Christians around the world are celebrating the birth of Christ today while those of other faiths, or no faith, are mostly sitting it out.\u00a0 It\u2019s the happiest holiday of the year and there\u2019s every reason why non-Christians should join the celebration.\u00a0 So please do.<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t have to be a Christian to celebrate Christmas.\u00a0 You can celebrate the birth of Jesus without celebrating the birth of Christ, and there is every reason we all should.\u00a0 So join us, please. It can only bring us closer in this ever-chilling world.<\/p>\n
Jesus was for all people \u2013 all colors, origins, religions, conditions, shapes and sexes.\u00a0 He was not a Christian.\u00a0 He was a Jew who never pretended to be anything else, and he never changed \u201cone letter or even a part of a letter\u201d of the Jewish Law or the Prophets.\u00a0 In fact, Jews hold Jesus in such high esteem that they\u00a0 consider him a Prophet, though not their Messiah. So Jews could legitimately join us by celebrating the birth of Jesus as Judaism\u2019s last Prophet.<\/p>\n
So could Muslims.\u00a0 Especially Muslims.\u00a0 The Quran, <\/em>\u00a0which is Islam\u2019s central religious text that Muslims believe to be a revelation from God, places Jesus among the greatest of Prophets.\u00a0 It says he was born of a virgin, performed miracles, rejected the Jewish religious establishment and prophesied Mohammad by using the name Ahmad. Jesus was not crucified but rather he miraculously ascended directly into heaven, and he will return to Earth before the Day of Judgment to restore justice and defeat \u201cthe false messiah\u201d,\u00a0 known among Christians as the Antichrist.\u00a0 When Muslims speak Jesus\u2019 name they add, \u201cMay peace be upon him,\u201d <\/em>\u00a0the same words they say when they mention Mohammad\u2019s name.<\/p>\n The Quran<\/em> even holds his mother, the Virgin Mary, in astonishingly high esteem, even higher than the New Testament does.\u00a0\u00a0 It devotes a full chapter to her, an honor it grants to no other woman.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t even identify any other woman by name in the entire book, yet her name appears more in the Quran<\/em> than it does in the New Testament.\u00a0 So Muslims could easily join the Jews and us in celebrating the birth of Jesus.<\/p>\n And so could Hindus, members of other religions, agnostics and atheists.\u00a0 There is nothing in Jesus\u2019 teaching of love that should prevent you from joining us, too, and everything that should encourage you.<\/p>\n I keep saying \u201cus.\u201d\u00a0 Technically, I should not say \u201cus\u201d because technically I am not a Christian.\u00a0 A Christian is someone who believes Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, or even God Incarnate.\u00a0 I do not actively believe either of those concepts so I cannot actively say I am a Christian.<\/p>\n But neither do I deny the possibility.\u00a0 I studied Jesus up close and personal for 20 years \u2013 even wrote a book about him — and after realizing the surprising amount circumstantial, experiential and documentary evidence that indicates Jesus might indeed have been the Messiah,\u00a0 I can see how it might be true.\u00a0 If any person ever existed whose life could qualify, it was Jesus.<\/p>\n My wife, Sue, is a Christian, but I call myself a Jesusian (jeh-SUE-sian; I\u2019ll explain it later), and I celebrate the birth of Jesus because of his teaching, to which he dedicated his life.\u00a0 Indeed, he gave his life to teaching, preaching and demonstrating his cause so that we might understand it.\u00a0 Christians hold that teaching so central to their faith, and they see God beaming so purely through Jesus by living his teaching, that they call him the Christ.<\/p>\n But either way, it doesn\u2019t matter.\u00a0 Jesus never claimed he was the Messiah.\u00a0 He never denied it, but despite many people who knew him insisting that he was the Messiah, he never claimed it.\u00a0 And crucially, he never said we must believe he was the Messiah to follow his teaching and live his promise of a life full of joy beyond human understanding.<\/p>\n Not only did Jesus not<\/em> say we must believe he was the Messiah to live the life he promised, but he also never said we had to believe anything<\/em> to live that life.\u00a0 We don\u2019t even have to believe there is a God.\u00a0 We certainly don\u2019t have to believe Jesus\u2019 body was resurrected after he died (although there is evidence that it was).<\/p>\n (Sidelight: Neither did Jesus say we have to oppose abortion.\u00a0 Jesus was a Jew who never contested any of Judaism\u2019s beliefs, including its belief from the beginning that life begins at birth.\u00a0 Roman Catholics also once taught that life begins at birth, but in 1591 Pope Gregory <\/em>declared that life begins 166 days after conception and the church never looked back. {His edict explains why several states limit the\u00a0 right to abortion to 24 weeks.