{"id":466,"date":"2014-04-14T21:00:02","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T21:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/?p=466"},"modified":"2014-04-14T21:00:02","modified_gmt":"2014-04-14T21:00:02","slug":"easter-or-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2014\/04\/easter-or-christmas.html","title":{"rendered":"Easter or Christmas?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How many of you have heard it said, &#8220;Easter is them most important date on the Church calendar&#8221;? I know I have. But it bothers me. How can we make a value judgment?<\/p>\n<p>You can&#8217;t have Easter without Christmas. And Christmas would be meaningless without Easter. Oh, we could argue that Jesus was a good man who died a martyr&#8217;s death to show us an example of servanthood. \u00a0An unselfish example &#8211; nah, doesn&#8217;t work for me. To die as He did has to mean more than that.<\/p>\n<p>On Christmas we celebrate God stepping into human history as a human, just like you and me, \u00a0to carry our sins to death on a cross. We were condemned in our sin. We could not \u00a0redeem \u00a0ourselves &#8211; Jesus did it for us. Satan threw all he had at Jesus.\u00a0He came to take on all the forces of evil. He did and won &#8211; for all time.<\/p>\n<p>What looked hopeless became our only Hope. That which looked like defeat actually was a powerful victory. \u00a0That which looked so hideous and gruesome turned into a thing of beauty. Only God could do all that.<\/p>\n<p>Easter is glorious! Christmas is wonder-filled. We don&#8217;t have to choose&#8230;but I sort of lean towards Christmas!<\/p>\n<p>What do you think?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How many of you have heard it said, &#8220;Easter is them most important date on the Church calendar&#8221;? I know I have. But it bothers me. How can we make a value judgment? You can&#8217;t have Easter without Christmas. And Christmas would be meaningless without Easter. Oh, we could argue that Jesus was a good&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":466,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Easter or Christmas? - Safe Place with Ruth Graham<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2014\/04\/easter-or-christmas.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Easter or Christmas? - Safe Place with Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How many of you have heard it said, &#8220;Easter is them most important date on the Church calendar&#8221;? I know I have. But it bothers me. How can we make a value judgment? You can&#8217;t have Easter without Christmas. And Christmas would be meaningless without Easter. Oh, we could argue that Jesus was a good&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2014\/04\/easter-or-christmas.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Safe Place with Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-04-14T21:00:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Easter or Christmas? - Safe Place with Ruth Graham","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2014\/04\/easter-or-christmas.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Easter or Christmas? - Safe Place with Ruth Graham","og_description":"How many of you have heard it said, &#8220;Easter is them most important date on the Church calendar&#8221;? I know I have. But it bothers me. How can we make a value judgment? You can&#8217;t have Easter without Christmas. And Christmas would be meaningless without Easter. Oh, we could argue that Jesus was a good&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2014\/04\/easter-or-christmas.html","og_site_name":"Safe Place with Ruth Graham","article_published_time":"2014-04-14T21:00:02+00:00","author":"Ruth Graham","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2014\/04\/easter-or-christmas.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2014\/04\/easter-or-christmas.html","name":"Easter or Christmas? - Safe Place with Ruth Graham","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-04-14T21:00:02+00:00","dateModified":"2014-04-14T21:00:02+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/#\/schema\/person\/76d20e190c3b83823997a9f422b86975"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2014\/04\/easter-or-christmas.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2014\/04\/easter-or-christmas.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2014\/04\/easter-or-christmas.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Easter or Christmas?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/","name":"Safe Place with Ruth Graham","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Ruth Graham","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/#\/schema\/person\/76d20e190c3b83823997a9f422b86975","name":"Ruth Graham","description":"\u201cTransparent\u201d is the word most people use to describe Ruth Graham. No stranger to heartache, she seeks to provide a Biblical perspective to her journey of faith. She is warm and talks openly about her own need for a safe place as she journeyed through her husband\u2019s infidelities, her subsequent depression, her divorces, her teenage daughter\u2019s two unplanned pregnancies, another daughter\u2019s bulimia, her son\u2019s battle with drugs, grandson's special needs and returning to school at age 40. Although born into the \"famous\" Graham family Ruth did not feel she had a safe place to unburden the secrets of her life. She felt she had to project and image and wear a mask that she \"had it all together\". She had to meet others' expectations of her. It was not until a mid-life crisis did that she fully discover the unconditional love and grace of God. Her life's passion is to connect people to that same grace and love she found, no matter who they are or what sin. Ruth is an experienced conference speaker and Bible teacher. She has appeared on a variety of radio and television shows including: Good Morning, America, The Hour of Power, Focus on the Family, Moody Broadcasting, Fox &amp; Friends, CBN, Life Today and CNN. She has worked in publishing for over 14 years and is the founder of the Ruth Graham &amp; Friends Ministry. Ruth has three grown children and nine grandchildren. She lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Her life Bible verse is John 1:16.","sameAs":["http:\/\/ruthgrahamministries.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/author\/rgraham"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/466"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":467,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466\/revisions\/467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}