CHRISTMAS EVE 2006 & WHAT IT REALLY MEANS!

The Eve of Christmas

By Joseph Farah

When I was a kid, Christmas was just about the
biggest deal in the whole wide world.

As Jean Shepherd, the screenwriter of "A Christ-
mas Story," would say, the entire annual calendar
of kid-dom revolved around this holiday.

We'd start thinking about it in September. By
Thanksgiving, there was a feeling of imminent
inevitability. Hysteria began to set in by Dec. 1.

We didn't just celebrate Christmas. Christmas
Eve was nearly as big a deal. And we began a
countdown in our household many days before
that. Today, for instance, would be the eve of
Christmas Eve. Yesterday was the eve of the eve
of Christmas Eve, and so on.

With all the attacks on Christmas in recent
years, I wonder how much of the fun and delight
of Christmas has been robbed from our kids.

But, of course, the attacks are not really
directed at Christmas, at all. Christmas is only
a target of the secular jihadists of the American
Civil Liberties Union and their co-conspirators
at Americans United For Separation of Church
and State because their ultimate goal is destroying
what Christmas represents.

They remind me of the terrorists in the Middle
East who say they want a state of their own, but
what they really want is to destroy another state.
Since they haven't been able to achieve their goal
in an all-out assault, they settle for getting there
piece by piece.

The real target is not Christmas. It's Christianity.
That's where the real battle lines are being drawn.

And we should expect this. It's just what Jesus
]told us to expect:

"Remember the word that I said unto you, The
servant is not greater than his lord. If they have
persecuted me, they will also persecute you.
…" – John 15:20

A talk-show host on Air America asked me last
year at this time if I "feared" this persecution. I
tried to explain that I don't fear it, I welcome it.
Because unless we pay a price for our belief in
Jesus, our faith has not really been tested –
we're not really following in His footsteps.

Think about this: Jesus came to Earth as a little,
helpless baby. He knew that even His very birth
would result in worldly authorities attempting to
hunt him down and slay Him in an effort to pre-
vent Him from doing what He came to Earth to do
– preach the gospel, go to the cross to atone for the
sins of mankind and be resurrected.

Many Christians have considered the agony Jesus
went through in the Garden of Gethsemane,
through the humiliation and torture leading to Cal-
vary. But how many of us have considered the deci-
sion Jesus made before that – to come into the world
as a helpless little infant?

That's faith. That's love. That's Jesus.

What his detractors in 2005 don't get is that
the battle is over. The war is already won.
It is finished.

You can invent new holidays to try to marginal-
ize Christmas. You can change the words of
"Silent Night." You can tell little kids they
can't say "Merry Christmas" in school. You can
do all kinds of things to try to get mankind to
forget about Jesus.

But all it gets you, ultimately, is more company
in hell.

Another reporter asked me who was winning the
battle over Christmas.

The battle was won a long time ago, about 2,006
years ago, when a little baby was born in Bethle-
hem, a God-man who would become the Savior of
the world. Kings tried to kill him shortly after His
birth. Priests marveled at his knowledge when He
was but a boy. He turned the world upside down
with His teachings. He healed the sick and the lame.
He raised people from the dead.

To this day we measure time itself by His coming –
not just kid-dom, but the whole world.

In another week or so, we will turn the page on the
calendar and celebrate the new year – 2007. It isn't
because it will have been 2,007 years since the
beginning of the world. It isn't because it will have
been 2,007 years since the beginning of history. It's
because it's 2,007 years since the birth of the
Messiah, the Prince of Peace, the Wonderful
Counselor, the King of Kings.

Happy birthday, Jesus. Please come back soon.

Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of World
Net Daily. His latest book is "Taking America Back."