Our Lord’s coming in Luke’s Gospel gives us the crèche and the baby’s manger. In John’s Gospel, we, instead, find a cosmic battle tucked within. He mentions no characters by name, not Mary or Joseph. The singing angels and awestruck shepherds are missing in action. Where is the mention of Bethlehem?
In the beginning is only the Word. Such an incomplete statement—for the Word, is also with God. The Word is also God Himself. The cosmos would be content to remain as much if our sins did not come into play—but they did. So, the Word chooses to become something He is not: He who is without flesh becomes flesh. He lives among us, wearing the robe of our human frame.
A war breaks out in the cosmos: an all-encompassing war, a battle, not between God and His people, but between God and Satan. The Word created this world for eternal life, but we chose death, wanting to understand the gloom of evil. God brought light into the world, but we formed shadows, hiding within them, lurking behind them, loving the darkness.
To save us from the wreckage of our making, the Word becomes flesh. Immortality joins Himself to what is mortal. He comes to claim us, to snatch us back from Satan, to make us into God’s children once more.
The Apostle John describes this cosmic war in his revelation, unseen except through a God-given vision. A dragon stands ready, waiting for the woman to give birth, to eat her Child as He is born. She brings forth a Son, a male Child, who will rule all the nations (Revelation 12:4-5).
The cosmic war now gets personal, for God is invading the dragon’s lair, this fallen world. Ancient demons stir in their den as the dragon takes wing into battle, the inferno of hell spewing from his mouth, reeking of burnt flesh and flame.
Into this war comes the Word, the Light of eternity shines into the gloom and shadows. The demonic darkness lashes out, frustrated, unable to triumph. For long ago, the Light glimmered, promising one day to crush the serpent’s head after we tumbled headlong into sin. The Light pushed back, saving God’s people from their bondage through the waters of the Red Sea. The Light hovered in God’s Temple of old, where He came to His people, delivering life and salvation.
Still, darkness and death refuse defeat, slogging through one setback after another. So God sends a man to prepare the people for when the Light becomes incarnate. The Messiah will affirm what Moses earlier preached, of what David sang, and what the prophets foretold. He will enter our reality to save those whom He forged in His image.
More than any other creature, God made us as a reflection of Himself. From our first breath, God made us for Himself as He gave Himself to us. In the beginning, all is well, for the Word is with God, and the Word is God: a perfect God and perfect creation.
We choose sin over God. We fashion the darkness for ourselves, finding a reason to scatter our seeds of dissension. We deny God’s goodness, refusing what He comes to give us. The darkness is unbelief, a rejection of the Creator, a darkening of our eyes against life, insisting on the ways of death.
So, John the Baptizer comes to point us to the Light. We can again believe in God’s mercy and drink in His inexhaustible will to be gracious. John directs us to a rekindled communion between God and humanity. He is not the Light but testifies to the Light, who is the Life of all people.
Jesus comes into the world. He comes to save us, but we deny, disobey, and slander Him. Still, the God of flesh and bone remains steadfast and faithful, for such is His character. He endures our hatred and murder, undaunted from what He must do to save an ungrateful humanity. For we belong to Him, formed in His image, and He does not refuse what the Father gives Him to do.
So, Jesus preaches, lives, and loves us all to His death—and some did receive Him. Some did believe in His name, which means to believe God saves, for His name, Jesus, carries such a meaning. To them, God gave the right to become His children.
We become God’s own because the Word became the Child of the woman. He became the Child, not by natural descent or human lust, but by God’s doing. The Holy Spirit overshadowed the young maiden, a virgin. The Child stirs within her, sinless and perfect, who will defeat all our demons.
Jesus does not change into a man: He becomes a man. He adds human flesh to His being. He takes up our life as His own, to live and die for us. Now, we are His again. The Word becomes flesh and lives among us. We experience His glory. What He was not, in the beginning, He now is and always will be. He is God and Man in one Person: Jesus is the life and light of all humanity.
The incarnate Christ is God’s glory, and He is grace and truth. In Jesus, God shows us the glory of His self-giving nature. What Jesus experiences is a microcosm of the entire history of our human race, the inescapable end of what we put in motion long ago. By becoming our end, which is death, He enables us to inherit another beginning, eternal life.
Jesus is the triumph of light over darkness, faith over unbelief, and life over death. He is the bruised heel crushing the serpent. Jesus is love overcoming hate, the goodness overcoming evil. He is the cosmic battle wearing bone and flesh, blood and sinew, whom the devil cannot defeat.
We wage war over money and honor, property and power. The greatest of all wars, however, takes place in the body of one Person. In this war, whoever wins can claim humanity as his own. The dragon, also called the serpent, the liar, the accuser, is Satan. He “accuses [the saints] day and night before our God” (Revelation 12:10).
Satan wields the weapon of accusation. He may speak the truth, lie, or slander, all to enslave us in guilt and shame. Each accusing word links us in an evil chain subduing us all. Link after link binds us to the Accuser as his words constrict us, tighter and tighter. He fears the promised Savior of the world will come to set us free, as He promised.
So, Jesus comes. In the beginning, He is. The Word is with God, and the Word is God. He becomes flesh to live among us, to be one of us, for us. He dies for us, in our place.
Though dead, the Word is also the God of the living. So, the Man Jesus rises from death for us, giving us His righteousness. He is the light and life of all people. God and Man united in one Person: our Mediator and Redeemer.
The Word becomes flesh and lives among us, giving us life and salvation, speaking us clean, washing away our filth, making us His own. He makes us into God’s children, baptized into the glory of His cross. Through water and Word, the Spirit joins us to the mystery of the Eternal Word of God become flesh. We feast on our Lord in His Sacrament of incarnation, where He joins Himself to bread and wine to overcome the darkness inside us.
The cosmic struggle for our bodies and souls didn’t begin in Bethlehem. Bethlehem only began the first strike of the last battle.
The struggle for our salvation is a perplexing conflict. Armies do not clash to resolve who is mightier or which strategy will prevail. The battle waged is between suitors, fighting for the hearts of people. One deceives and schemes to pull us down into the pit and feast forever on our flesh. The other, who exists from all eternity, seeks to take us home as His Bride, with the right to become the children of God.
The Christmas story begins on a peaceful, quiet night. Hidden, however, is the dragon of old, lurking to kill the Savior of the world. His deadly plot fails. So, he chases our Lord down to Egypt, where Mary and Joseph flee for a few years. The Accuser later stalks the Savior into the wilderness, trying to beguile Him with tempting words.
The dragon fails at every turn. At last, he succeeds: The Savior of the world hangs dead on an executioner’s cross. He succeeds—or so he thinks. In his victorious gloating, Satan drinks the poison, which destroys the power of death.
In our Lord’s death, the devil’s chain breaks and the earth trembles and quakes. The enslaving shackles of evil crack and snap. A world imprisoned by the dragon is now free from the dungeon, forever.
Grace and truth are who Jesus is and what He does. The Son reveals the Father so we may receive Him and believe in His name. From our Lord, we receive grace on top of grace through Jesus Christ, who is the Word become flesh. The One who exists from all eternity is with us to this day.
At Bethlehem, unseen by human eyes, a battle is fought, shaping our eternal destiny. Jesus, the Light of all eternity, defeats the ruler of darkness and we become the children of God. The accuser is “thrown down” and conquered “by the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 12:10-11). Amen.
