther's contrived cultural patchwork forged from a hatred of whites. Kwanzaa words are all from East African Swahili, but African American heritage is West African. Kwanzaa also appropriates & repurposes Jewish menorahs....but that's no flakier than what the Europeans did. They turned Roman Saturnalia into “Christmas” & highjacked the JEWISH story of the Incarnation into a European narrative....(that's why Christianity is widely seen as the "white man's religion"). Jesus is no more Euro than He's Martian. He was Jewish!!!  Christmas trees. Nog. Yuletide. Mistletoe. The rotund & ubiquitous Santa Claus. Blah blah blah....all Northern European concoctions.

This is a great video, especially for the post-Christmas blues:

https://youtu.be/C-QHbpYjuIg

A guaranteed antidote to post-Christmas blues: Don't celebrate in the 1st place if you don't wanna! LOL. Romans 14:5 says it's no doctrinal no-no to just say no to the pressure if you've had enough. No dogma. But too many are held by others' demands for a day which He never even commissioned. Your freedom in Christ lets you choose which trads (or none) to observe. However, if the Lord grew weary of His own divinely appointed feasts (Isaiah 1:14), I doubt that He likes Christmas pop-culture. Make no mistake.....I love Incarnation hymns even in July. And I go to missional Christmas parties....However, God likely uses us most when we INCARNATE on highways & byways, gathering w/non-Christians in THEIR comfort zones. (Matt. 22:9-10) Jesus Christ is the ULTIMATE Incarnation, but we incarnate collectively as the body of Christ! (1 Cor. 12:12-31)

THE Incarnation & its resulting corollaries were my deepest reflection in '23. Some of the corollaries I see: 

1) The Holy Spirit incarnates through us (1 Cor. 3:16) although our dying bodies can't interact w/a perfect Maker w/o the new birth. Worse yet, our spirits died in Adam & are hostile to God....(Romans 5:6-8).....As we can't do squat to make things right, it's all Divine love incarnating Grace through us.....(Ephesians 2:8-9) & the same kind of Divine love shared inside the Trinity from eternity past. (John 17:21-26).......2) How we reflect the incarnation inside of us via the light of Jesus within us (Matthew 6:22). And in the aforementioned 1 Cor. 12:12-31.....3) The corporate Church (Ephesians 2:19-22) is an incarnation.......4) God's Word is an incarnation as Kings & fishermen alike were among the authors of the 66 Books. When the Spirit moved through their various writing styles, trustworthy documents were rendered. (2 Peter 1:21, 2 Tim. 3:16)......5) Our prayers, when unified w/His Will, (1 John 5:14-15) are the incarnation of God's Spirit on our lips.......6) He incarnates His Divine Will through human history, bringing about His prophetic agenda through obedient people, but also even using the wrath of men to praise Him....(Psalm 76:10)....Speaking of wrath, did you see the wrath of this parliamentarian in the "T country" who recently cursed Israel & keeled over??? Died 2 days later....If you haven't seen this, watch it!....  

https://youtu.be/ZT24MDvxHkI?si=knERb5s2hGVCmTXp

​So, the Incarnation isn't just bound to chronological time, which will come to an end someday. It's all of the above & more. 

For Romans 14:5, the Incarnation(s) and the nations……..

.......Just another witness to His Glory