The Spiritual Reality Behind Christmas

     The baby, lying meek and mild in a manager.  Is this all there is to the Christmas story?  Amidst the rush and bustle of the holiday season, there is another reality, lying behind it.  It is the reality of the Christmas story told in Revelation 12.

"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. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. 3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4 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. 5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.”[a] And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. 6 The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.

7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9 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.

10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:

“Now have come the salvation and the power

and the kingdom of our God,

and the authority of his Messiah.

For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,

who accuses them before our God day and night,

has been hurled down.

13 When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. 14 The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach. 15 Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. 16 But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. 17 Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus."

This is a very different picture of the reality behind the momentous events of Christmas.  It describes the ancient war between the forces of evil, lead by Satan, against the angels of God.  The birth of Christ set in motion the events of Jesus' life and resurrection, which would destroy the foothold of evil in the lives of men and women.  The baby laying in a manager - the incarnation of God and hope and love and all that is good in this world - was brought here to throw down the darkness.  It is a battle we walk out each day.  Knowing or not.  In the choices we make.  In the love we lavish upon our fellow men, or withhold from them.  It is in the change we give to the beggars.  The causes we take up.  The prayers we pray. 

This world is a thin veneer, barely covering the spiritual reality that lies beneath and breaks through in sunsets and snowfalls and the kindness of strangers.  The best defense for this world is not sword and shield, but prayer and fasting.  Jesus taught all of this in his brief time here on earth.  And in his ascension, he defeated the powers of darkness once and for all.  So that now, with the sons of God let loose upon the earth, the garden could once again grow into what she was meant to be: a paradise.  We are just working and praying for it's full realization.  That is the story of Christmas.