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Advent 2025 December 18 - Not about Christmas Joy

 I am writing this on the morning of December 16. 

24/7 news coverage gets in the way of Christmas bliss, which can be based on ignorance and wrong expectations. 

I am stuck in the slough of the weekend's violence in Rhode Island, Syria, Los Angeles, and of course, Australia, where we cannot call it anything but attempted genocide. The perpetrators went to a place where as many Jews as could be expected would be gathered in a public, outdoor place. In a synagogue, there is security; we Gentiles do not understand how much security Jews have to maintain. The killers could have murdered many others, and from reports, it sounds like the police were not that effective. Granted, probably blindsided; "the citizens aren't supposed to have guns like that!" But they did, and more, they wanted to kill people against whom they have an unyielding hatred because of a small piece of land in the Middle East and a sixth century warring chieftain who controls the thoughts of a billion people so many centuries later. 

So we have 15 or more people  dead, from a ten-year-old to a Holocaust survivor, because they wanted to celebrate a holiday at the beach with their fellow Jewish believers. I imagine Jews across the world will move back inside after this atrocity. Who can blame them? 

The situation in Providence doesn't sound much more handled. They still haven't found the killer of two students, one from Birmingham and the other from Midlothian, Virginia, bright, ambitious young people who thrilled their families by getting into an Ivy League college. 

Two soldiers and a civilian were assassinated in Syria. I suspect most Americans don't even realize we have military there. Again, Muslims implicated. 

And because my generation grew up on Archie Bunker and Meathead and had our children watch The Princes Bride, and because Spinal Tap created a genre, we think we know Rob Reiner. We don't. But his and his wife's death speak to the hundreds of thousands of parents with children struggling with drug addiction. Nick Reiner had all the privileges and Western civilization and still murdered the people who gave him life and tried to help him. 

This post is depressing, I know. So is Matthew 2:16-18. Mass murder just because Herod felt his power threatened by a baby. A common event in ancient history until really not that long ago. Woman feel their power threatened by their not-yet-born offspring and "take care of it" at Planned Parenthood. Men, their partners, help them do it. 

As I wrote earlier, we wouldn't need Christmas if it were not for our self-addiction, which is a euphemism for great bent toward sin. I may say, "That's not me," but when "push comes to shove," a rage arises in me that I cannot overlook. I need Christmas not because I need a tree and family and joy. We need it because we all can be pushed to sin and destruction. 


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