Is this the Day of Truth or another False Attraction?

Is this the Day of Truth or another False Attraction?

We were warned by John the Baptist;  When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?  Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.  And do not presume to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our father, “ for I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones.   I am baptizing with water, for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I. “  (Mt 3: 7 - 9, 11).

The Pharisees could not accept the coming of the Messiah as Jesus portrayed.  The Sadducees did not accept the teaching of the Resurrection of which was the main theme of Christ’s Incarnation that he would forgive us and rise like him in the resurrection of the dead.  

On that day Sadducees approached him, saying that there is no resurrection.  Concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Issac, and the God of Jacob.  He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”  (Mt 22: 23, 31 - 32).

Realistically, the Nativity of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, is all about the very essence of the resurrection of Christ to be followed by all of us for whom he was crucified.  The very Truth of what Advent prepares us for as what the baptism of each of us is what the words over our casket; In the waters of baptism (name) died with Christ and rose with him to new life.  May he/she now share with him eternal glory.

To know him and the power of his Passion is found at the site in Bethlehem where the plan of God was started to unveil the mystery of Mercy for sinners who rejected God.  

For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law.

But that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the death.  (Phil 3: 8b - 11).

Advent opens the door to the Passion of Christ that starts with a Virgin birth and ends with a Holy Sacrifice that the shepherds were the first to adore him and the rest of us to share in his Father's promise of sending a Savior;  first to the poor and then to us who are poor in spirit. 

Ralph B. Hathaway