Patriot Vol. 06 No. 51 Special Edition | 21 December 2006
THE FOUNDATION“How many observe Christ’s birth-day! How few, his precepts! O! ‘tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments.” —Benjamin Franklin
THE GOOD NEWS“In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” —Luke 2:1-7 (ESV)
PATRIOT PERSPECTIVE
Christmas 2006: Promises to keepDecember seems somewhat unsuitable for the appearance of the promised hope of Christmas—the message of the birth of Jesus. Why then is this month of long, cold nights proper for celebrating the “Dayspring from on high”?
The audacious claim of Christmas is that, to redeem us, God Himself came in the most vulnerable human form. Multiple prophecies foretold His birth in Bethlehem of a virgin mother, of the line of David. Each prophecy is more than a prediction; it is a promise. He is the Messiah, the Promised One, Emmanuel, who fulfills the promise of reconciliation with God.
At Christmas 2006, we are still warring with an asymmetric enemy pledged to our ultimate destruction, and many argue that these are among the most difficult days our nation has faced. Yet Decembers past have seen American Patriots keep promises during many dark and trying times.
Surely, for our troops arrayed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and those of us supporting them on the home front, our straits are not as severe as those pressing General George Washington during the early years of the Revolutionary War. As his Continental Army troops left bloody footprints along the path to Valley Forge, the good General fell to his knees for prayer in the snow, beseeching God’s guidance as to how he might persevere to victory.
Victory did come in the Christmas Campaign successes of 1776 at Trenton and Princeton, about which Washington presciently wrote, “If every nerve is not straind to recruit the New Army with all possible Expedition I think the game is pretty near up... No Man I believe ever had a greater choice of difficulties & less the means of extricating himself than I have—However under a full perswation of the justice of our Cause I cannot but think the prospect will brighten.”
A year later, however, came the aforementioned retreat to Valley Forge. Even with Christmas approaching, Washington’s discouragement was evident in his writing of “A character to lose—an estate to forfeit—the inestimable blessing of liberty at stake—and a life devoted, must be my excuse,” and about how “it was much easier to draw up remonstrances in a comfortable room by a good fire-side, than to occupy a cold bleak hill, and sleep under frost and snow, without clothes or blankets.”
However, on 17 December, Washington issued general orders: “Tomorrow being the day set apart by the Honorable Congress for public Thanksgiving and Praise; and duty calling us devoutly to express our grateful acknowledgements to God for the manifold blessings he has granted us, the General directs that the army remain in its present quarters, and that the Chaplains perform divine service with their several Corps and Brigades. And earnestly exhorts, all officers and soldiers, whose absence is not indispensably necessary, to attend with reverence the solemnities of the day.”
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