Dennis: My Annual Christmas Sermon...

Maybe It's Just a Coincidence...Yeah...That's It!

 

 

Those familiar with the Worldwide Church of God know that after many years of observing what most would call "Jewish Holidays" but with Christian significance, the Church has now switched to the more generically acceptable Christian holidays, such as Easter and Christmas. In the past, these Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice, Fall Equinox and Winter Solstice holidays were replaced by the recognition of Passover over Easter in the Spring and the Festival of Tabernacles in the Fall over Christmas. While no religious holy day springs from a vacuum, and the Jewish Holy Days, also sprang from the pagan agricultural holidays that preceded them, I wonder if the Worldwide Church of God, and all Christians would be intrigued and challenged to realize just exactly which "Son" was being born on Christmas and why?

 

And keeping the Passover doesn't get you off the hook either.  Passover  is the same motif of darkness/slavery and death being overcome by freedom and light as the Sun breaks free of it all and victory goes to the Most High.  The Lamb is slain because the Age of Aries began with Abraham finding the Lamb in the bush to fill in for his son Isaac, and ends with the Lamb of God dying to usher in the Church age of Pices, the fish.

 

 

 What is the symbol of Mithraism found in small temples all over Europe?  Mithras slaying the bull  4000-2000 BC as Taurus which used to be the Easter Constellation is replaced by Aries the Lamb 2000-0 BC, nicely coinciding with the beginning of the Old Testament Lamb motif.  It's the magic of the progress of the Equinoxes and the biggest secret the priests had to keep from the people and the real reason the OT is full of commands NOT to look at the heavens or let it tell you stories.  That's the job of the Priests!  Priestly "knowledge" was often science that had been figured out and kept tight to the chests of the ruling elite.

 

Plainly put, the story of Jesus' one year ministry as described in Mark, Matthew and Luke, is an astrological allegory of the journey the literal SUN takes through the twelve signs of the Zodiac in one year.  God is not called a "consuming fire," for nothing nor does Malachi note in vain that the "sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in his wings," (i.e. rays)

 

 

 

 The journey of the SON/SUN starts at the birth of the SUN and SON in December, brought forth by a virgin of all things, and ends just before Christmas on December 22-24, the time the SUN appears to be "in the grave" prior to being born again on the 25th by moving ever so slightly north again and heading towards spring. Jesus also spent his three days in the grave as we recall.

 

First of all why would I say that the Virgin brings forth the SUN and the Virgin bringing forth the literal SON of God later in print was not the original story? Because the older phenomenon is the sky story noticed long before it was made literal for the masses.

 

On Christmas day, in particular 2000 years ago when during Jesus time, the Sign of Aries the Lamb was coming to an end,, due to the progression of the equinoxes and signified by the crucifixion of the Lamb in the Spring, the sky on Christmas morning showed an interesting sight. Just before sunrise, the SUN sits on the horizon about to be "born." At the zenith, the high point in the sky, at that moment, is the zodiacal constellation of Virgo, the Virgin who is MOST High, MOST Blessed, at that moment the SUN is born. Her open legs pointing to the sunrise to give birth.

 

 Truly, and anciently, "and the virgin shall bring for the SUN." The prophecy says that "they shall call his (THE SON) name, Immanuel, which means "God with us."   (Actually it means "God IS with us).

 

But the literal SON Jesus was never called Immanuel. However, the real SUN, as SUN of GOD is always Immanuel, always with us. The Bible even says of "God" that His power is from the rising of the sun until the going down there of." No one thinks this through. God's power is only good during the day is what this is saying. God's power ends at sundown according to this scripture. Evidently this SUN GOD has not power after sunset, which of course is the real SUN and not the literalized GOD or SON of GOD.

 

 Malachi tells us that the Messiah, but calling him the SUN, "shall arise with healing in his wings." The wings of the sun are the rays that appear to jet out due to the way humans see the sun when they try to look at it. One of the great symbols of Egypt is the sun disc with great bird wings coming out left and right. It's an old symbol of how the sun looks to humans. The crown of thorns on Jesus at his death are actually sun ray symbols much like the crown on the Statue of Liberty.

