On the first Christmas, the angelic choir had barely returned from singing “peace on earth—good will toward men” announcing Jesus’ birth to the shepherds, when they had to gird on their battle gear and report for duty. There may have been peace on earth—but it was war in heaven!
The book of Revelation describes what is going on in the supernatural world parallel to the familiar events in Bethlehem. I guarantee that here are Christmas angels you’ve never seen on any Christmas card:
A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.
Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born.
She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.
Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon,and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
I’m going to imagine the events this text describes through the eyes of an angel I’ve named Joshua.
Joshua looked at the woman, her garment woven from the rays of the shining sun. Twelve stars pulsed with light forming a crown around her head.
Suddenly, this woman of regal beauty and dignity collapses in the wails and screams of childbirth. Then, a dragon appears, as ugly as she is beautiful. On the other side of the membrane, bodies of bone and flesh mask the spirit—sometimes to the point that evil could be disguised. But on Joshua’s side of the great divide, no disguise is possible—the reeking spirit of evil was utterly overpowering. No buffer of human senses saved Joshua from the full impact of this one called the Adversary or Satan.
The dragon crouched, hemming in the women on all sides…wherever she turned, there were leering mouths waiting to devour the infant the instant he came forth from the womb. But at the last possible second, the child is saved—swept up to the throne of God. The dragon rages in missing his prey—once again outmaneuvered. And now the battle is joined.
How do pure spiritual beings without bodies—hands, arms or legs—do battle? Maybe with pure force of will. Michael and his angel army’s will to choose God and good was concentrated like a spiritual laser against the Adversary’s will to choose evil. Back and forth the struggle raged. Joshua faced the intensity of evil by focusing even more strongly on his desire for God’s love, justice, truth, and beauty to fill creation. A choice to build pitted against a choice to destroy. After a few moments, it was no contest—the dragon and his hosts were defeated.
The birth has been successful—the child is born—the Adversary knows his time is short until the child returns to rule with a rod of iron. Then all the Adversary’s power to disrupt and destroy will be snuffed out like a candle. But until then, the Devil will prowl the earth like a ferocious lion, looking for someone to devour.
Much more is going on in the birth of Jesus than we often stop to realize. God invaded our world in the birth Jesus and a colossal cosmic battle with all creation at stake went on behind the scenes. If the angels announced a moment of “peace on earth”on a Bethlehem hillside, there was also war in heaven. The birth of Jesus Christ was the D-Day invasion, the Normandy landing of God into enemy-occupied territory.
You’ll never see Michael and his angelic army on a greeting card—but that battle is the deeper meaning of Christmas. And ground zero of the battle was a mother who gave birth to her first born child, a son, and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger…because there was no room for them in the inn.
Merry Christmas!
I can only say that this is powerfully moving. Thank you Rich.
Wow! What a great visual picture you depicted,Rich!That does give a whole new meaning to spiritual warfare! I love these angel stories and will not look at an angelic Christmas card the same ever again! Thanks for sharing them.
Merry Christmas to you and Marilyn!
Beth
I agree Beth, we cannot “look at an angelic Christmas card the same ever again!” If we are indeed participants in spiritual warfare we cannot look at life the same ever again. A friend who was a medevac helicopter pilot in Viet Nam told me of the need for “situational awareness.” What is going on around the helicopter, above, below, in front, behind and to the sides. I practiced it when walking in the Mercado, or the Piazza in Addis Ababa, and even on the footpaths around Dembi Dollo, our place of ministry in Ethiopia.
Situational awareness is vital when we are involved in spiritual warfare. We may not witness or be involved in a battle, but we may find ourselves witnessing a skirmish. Yesterday two men were evicted form a JetBlue flight to Hawaii for harassing Yvanka Trump daughter of the President-Elect, and her family. I am not a fan of Donald Trump; I did not vote for him, yet that does not give me, or anyone else the presumptive right to harass him or his family. We must be on guard that we do not contribute to the warfare by acting out in ways that attack another. The behavior against Ms. Trump was as much an attack on the spirit as any we can imagine coming forth from her father. It was as much an attack on the God given life-spirit in each of us as Herod’s attack on the innocents.
To be situationally aware means we must guard against our own propensity toward evil, and to speak and act out with humility against such evil when we hear it or see it in others.
Larry