-Dr. Duke Jeyaraj
There are several controversies that surrounded the death of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa. Suman Priya Mendonca, writing for AsiaNet News website on 9 December 2016 talked about one such controversy: “Controversies around Jayalalithaa’s death refuse to subside. Four dots found on Jaya’s face strengthen the theory that her body was embalmed which means she died much before December 5, 2016. Embalming is a process that can prevent a dead body from decomposing for over 60 days.” Soviet Leader Valdimir Lenin died in January 1924. But his body is available for the public to behold even after 90 plus years. In April 2016, the Moscow Times, May 5 2016 issue announced via a Daria Litvinova article, “the Federal Guard Service – which looks after all grounds near the Kremlin, including the mausoleum Lenin is kept in – announced for the first time that the costs for the “medical and biological works to maintain Lenin’s body” would amount to 13 million roubles ($197,000) in 2016.” I figured out from Google that formaldehyde is used to embalm, preserve dead bodies!
Imagine someone giving a new born baby a bottle of formaldehyde! That would be grossly inappropriate! Who would want to give a gift that reminds everyone about death in the happy event of a new born baby?! In the case of the birth of Jesus Christ, something similar happened. One of the wise men from the East gave Jesus “myrrh” as a gift (Matt. 2:11). Myrrh was the formaldehyde of those days (in my opinion) and was “a traditional incense used at funerals during Biblical times” according to Bible Scholars. That particular wise man who chose the gift of Myrrh for the baby Jesus perhaps knew from the Old Testament he read that Jesus was born to die. The Son given who was called Prince of Peace (which Isaiah 9:6 talks about) also was going to be the lowly servant who would take on the “Punishment that brings us peace” (which Isaiah 53:5 talks about)! Yes, Jesus was born to die! Born to die for you and me! This Jesus would go onto live a sinless life – no one else ever did this – and become a sinless, perfect sacrifice for sinful you and me! He was eventually crucified on a cross. Without shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins, the Bible tells us (Heb. 9:22). And there is no blood, without a human body. And that’s why, Jesus basically and in-effect said, “Give me a body! I will get into it! I will get into a human body you have prepared for me, Father, so that I can offer it to shed blood to save humans! The Animal Sacrifices of the Old Testament can at best cover for sin temporarily! But I will bring about an arrangement to cleanse people from sin forever as long as they remain in a relationship with me!” This he in-effect said in a meeting in Heaven dated eternity past (Read Hebrews 10:5-6). Then Jesus entered the womb of virgin Mary during the First Christmas two thousand years ago. As Max Lucado wrote, “God was given eyebrows, elbows, two kidneys, and a spleen. He stretched against the walls and floated in the amniotic fluids of his mother.” Leonard Vander Zee wrote, “The incarnation of Christ means that God now has a belly-button – that mark which signalled that he was once inside the womb of a woman!” While Matthew and Luke needed two full chapters to tell the Christmas story, Apostle John summarized Christmas in just three words: “Word became Flesh” (John 1:14). And we know from John 1:1, the “Word” he was talking about was “God.” So Christmas is about “God becoming Flesh!” As the Hymn-writer put it: “The Word of the Father, now in Flesh appearing…oh come let us adore him!” The sinless living body of Jesus in the Cradle of Bethlehem stable and went all the way to the Cross of Calvary on Golgotha Hill to become that perfect sin-sacrifice. Jesus rose from the Dead. He will return again to Judge the world. Those who remain “in him” will not be condemned to eternal hell, but will live with him forever in eternal heaven (Romans 8:1; John 15; Rev. 21:7-8). This is what the Bible teaches. Would you turn from sin and put your faith in this Jesus? Then you have “peace” (Luke 2:14) and “great joy” (Luke 2:10) which the world cannot give and the Devil cannot take away!!
(Dr. Duke Jeyaraj is the founder of Grabbing the Google Gen from Gehenna Mission, a ministry to present day people that is reader/listener/viewer supported. Find out more at www.facebook.com/googleduke and at www.dukev.org).
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