 

Let's move on a bit past the birth of the SUN/Son on Christmas morning. The Gospels say that Jesus was "about 30 years old" when he began his ministry. The SUN/SON was born in December in the sign of Capricorn back then which is the Goat, and may account for some of the Nativity scene animals that were later made literally true in the story. Each House of the Zodiac takes up approximately 30 degrees of the sky (30x12=360). So the SUN also is about 30 when it enters the next sign of the Zodiac in January, which just happens to be the same PERSON Jesus the SON visited when he began his ministry! This would be Aquarius, the Waterman for the SUN but John the Baptizer for Jesus the SON. Same story. One in the sky, one made literal on earth. Same Story! Both SUN and SON are baptized by the Waterman during this month and both increase, that is keep moving towards Spring for the SUN or into his ministry for the SON. Aquarius and John, the Watermen on the other hand, must decrease and while one sets, the other is decapitated on the horizon. It is no coincidence that when Aquarius appears to rise again six months later at dawn instead of sink at sunset, the head comes up first opposite Leo the Lion, sign of Herod who had him murdered literally. Aquarius, in the morning sunrise looks beheaded by Leo who is going down. Could this be why later in Jesus ministry Herod thinks that John the Baptist is coming back from the dead or had risen, because Aquarius is rising again after going down six months earlier? Is this a heavenly astro-theological tale made literally true?

 

 

 

Also, at sunrise and prior to Christmas day, the three stars in the belt of Orion the Hunter rose vertically and followed the sun across the sky all day, only to loose it in sunset.  Every winter morning this scene would progress with the three "Magi" rising higher and earlier each day chasing the SUN/SON. When the story was literalized, it lost it's common sense. In the literal story we find the Magi saying, "We have seen his star in the east ...." They then proceed to follow it West with it ending up turning south and hovering right over the place where Jesus was. It would be a dumb thing to see a star looking east, watch it go over head in time and then turn west to follow it to Jerusalem. You'd play this game ever night for awhile. First head east, then look up, then turn and head west. I doubt this was the plan of the Magi who could not have been that stupid. However, when not taken literally we have the three stars, neatly aligned in Orion,s Belt rising like hikers in the east and heading west following the SUN or SON that has to be in the West to find. Great astro-theology but a bit funky when made literally true. It might explain why Herod could not see the same Star and had to ask for the Magi to find Jesus for him. It was taking place in the sky, not the palace. A good Gnostic would say "of course, this is where the story comes from."

 

Well shortly after Aquarius and John slip off the scene and Jesus goes on his way, he goes immediately into the wilderness to be tempted not to be all he can be by Satan. This would be the SUN, rising from Winter and heading to Spring and then being the Most High at the Summer Solstice, but still weak as it is early in the game. Jesus might still be too young, too weak to continue, so Satan, i.e. Darkness tempts him to be not be Jesus the SON or SUN. The darkness of Winter does not want to go and wants to prevent the SUN/SON from en-lightening the world, or as we might say, Satan does not wish Jesus the SON to take away the sins (darkness) of the world. Darkness in the human psyche is the world of evil and fear...the world of Satan. Jesus as the SON, just like the SUN might just overcome the darkness of winter and Satan if he can't be dissuaded at this weak time of his cycle.

 

But alas, you can't stop the seasons, so Jesus and the SUN go to Spring and Easter, which is the time when the SUN has the same strength as the dark, when day and night are Equi-nox or Equal Nights. It's Easter because the SUN rises due east and gives SON worshipers a direction in which to pray on Easter morning. Satan is well on the way to being defeated with the SUN/SON being crucified literally in Aries the Lamb, (April-Easter) which Jesus was also called and the SUN in Aries the Lamb as sign of the Zodiac. For the SUN the crucifixion takes place where the Celestial Equator crosses the Ecliptic and the Sun sits right on the intersection of it at Easter, and for Jesus it happens, same time in Jerusalem, literally.

 

 

 

Interestingly enough, the Egyptian Obelisk centered in the courtyard of the Vatican and viewed from above is simply a huge sun-dial. Markings on the pavement seen as "decorations" in the stone point out ever Solstice, Equinox and astro-theological event in the sky that is the origin of the literalised Jesus story. The Vatican knows this. The laity generally do not.  On "Easter" morning, the sun rises exactly 90 East and exactly lines up with the Vatican and the Balconey the Pope is used to speaking from to bring his message on the risen Sun...errrr  Son.  Every symbol he wears and ever utensil he raises to the sky is a SUN symbol.

