*One man, one mission
One plot to save the world
Reclaim all races
And embrace our destiny
Changing history when the colliding comes
Where will you run
Come with us if you want to live
Join us in the army that's arising
The truth invades your mind
Every day the Kingdom is advancing
The earth invasion has just begun.*
-Skillet, Earth Invasion
One plot to save the world
Reclaim all races
And embrace our destiny
Changing history when the colliding comes
Where will you run
Come with us if you want to live
Join us in the army that's arising
The truth invades your mind
Every day the Kingdom is advancing
The earth invasion has just begun.*
-Skillet, Earth Invasion
It's Christmas time! This is the first time I'll be doing some Christmas entries on WASD, and I'm very excited. I'll do at least one more before New Years.
The other day I heard a youth pastor refer to Christmas time as 'the Holy Invasion'. He was saying that when Christmas roles around, the people that only go to church on Christmas and Easter will dust off their nice clothes and head to church. But the term really stuck with me.
'Holy Invasion'.
When we think of Christmas- more specifically, Jesus as a person- we think of peace. We think of the man we see in paintings with brown hair, grinning from ear to ear and holding a small child.
Don't get me wrong: This is Jesus through and through. Jesus is 'shalom'. So the term 'Holy Invasion' almost comes across a little... rude, doesn't it?
But that's exactly what this was.
Let's get a little more specific. The word alien, before it came to mean little green/gray men (whatever suits you), meant 'outsider'. Something FOREIGN.
A holy being outside of everything we know and could possibly understand sends His Son, a being who is also God himself, into a sinful, broken world as a baby.
When Jesus is born, He is a PERFECT human being. He has no sin. 100% clean, all the time. And, He's also fully God. And the son of God.
Pause one second: If you didn't think of it as bizarre and mind boggling at first, try to wrap your head around it- Jesus was the Son of God and God the Father himself. I don't know about you, but that seems pretty 'foreign and strange'.
God has set in motion the perfect plan. He has sent His Son down into the world of sinners, 'fullness of God in helpless babe'. Not only does this prove His intense love for these sinners, he's willing to save them.
He sends His Son Jesus to Earth, knowing full well that Jesus will be persecuted for His entire life, until eventually He is crucified. How could any parent do that? We know that Jesus' death pained God intensely. The loss of a child pains the parent.
So, he sends his son, the PERFECT being, into a world under oppression. Literally, this was a 'Holy Invasion'.
Think to all those images of alien invasions from movies like Independence Day, The Day The Earth Stood Still, etc. This fits the criteria for the title of 'alien invasion'.
Jesus later says in the New Testament, "I come not to bring peace but a sword." Jesus is bringing change to the world. He's invading the culture, changing the way people understand God, saving literally MILLIONS of lives, and totally turning the established order on its head. This DEFINITELY falls in with the archetype of 'alien invasion'.
Rewind: 'Before' Jesus went into action, He was a baby.
Pudgy cheeks. Feet in mouth. Amazed by hands. Those are the images that come to mind when I think about babies. How could JESUS have been a baby?
But he was. So let's take the story to another angle- three wisemen have been tracking the stars, doing their thing, and they see a new star. They saddle up their camels and follow it, until it leads them DIRECTLY to Jesus. A little baby in a feeding box, with a loving mother just after labor and a father seeing to his wife.
If I was one of those wisemen, I would have found that a little anti-climactic. I mean, there's a NEW STAR in the sky, and it leads to a baby in a barn.
They come to the conclusion this baby is not what he seems. It is revealed to them that Jesus is the prophesied King of Kings.
These three wisemen go back to Caesar and talk to him about it. Caesar is ruling an empire right about now. He's happy with his life. He doesn't want some NEW KING coming to take all of this from him. And Satan slides right in and starts pulling the strings on Caesar.
There's a scene in an episode of Smallville (yes, I'm talking about Smallville again) that really fits this moment. In the episode 'Splinter', Clark gets a sliver of silver kryptonite into his blood, and gradually becomes more and more paranoid. He even starts hallucinating. Of course, all of his paranoia is tied to his biggest fear: his secret being discovered by the entire world.
In one scene, when he's hallucinating, he sees Lex holding a press conference. Lex exclaims:
"Clark Kent is an invader from another world, the first of an armada bent on enslaving this planet! But I know his weakness. I know how to stop him."
This is what Satan whispers into Caesar's ear.
Satan never works in complete lies. He deals in half-truths.
He tells Caesar that Jesus is from another world, an alien. (Truth)
He then tells Caesar that Jesus is bent on taking control from Caesar. (Lie)
Caesar tells the wisemen to bring him to the baby, so that he may 'worship him as well'.
The wisemen are like, 'yeah, like that's what you're gonna do.' The wisemen want this child alive- they know He is the Messiah. So they take off. They don't tell Caesar.
