Across cultures, people have sought to flee oppression and escape persecution from the beginning of recorded history. A recurring theme in Western classical literature and in modern classics ("Superman," and Disney originals) which revolve around the struggle between good and evil, is the need and critical role for a rescuer or savior.
The ultimate rescuer and savior for humankind would be a "messiah," who would vanquish evil, oppression, and falsehoods once and for all.
It's no accident that only Christianity has its roots and its entire reason for being in the messiah Jesus Christ. No other religion makes the claim that it was founded by a messiah.
Undoubtedly, Christmas is a magical, festive time of year.
It marks the birth of Jesus Christ who came into this world as the son of God — the Messiah and savior for all who accept him.
So many people think approaching God is an impossibility.
For those doubters, Christianity appears to be a religion with questionable appeal because of the perception that it's like all other religions which require giving up certain bad habits and behaviors, as well as performing good works in order to approach God.
Yet, Christ reminds us in Matthew 11:30, "My yoke is easy, and My burden is light."
This was illustrated through a learned Jewish Pharisee whose life revolved around living up to stressful demands of the Mosaic law. When he asked which was the greatest commandment in the law, Jesus answered that it is loving God, our neighbors as much as ourselves.
Even non-believers know there was something different about Jesus.
For one thing, Christ — being God, affected history with such an impact that he split time, dividing all human activities and events into happening before his coming (B.C.) or after his coming (A.D.).
Jesus had to have had a supernatural impact for non-Christians globally to agree to dividing history in two.
Remember, Jesus Christ is more historically verifiable than any other person who lived in during his time on earth.
This includes the Roman emperors, Aristotle or Alexander the Great — because of the number of eye-witness accounts that were recorded in writing within a generation of his life. Christ is the only person in history who was pre-announced starting 1,000 years before he was born — with 18 prophets from the Old Testament between the 10th and Fourth centuries B.C., predicting his coming birth, life, and death.
Hundreds of years later, the circumstances of Christ’s birth, life, and death validated those prophecies.
Let's also recall, Christ lived, and not only demonstrated his otherworldly power to heal and perform the ultimate miracle of bringing the dead back to life, but he set the absolute highest standard of love, dying to give life to others.
As Jesus prophesied, his resurrection confirmed God’s powers and plans — providing "seeing is believing" evidence by bringing Jesus back from the dead and buried in a tomb to being alive.
In fact, Jesus made 10 separate appearances to his disciples between the resurrection and his ascension into Heaven.
Some of those appearances were to individual disciples, some were to several disciples at the same time, and once even to 500 at one time. This isn't hearsay, it's a matter of record reflective of multiple separate eye-witness accounts.
Never forget, no other religion teaches that God became flesh.
In other religions God is too high, otherworldly, and pure to be accessible in terms of having a communion with believers.
In Christianity, God had his son born in the humbleness of a filthy stable and had him raised in Nazareth, a small and very poor town of low social status.
Why?
God wanted his Son to be approachable by all.
Unlike other religious paths requiring certain formalities and good works, the Christian approaches God by simply a humble recognition that Christ paid the ultimate price - by giving his life for our sins; that through Christ we can have a direct relationship and communion with God.
Christianity Is Foundational to America
Christmas — that is Christianity — is foundational to the formation of America.
If Jesus had never been born and died the way he did, all of history would have been different.
Neither Christopher Columbus or the Pilgrims would have received or have been motivated by the good news of salvation through Christ, to explore or establish a new community with a higher purpose in the New World.
There would never have been a constitutional government created in the way and time that it was in America, without two necessary conditions: First, the foundation of recognizing man’s unalienable rights of freedom and equality coming out of the teachings of Christ, but not fully recognized until the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century; and second, the unprecedented collection of Christian human genius that came together — rather amazingly at the same time — people we call the Founders, who were 95% Christian in their beliefs.
It was their extraordinary biblical, historic, and classical learning, faith, wisdom, temperament, and practical experience that enabled them to write and Frame the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and its Bill of Rights.
Our Christian Founders knew the potential of depravity existing, in everyone, that it can lead to tyranny.
For this reason, they structured the government with checks and balances between the three branches of government, but also through the federalist system of division of power between the states and the federal government.
The Founders' achievement far surpassed achievements of many others in Ancient and to Medieval history.
America's Founding remains the greatest political and civic event of all.
The Founders' constitutional republic provided for and protected individual rights of freedom and independence such that America achieved material prosperity more rapidly than with any other prior civilization.
Additionally, the American constitutional framework enabled many to move closer to the divine image- in which all people are created free and equal more so than they would have achieved under any prior system.
Christ had no servants, yet he was called master.
He had no formal education or degree, yet the educated Jews called him rabbi.
Jesus had no medicines, yet he healed, and through our prayers does so now.
He had no army, yet emperors and kings feared him.
History shows that so many levels of human advancement were made possible by God, and are possible still.
God's Kingdom "is not of this world," and that includes the most holy power of Christmas.
Scott S. Powell, a member of the Committee on the Present Danger: China and senior fellow at Discovery Institute, is the author of "Rediscovering America," a new release in the history genre. You may reach him at scottp@discovery.org. Read Scott S. Powell's Reports — More Here.
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