 

It is not coincidence that the Age of Aries the Lamb, which ended with the SUN moving into PICES due to the progression of the equinox every 2190 years or so, around the time of Jesus coincides with the death of the Lamb of God, the Son, Jesus. It is a symbol. "Behold, I am with you, even unto the end of the age," said Jesus. This was not the end of the world as some think, but the Lamb Jesus would be with them until the end of the astrological age of Aries and then Pices the Fish would begin. It is also no coincidence that the symbol for the SON/SUN's Church is the fish, nor that in the age of Pices Christians were to be "fishers of men." The fishing motif in the Gospels is all about the age of Aries ending around the time of Jesus and the Age of Pices, the Fishes, beginning. It is no coincidence that right after Jesus overcame Satan, he went to Galilee, which means "circuit" as in circuit of the SON, or SUN depending on which location you are seeing the story in, he meets TWO FISHERMEN, Peter and Andrew and makes them Disciples. Jesus making his circuit all around Galilee, which means "circuit," with his 12 disciples surround him, is no different than the SUN making it's circuit (Galilee) surrounded by it's 12 zodiacal disciples. The Sign of Pices is that of two fish. It is not coincidence that in the feeding of the multitudes, there were TWO Fish and five loaves symbolizing the five known planets of the time, Mars, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn.

 

Just for fun.  In the Old Testament, the Cherubim with the face of a man (Aquarius-Winter) the face of a Bull (Taurus-Spring) , the face of a lion (Leo-Summer) and the face of an Eagle (Aguila) is merely another astrotheological beast concocted from the zodiacal signs of the four seasons.  If each of the four had six wings..well that makes 24 and I expect you know what that symbolizes.  The 24 Elders around the Throne of the Sun/Son in Revelation originate as well in the 24 hours of the day.

 

 

 

Well there is much more. When Jesus as SON stood on the mount of transfiguration in the summer of his one year ministry, his face shone like the SUN at noon. This is because this earthly event is the literal fact in the cosmos that in June, the summer Solstice finds the SUN at its highest, being the MOST HIGH for the year and brilliant light. Jesus, standing on that "high mountain" in summer, face shining like the sun was doing what the SUN was doing as well as MOST HIGH right over his head. This is not coincidence either. From June, it is all down hill for the SUN and for Jesus the SON. Cancer the crab, which moves backwards and is for July and August symbolizes that the SON and SUN were going backwards now to their fate. Jesus is betrayed in the Fall by Judas, that scorpion, just as the SUN is stung and betrayed by Scorpio in its dive to oblivion in December. The Archer then takes over as Sagittarius, just as the mob does and both SUN and SON are pierced. They die in late December appearing to be gone and as the SUN lies for three days in the southern hemisphere, considered the grave and appears to neither go further south, nor come back north, so Jesus lies three days as the SON of GOD in the grave. This is December 22-24, the Winter Solstice, But it's all good. One December 25th the SUN and SON are born and brought forth by the Virgin Mary or the Virgin Virgo overhead and the cycle starts again.

 

 

 

Pretty cool huh? Ever hear that in Church? You won't. Actually, it is still a bit disconcerting to me. What a cover-up!   But realize, the SUN that rises and sets everyday around the planet, while holding little attention of modern busy men and women today, was THE source of all religion on the planet. Because the greatest fear men have and have had in history is fear of the dark. Dark was evil and so became "The Evil" or "De-evil or Devil. Just as the SUN of GOD overcomes the darkness as it makes it's one year rise and fall from birth to death, so Jesus as the literalized SON of GOd, overcomes the Devil and delivers us from darkness too. The story that is literally true happens in the cosmos, over your head every minute of every day, month and year. The more suspect one, made literally true, is what you hear in Sunday school....Hey! SUN DAY School!!!!!!!

At any rate, Merry Osirmas, Mithras and Christmas.   It's all the same story. 

Dennis C. Diehl
DenniscDiehl@aol.com

Growing up in a Faith-Healing Cult

From the Friendly Atheist Blog

When I was ten years old, my younger sister became increasingly ill. She had always been frail; pale, thin, and lethargic — even her hair was thin and dull. This time my sister Missy (not her real name) was much worse. My older sister (who was then a teenager) tells me that my younger sister was too weak to walk to the bathroom and my father would carry her there frequently. My older sister would barrage my father with demands that Missy be taken to the doctor. My little sister was too weak to even attend Saturday church services where she might have been anointed by a minister in a ritual called the “laying on of hands.” The minister would take the sick person, and the parents if the person was a child, and go into a coat closet and close the door. There, everyone would kneel and the minister would take a small bottle of olive oil out of a pocket and place a dot of oil on the sick person’s forehead. He would hold his hand on the spot where the oil was placed and begin to pray. Everyone would bow their heads as the minister beseeched God to forgive this sick person of the sins for which she was being punished. When a person was too ill to attend services (which for us were an hour drive away from our hometown) the minister would send home an anointed cloth. It was a piece of gauze with a drop of oil on it that the minister had prayed over. The small square of guaze was ceremoniously placed in a small manilla envelope for safe keeping. At home, our parents would take us into their bedroom where we would all get down on our knees and one would hold the oiled cloth to our forehead and all heads bowed, praying that God would heal us. Some people take a spoonful of medicine. Not us. We got down on our knees and put oil on our foreheads and prayed. Sometimes we got better. Sometimes we did not.

