{"id":796,"date":"2018-12-10T16:43:55","date_gmt":"2018-12-10T13:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/?p=796"},"modified":"2021-08-13T23:16:19","modified_gmt":"2021-08-13T20:16:19","slug":"796","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/?p=796","title":{"rendered":"The Story of Christmas: Scandal, Shame and Shock!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The story of <a class=\"profileLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/hashtag\/christmas?fref=mentions\">#Christmas<\/a> is one of Scandal, Shame and Shock. 14 year-old Mary got pregnant under very suspicious circumstances. She had to endure dirty looks from the townspeople and a lifetime of being misunderstood. And the always-in-the-air possibility of being stoned to death. Wherever Joseph went in Nazareth, tongues wagged about \u201cthat chap,\u201d the small town carpenter who settled for spoilt goods. The sting of sarcasm in their every word of criticism dripped one drop after<span class=\"text_exposed_show\"> another of ridicule. Now, that\u2019s Shame. <\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"text_exposed_show\">\n<p>And the shock of it all? God was behind all this. Yes, He was! And His eternal plan was now well in motion. 700 years earlier, the prophet Isaiah had foretold about this child of Scandal: \u201cAnd His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Immanuel; God with us.\u201d He has walked where we stumble. He trades our shame for glory. And when we are misunderstood, He understands.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The story of #Christmas is one of Scandal, Shame and Shock. 14 year-old Mary got pregnant under very suspicious circumstances. She had to endure dirty looks from the townspeople and a lifetime of being misunderstood. And the always-in-the-air possibility of&#8230; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/?p=796\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":797,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=796"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1066,"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796\/revisions\/1066"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacob.zikusooka.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}