In a post from last week, I wrote about the Coming Invasion, which the Bible variously describes as The Coming, The Second Coming, The Appearance, and His Return. It will be the inaugurating event of the Palingenesis (Genesis Again), the Project Earth restart. But if there is a return, a second coming, there must also have been a first coming, a prior invasion.

There was. Two billion people or so will commemorate that invasion in the Celebration known as the Yuletide, Noel, the Feast of the Nativity, and Christmas. It is important to understand that Christmas, like D-Day, is the anniversary of an invasion. Bethlehem was the landing site, a bridgehead behind enemy lines in the long war that ravages the earth. Our leader (the one we call The Captain, the Prince, the King) entered enemy territory in the most daring rescue attempt ever made.

A reader may object, “But Christmas is about the birth of a baby!” That is precisely why it was the most daring rescue effort ever attempted. The Captain came into enemy territory unarmed, as a helpless baby. He was not disguised as a helpless baby; he was a helpless baby. This is what the theologians called Mysterium Incarnationis, the “Mystery of the Incarnation.”

The Captain came not only to do something about our situation, but to do something within our situation; not just within our geography but within our humanity. He came to neutralize the enemy’s most devastating weapon: death itself. The author of Hebrews writes: “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, he likewise shared in their humanity, so that through death he could destroy the one who holds the power of death (that is, the devil),and set free those who were held in slavery all their lives by their fear of death.” (Hebrews 2:14-15).

Christmas is the anniversary of the secret invasion that was at the heart of history’s greatest rescue mission. The world has had its share of infiltrators: names like Nathan Hale, Aldrich Ames, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg come to mind. They infiltrated armies, state departments, and intelligence communities. But there has never been an infiltration so complete as the one performed in “Operation Bethlehem.” For this was an infiltration of our race, our biological make-up even, by one whose secret entrance into our world came through the Virgin’s womb!

The invasion that God’s people had long expected came; but the hosts of heaven sang, they did not make war. The King of Heaven did not thunder, he cried, cried like a baby, was a baby; but at that cry the gates of hell shook.

The mystery of Christmas is not that the conqueror comes or that there will be no end of the increase of his government and of his peace. The mystery is not that he will rule the kingdom from David’s throne, but that he will conquer men’s hearts from a manger in a stable and a cross on a hill. That there is a savior in the City of David was not a mystery; that he was wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a feeding trough is ineffable mystery. That he comes to rule is expected; that he allows men and women to choose whether he will rule them, that is the mystery. John tells us that “he came unto his own, but his own received him not.” He did not come with irresistible force but with grace and love.

We can read the Christmas story and miss all this, even though the hints are there. The angels who chant “Glory to God” and “Peace on Earth” are described as a “host,” that is, an army. The enemy counter with a quick strike intended to trap and kill the infiltrator but he escapes and will yet “save his people.” In the revolution he brings, rulers will be “brought down from their thrones” and God’s people “delivered from the hand of [their] enemies.”

Once we have seen this, we cannot go back and make this a simple story of an unwed mother, a needy couple, and hard-hearted townspeople. The skies did not burst into praise at the birth of a baby but at the birth of a savior. The pivotal phase of the cosmic battle happened two thousand years ago. Its final phase is set to commence.