Prayer and anointing were not working for my little sister. In her six years of life we couldn’t imagine what horrible sins she had committed to be so drastically ill. Armstrong explained, however, that “you might not have been guilty of any wrong, yet nature’s laws were violated or you wouldn’t be sick!” How’s that for double speak? Sickness and injury are the result of sin. Unless they’re not. But, hey, something caused it!

So my mom searched herself for what sin she must have committed to cause her daughter to be so deathly ill. I heard her murmered prayers from her room (Armstrongists go behind closed doors to pray in private) asking God to forgive whatever she has done to make my little sister sick. She always emerged from those sessions wiping tears from her face having sobbed the entire time.

Read the entire story here:  Growing up in a Faith-Healing Cult

Make sure you read the comments section about the WCG member who was hit by a falling tree and what happened.

Dennis On "And try to use a 'yes' or a 'no' in your answer!"

"And try to use a 'yes' or a 'no' in your answer!"

 

I was sitting in the Ambassador Auditorium, in Pasadena, California at a Bible Study, in the early 80's, on the Nature of God given by the then resident Greek scholar and thinker. He really was a very intelligent teacher and I always enjoyed, to a point, hearing from him. At times, it was an exercise in going around and around but never quite landing anywhere.

 

The fact that I have yet to understand the true nature of the true God and how He/She/Him/Them relate is irrelevant. It was all pretty heady stuff for my denomination's ministry. I'm sure I was not privy to the half of all the drama being played out behind the scenes between those that were teaching and those that thought THEY should be teaching, but I suspect it would have been much like the Council of Nicea back in 325 where being on the wrong side could have serious consequences.

 

But the most hilarious moment came from a simple question in which the questioner, after trying to frame an intelligent question for this very astute teacher on this profound question, said... "please try to use the word 'yes' or 'no' in your answer."

It was a moment of sheer enlightenment. "Please try to use the word 'yes' or 'no' in your answer." I laughed to tears in that way that is much deeper than the comment warranted because it struck at the heart of what many who repeat the mantra, "God said, I believe it, that settles it for me." are incapable of doing---using a yes or no in an answer to a sincere question about obvious contradictions, impossibilities and inconsistencies of scripture.

 

So let's take play Yes or No. Take your time but you MUST pick a yes or no for the answer. No yeah-buts. While we are well aware that the Bible speaks of three kinds of leaders in the NT (the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the But-u-sees) try to leave them out of it.

 

From Matthew 1 and 2

 

Yes or No: It is interesting that Matthew includes a victim of incest (Tamar), a prostitute (Rahab), a foreigner (Ruth) and an adulteress (Bathsheba) leading up to Mary's birth of Jesus, rather than four upstanding women of Israel in Jesus' lineage.

 

Yes or No: With Matthew and Luke showing that Jesus' REAL father is not literally Joseph, but rather literally God himself through the Holy Spirit, the idea of Jesus being related through Joseph back to David and Abraham is broken and irrelevant.

 

Yes or No: If the Holy Spirit is a entity of himself, the Holy Spirit is Jesus father.

 

Yes or No: If God did not wed Mary as the father of Jesus, Jesus was born of  divine fornication?

 

Yes or No: While in the context, Isaiah 7:14 predicted the child would literally be named Immanuel, Jesus was never literally called Immanuel.

 

Yes or No:  Isaiah 7:14ff  indicates the child to be born would not know the difference between right and wrong until taught it.

 

Yes or No: Following a star from Iraq/Persia that rises in the East to a specific home West, five miles south of Jerusalem is not literally possible.

 

Yes or No:  Stars,comets and meteorites and planets in the sky can stand over a specific home on earth until you get there.

 

Yes or No: It is odd that Herod and his astrologers could not see the star and could not follow it themselves.

 

Yes or No: When the Magi arrived, (perhaps up to a year after Jesus birth) Mary and Joseph lived in a house with no mention of a home in Nazareth or a need to go back to another home in Nazareth where they had just come from.

 

Yes or No: According to Matthew, lots of children in Bethlehem and the region paid for Jesus birth with their lives so that Jesus as an adult could die for their sins.

 

Yes or No: The angel told Joseph it was safe to go back to Israel but then changed his mind and told him "oops I forgot about Herod's evil son", so Joseph returned to live for the first time in Nazareth.

