Christmas Was a Declaration of War

We have sanitized Christmas. We’ve wrapped it in twinkling lights, hot chocolate, and nostalgia. We’ve made it anodyne and soft as a pillow — and with understandable reason. We want our holidays to be sweet and picture-perfect, and Christmas is no exception.

We even varnish the Christian celebrations of Jesus’ birth a little too much. Our nativity scenes have perfect layouts, and they’re often childlike in their simplicity and design.

Some of our carols sterilize the account of Jesus’ arrival into the world as well. “Silent Night, Holy Night?” “…but little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes?” Come on! He was fully God, but He was also a fully human baby. Of course, He cried, and of course, His birth wasn’t easy for Mary as a first-time mom. Who are we kidding?

We like to think that Jesus’ birth was sentimental. Instead, it was provocative. Christmas didn’t calm the darkness. It enraged the powers of Hell.

Let’s look at a remarkably different retelling of the birth of Jesus:

And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.
—Revelation 12:1-6 (ESV)

It gets even more dramatic:

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!” And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea. —Revelation 12:7-17 (ESV)

A dragon? Warfare? The sea (which represented chaos in Hebrew culture)? This isn’t the typical portrait of Christmas, is it?

Some scholars believe that the second passage points to the great tribulation of the future, but it also certainly reflects the spiritual warfare that Jesus’ birth brought. It all sounds more like Game of Thrones than scripture, doesn’t it?

I can almost guarantee that your pastor won’t read Revelation 12 at your church’s Christmas Eve service. But what appeared in Bethlehem as a baby in a manger registered in hell as a declaration of war.

One of the actions that took place after the Magi visited Jesus demonstrates the cruelty of evil attempting to silence good.

Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.” —Matthew 2:16-18 (ESV)

Herod’s slaughter of the innocents was more than the cruelty of a power-mad tyrant; it was the dragon lashing out. The king’s victims were collateral damage in the spiritual battle of good versus evil.

Our Christmas hymns understand the notion of Jesus’ birth as an act of war against the powers of darkness. Take a look at “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”:

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.

Sure, the phrases “captive Israel” and “lonely exile” refer to the Israelites’ troubled trajectory in the Old Testament. But it’s also the language of violence against God’s chosen people. Another verse ups the ante on siege theology:

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory o’er the grave.

This isn’t the stuff of Hallmark cards. This is language that frames the incarnation as a liberation mission.

Related: The Significance of Immanuel

Let’s look at some of the phrases from “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”:

Born that man no more may die,
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.

These lines tell us that death is the enemy, and resurrection is the counteroffensive. Christmas points straight to salvation, and the first coming points to the second coming.

And “Joy to the World” carries this same theme:

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.

This is the reversal of the curse in Genesis 3. The King that the earth receives — God’s Son — is the One who will reclaim the territory the enemy took when Adam and Eve sinned. The serpent of Genesis 3 is the dragon of Revelation 12, and the baby that the woman delivers is the One who vanquishes the enemy.

For generations, our churches have been singing about ransom, tyranny, exile, and victory. Our Christmas hymns have always known that this was a war.

I’m not suggesting that you replace your nativity with a dragon or read Revelation 12 to your kids and add, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.” But when you remember that Jesus’ birth was a declaration of spiritual war, the season comes into sharper focus. The light of the world invaded the darkness. Christmas wasn’t meant to make evil feel comfortable. It was meant to announce that its time was already running out.

Christmas is almost here, but the gift that keeps on giving lasts all year.

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