I don't know what my real point is, here. I guess I'm just trying to point out that Christmas is something MUCH bigger than we ever acknowledge it to be. It's not 'just' the birth of Christ, it's the BIRTH OF CHRIST. Bold-face. Underline. Exclamation points. It's an invasion about to change the entire world FOREVER.
And, I guess what I'm trying to say is: that's a BIG DEAL.
The other day I heard a youth pastor refer to Christmas time as 'the Holy Invasion'. He was saying that when Christmas roles around, the people that only go to church on Christmas and Easter will dust off their nice clothes and head to church. But the term really stuck with me.
'Holy Invasion'.
When we think of Christmas- more specifically, Jesus as a person- we think of peace. We think of the man we see in paintings with brown hair, grinning from ear to ear and holding a small child.
Don't get me wrong: This is Jesus through and through. Jesus is 'shalom'. So the term 'Holy Invasion' almost comes across a little... rude, doesn't it?
But that's exactly what this was.
Let's get a little more specific. The word alien, before it came to mean little green/gray men (whatever suits you), meant 'outsider'. Something FOREIGN.
A holy being outside of everything we know and could possibly understand sends His Son, a being who is also God himself, into a sinful, broken world as a baby.
When Jesus is born, He is a PERFECT human being. He has no sin. 100% clean, all the time. And, He's also fully God. And the son of God.
Pause one second: If you didn't think of it as bizarre and mind boggling at first, try to wrap your head around it- Jesus was the Son of God and God the Father himself. I don't know about you, but that seems pretty 'foreign and strange'.
God has set in motion the perfect plan. He has sent His Son down into the world of sinners, 'fullness of God in helpless babe'. Not only does this prove His intense love for these sinners, he's willing to save them.
He sends His Son Jesus to Earth, knowing full well that Jesus will be persecuted for His entire life, until eventually He is crucified. How could any parent do that? We know that Jesus' death pained God intensely. The loss of a child pains the parent.
So, he sends his son, the PERFECT being, into a world under oppression. Literally, this was a 'Holy Invasion'.
Think to all those images of alien invasions from movies like Independence Day, The Day The Earth Stood Still, etc. This fits the criteria for the title of 'alien invasion'.
Jesus later says in the New Testament, "I come not to bring peace but a sword." Jesus is bringing change to the world. He's invading the culture, changing the way people understand God, saving literally MILLIONS of lives, and totally turning the established order on its head. This DEFINITELY falls in with the archetype of 'alien invasion'.
Rewind: 'Before' Jesus went into action, He was a baby.
Pudgy cheeks. Feet in mouth. Amazed by hands. Those are the images that come to mind when I think about babies. How could JESUS have been a baby?
But he was. So let's take the story to another angle- three wisemen have been tracking the stars, doing their thing, and they see a new star. They saddle up their camels and follow it, until it leads them DIRECTLY to Jesus. A little baby in a feeding box, with a loving mother just after labor and a father seeing to his wife.
If I was one of those wisemen, I would have found that a little anti-climactic. I mean, there's a NEW STAR in the sky, and it leads to a baby in a barn.
They come to the conclusion this baby is not what he seems. It is revealed to them that Jesus is the prophesied King of Kings.
These three wisemen go back to Caesar and talk to him about it. Caesar is ruling an empire right about now. He's happy with his life. He doesn't want some NEW KING coming to take all of this from him. And Satan slides right in and starts pulling the strings on Caesar.
There's a scene in an episode of Smallville (yes, I'm talking about Smallville again) that really fits this moment. In the episode 'Splinter', Clark gets a sliver of silver kryptonite into his blood, and gradually becomes more and more paranoid. He even starts hallucinating. Of course, all of his paranoia is tied to his biggest fear: his secret being discovered by the entire world.
In one scene, when he's hallucinating, he sees Lex holding a press conference. Lex exclaims:
"Clark Kent is an invader from another world, the first of an armada bent on enslaving this planet! But I know his weakness. I know how to stop him."
This is what Satan whispers into Caesar's ear.
Satan never works in complete lies. He deals in half-truths.
He tells Caesar that Jesus is from another world, an alien. (Truth)
He then tells Caesar that Jesus is bent on taking control from Caesar. (Lie)
Caesar tells the wisemen to bring him to the baby, so that he may 'worship him as well'.
The wisemen are like, 'yeah, like that's what you're gonna do.' The wisemen want this child alive- they know He is the Messiah. So they take off. They don't tell Caesar.
I don't know what my real point is, here. I guess I'm just trying to point out that Christmas is something MUCH bigger than we ever acknowledge it to be. It's not 'just' the birth of Christ, it's the BIRTH OF CHRIST. Bold-face. Underline. Exclamation points. It's an invasion about to change the entire world FOREVER.
And, I guess what I'm trying to say is: that's a BIG DEAL.
No comments:
Post a Comment