 

Yes or No: All gift shop angels are female and all Bible angels are male.

 

Yes or No: I can't find any place in the Old Testament where it says a Nazarene is a person who lives in Nazareth and foretells Jesus would be from there. In fact, I can't find Nazareth mentioned as a city in the OT.

 

Yes or No: Quoting a verse in the OT about Israel exiting Egypt is not much of prophecy of Jesus going home from exile in Egypt.

 

Yes or No: Matthew knows nothing of homes in Nazareth, taxes, mangers, shepherds, staying in Jerusalem 40 days for Mary to be purified according to Moses, turtle doves (offerings of poor people) and the long quiet trip home to Nazareth.

 

From Luke 2

 

Yes or No: Making everyone return to their city of birth to be taxed sounds like a formula for empire wide chaos.

 

Yes or No: If Jerusalem was able to care for the tens of thousands who came each year to the three great Festivals, one might think there would be more than a few places to stay comfortably especially if one was a young pregnant girl.

 

Yes or No: Mary having to give birth in a stable indicates the people of Jerusalem at Feast Time were inhospitable.

 

Yes or No: It seems odd that Joseph would take a nine-month pregnant Mary on the dangerous trip to Bethlehem when it was not necessary for her to go.

 

Yes or No: It seems odd that if Zechariah was a Priest in the area of Jerusalem, they might not have thought to let Mary and Joseph stay with them. Mary had just been to see them three months earlier when finding Elizabeth to be six months pregnant.

 

Yes or No: It is interesting that angels and the heavenly host went out into the fields to sing and witness to a few shepherds who then had to find Jesus and tell everyone else themselves what had happened.

 

Yes or No: Heavenly Hosts can't sing for the whole town.

 

Yes or No: The Shepherds seemed to know just where to find Jesus without the star.

 

Yes or No: Eight days after his birth, Jesus was circumcised in Jerusalem.

 

Yes or No: After 40 days, a time of ritual purification for Mary, they walked peacefully back to Nazareth, to their home, with no mention of fleeing to Egypt.

 

Yes or No: Living in Bethlehem in your own home, having Magi bring expensive gifts including gold and causing you to have to flee to Egypt for your lives as Herod slaughters all your neighbors children, is not the same story as trekking to Bethlehem to be taxed, giving birth as if no one knew you, and hangin' out for 40 days to safely return home to Nazareth.

 

Yes or No: If Nazareth was a safe haven, fleeing all the way to Egypt seems unnecessary save for Matthew's need to find more OT prophecies about Jesus.

 

OK, OK, enough! This "yes" or "no" game can be played with many many Biblical references. Just a few more outside of the Birth Narratives to illustrate.

 

Yes or No: If in the beginning, there was only Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel, (Seth was called the third child of Adam and Eve after he was born after Abel's murder), it seems strange that Cain was worried about those that would kill him if God banished him to wander the earth. There was no one else. Was he waiting for Seth to grow up, marry an as yet unborn sister, and hunt him down with his kids? Did God forget there were no others out there to hunt him?

 

Yes or No: Jesus overturned the money changers early in his career as John said. (Jn 2:13).

 

Yes or No: Jesus overturned the money changers just prior to his arrest and crucifixion as Matthew said. (Matt 21:12).

 

Yes or No: John names turning water to wine as Jesus first miracle.

 

Yes or No: Matthew, Mark and Luke never heard of it.

 

Yes or No: Paul seems to know nothing of the Gospel accounts of Jesus real life, and says he was simply born of a woman like everyone else.

 

Yes or No: Paul was converted, wrote all the meaning of Jesus and died before the Gospels, which seem never to have heard of him, though he was "a Pharisee of the Pharisees" and "above all my fellows,", were ever written.

 

I would like to think that had I been asked these questions when pastoring, I would have at least said, "That's a great question."  I have sat in on nerve wracking sessions with some HQ type coming to my area to straighten out some member who asked the wrong questions or came up with different answers from those given.  Seems both were wrong when it is all said and done!

 

Sometimes, most simply don't even know what questions to ask.  It never dawns on someone to even wonder how you can flee to Egypt for two years AND simply leave town and go home to Nazareth after 40 days. 

 

Instead of "apologizing" which I know is a sincere defense of scripture as presented, the ability to think for oneself and come up with a yes or no is also an excellent exercise in being honest with a presentation. 'Nuff said....the birth narrative realities are my way of asking us to think about what we have always been told by others and honor your own observations about the Bible, without fear what your minister or organizations might think or do.

 

Dennis C. Diehl
DenniscDiehl@aol.com