We live on an apocalyptic battlefield with three actors.
Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.
1 John 3:8
Have you ever heard the word “apocalyptic”? It’s usually used today to conjure up end-of-the-world stuff. Terrible doom. Armageddon. But its original meaning was an unveiling. As in, a veil is removed that enables us to see something that had been hidden from our sight. Christmas is apocalyptic.
Of all the threats to immersing ourselves in Advent and the Christmas story, none is more dangerous than the assumption that we live in a disenchanted world. We are told over and over, in a hundred different ways, that the only things that exist are those we can observe with our own senses. What makes this so sinister is precisely that it doesn’t seem all that sinister – we’re told it’s “just the way it is.”
Maybe you’ve been told that intelligent people don’t believe in a supernatural world, a world beyond what we can study and measure; or that educated people don’t believe in supernatural evil, that it’s just metaphorical language for understanding why certain people or groups of people sometimes do terrible, awful things. It can be difficult believe or remember that more exists than we can see.
Kids, you’d do well to remember that the Biblical writers, and Jesus himself, took it for granted that we live in an enchanted world. Shakespeare put it, “There are more things in heaven and earth that are dreamt of …in your philosophy.” Why do you think there are so many shows today about vampires and ghosts? Why so many Grimm fairy tales retold? Maybe because we’re starved for some way to experience what a part of us deeply senses is true?
I’ve never seen 1 John 3:8 recited in a Christmas service. But this verse tells us the real meaning of Christmas: “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.” Ever seen that on a Christmas mug? We often think about our life with God as a stage with two actors: God and humanity. But the Bible tells us there are three actors: God, humanity, and the devil. And that when we are entrenched in conflict that we are never just fighting with one another (Eph. 6:10). What we see here on earth reflects a cosmic battle between spiritual powers in heavenly realms.
Christmas and Easter together were like D-Day in World War II. The decisive battle has now been won. The end is no longer in doubt. That’s the reason the Son of God appeared. To assure the victory of God – inaugurated by a child’s birth, conclusively won on a Roman cross, and then sealed by Jesus being raised from the dead. Hope is guaranteed. We’ve been given a down-payment, the Holy Spirit.
And yet fierce fighting continues on all fronts until the King comes again to make everything sad untrue. On our own, we are outmatched. Left to our own strength, we will fall. We cannot overcome the dark powers around us and within us. But we are not left on our own. And the One who is in us is greater than the one who is in the world.
Until He comes again, we are called to represent our King as his ambassadors. An exile lives far from home, a resident in a strange land. That’s us. We are resident aliens – with the King’s Cross before us. We are called to engage in this fight that has already been won, with suffering love. That’s how Jesus overcame the world. And that’s how we will overcome, “by the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 12:11). That’s the light in our darkness, that’s what we need to keep before us at Christmastime.