}\u00a0 In 1869 Pope Pious IX strengthened Gregory\u2019s edict by forbidding abortion any time after conception. Most Protestant churches accepted abortion as a woman\u2019s right to control her own body until powerhouse Christian Nationalists used it in the 1970s to cover for their drive to prevent the Internal Revenue Service from denying tax exemptions to the religiously ultraconservative Bob Jones University because of its racial segregation policy.\u00a0 For a fuller explanation of the latter I recommend reading <\/em>The Power Worshipers by Katherine Stewart.)<\/em><\/p>\n Jesus only<\/em> said that to live his promise we must love God and love one another (Matthew 22:37-40).\u00a0 The Hebrew bible (the Old Testament) expresses the same basic thought in a different way. Micah 6:8 reads, \u201c\u2026(W)hat does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God?\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a practical matter.\u00a0 God is love, so to love God is to love love \u2013 literally love love. Love the idea of love, the thought of love, the reality of love.\u00a0\u00a0 Doing that will naturally lead to fulfilling the second commandment, which is to love one\u2019s neighbor, who is everyone.\u00a0 That means putting other people\u2019s needs above our own and helping them however we can.<\/p>\n Look, God is love.\u00a0 Love exists.\u00a0 Therefore, God exists.\u00a0 If we will love that Love and love one another we will have fulfilled Jesus\u2019 commandments and we will realize the happiness he promises.\u00a0 That is it!\u00a0 Christianity is that simple!\u00a0 It requires nothing more, but neither does it require anything less.<\/p>\n Again, Jesus only said that if we want to experience joy beyond human understanding \u2013 the Greek word for it is makarios<\/em> \u2013 then all we must do is love God (love love) and love one another.\u00a0 And we don\u2019t have to be Christians or believe that God exists to love love.<\/p>\n So although by definition I do not consider myself a Christian, I most certainly do consider myself a Jesusian, which is a first cousin to Christianity.\u00a0 It\u2019s a word I coined (or at least I think I coined it) to describe people like me who believe Jesus\u2019 teaching and try to live it, but who do not necessarily<\/em> believe Jesus was Lord.<\/p>\n What is important to us is what was important to Jesus, and what was important to Jesus was that we put love first.\u00a0 Jesus never wanted to be praised, certainly not worshiped.\u00a0 He only wanted us to follow his teaching.\u00a0 He only wanted us to love, for our own sakes.<\/p>\n So instead of praising him, Jesusians honor him by following him, which means that to the best of our abilities we do what he said do.\u00a0 We don\u2019t do it because he was the Christ.\u00a0 We do it because, as utopian as it may sound to some, his teaching does lead to makarios<\/em> for us and a better world for those we meet.\u00a0 And what\u2019s wrong with that?\u00a0 Makarios<\/em> is the destination and it may be humanly impossible to reach it, but the road that leads there is bright and gets ever brighter.<\/p>\n To Christians and Jesusians, the word love has a specific meaning, and it has nothing to do with sentimentality.\u00a0 The New Testament was written in Greek, and there are seven Greek words that translate into English as the one word love.\u00a0 However, the word for love used in the New Testament is fundamentally different from all the others.<\/p>\n The six words are philia<\/em>, the deepest and warmest feelings shared among closest friends;\u00a0 storge<\/em>, love shared among family members;\u00a0 eros<\/em>, the physical expression of affection;\u00a0 mania<\/em>, obsessive love, the kind of \u201clove\u201d that a stalker feels toward his victim;\u00a0 pragma<\/em>, practical love, such as that found in arranged marriages throughout history;\u00a0 and philautia,<\/em> self-love, or how people view themselves and how they feel about their own bodies and minds.<\/p>\n But the word Greeks chose for the New Testament is agape (ah-GAH-pay)<\/em>, which differs fundamentally\u00a0 from the others because all the others deal with feelings of the heart, and Agape<\/em> alone deals with actions of the mind.\u00a0 Agape is the kind of love that forces us to get out of our skins and think first of the needs of others, and what we can do for others.\u00a0\u00a0 And the promised result of doing that is makarios<\/em>.<\/p>\n Which gets me back to wishing non-Christians would join us \u2013 yes, us — in celebrating the birth of Jesus, if not the Christ.\u00a0 Change the name from Christmas if you will, call it Prophet\u2019s Day, but please join us in celebrating this incredible season, and this most incredible man.<\/p>\n I hope everyone is having a very merry Christmas.<\/p>\n If you are not a subscriber and you would like to\u00a0 subscribe, click here<\/u><\/a>. (It\u2019s free.) Christians around the world are celebrating the birth of Christ today while those of other faiths, or no faith, are mostly sitting it out.\u00a0 It\u2019s the happiest holiday of the year and there\u2019s every reason why non-Christians should join the celebration.\u00a0 So please do. You don\u2019t have to be a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":380,"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions\/380"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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