The Invasion

A Season of Darkness

Something feels … off, I thought as I strode through the sliding doors of the neighborhood grocery store. A muffled voice to my left: “Have a nice day!” A Salvation Army bell ringer, donning a Santa hat and a black face mask, with eyes smiling out from between them. And then I remembered: I forgot my mask again.

I wheeled back towards my car, thinking to myself, I can’t keep all the crises straight these days.

Our country and our communities are undergoing an intense and prolonged collective trauma. It may be decades before we begin to see the true cost of the past 11 months to our generation - we who embarked upon 2020 as young adults, with all the supposed potential that young adulthood entails. As we plunge into the bitter cold and darkness of another Minnesota winter, unbroken by the warmth and light of our yearly celebrations, C.S. Lewis’ description of Narnia under the reign of the White Witch comes to mind: “always winter, never Christmas.” I don’t know about you, but the future doesn’t look quite as sunny from where I stand today versus on December 31, 2019. The events of this year have forced me to lay aside much of my optimism for what days to come may bring for me and my family, and certainly for the culture as a whole.

A certain darkness has gripped our society in these past few months, alienating us from one another, sowing lies and fear, and stripping us of so many of the day-to-day things that bring joy and comfort. This darkness cannot be reduced to social or political realities; there is something spiritual, something cosmic about the shroud covering us in these days. The Powers that are always at work in us to drive us to hatred, loneliness, and despair - Sin, Death, and Satan - have been unleashed in our midst in ways we could not have anticipated. Their continued advance seems not only likely but inevitable. The worst, it appears, is still to come. 

Needless to say, “Happy Birthday, Jesus!” is not going to cut it for me this year, and simple good cheer may be in short supply. 

Far from bankrupting Christmas, however, these circumstances have been permitted by God, who wishes in all things to draw us closer to His heart. The plain fact is that a birthday party for Jesus was never what we needed, anyway. What we’ve needed, and what we always need, is something - or rather, Someone - to shatter the darkness. We need an invasion. 

Divine invasion: the true meaning of Christmas

The Incarnation is the invasion of God Himself into the Kingdom of Darkness, and the sweet baby Jesus sleeping in a manger is the Mighty God disguised in weakness, inaugurating His great ambush against Satan and his hideous cohort. At the moment of Mary’s fiat, the God of Israel broke into our world, held as it was by the Enemy’s power, and became a man so He might go to war on our behalf. In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis aptly described this world as “enemy-occupied territory,” saying that “Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in his great campaign of sabotage.”

[Caption: Light of the Incarnation, Carl Guthers]

 A far cry from the typically American approach to the holiday season, but an image worth calling to mind given the times. How would Christmas look different if Christians celebrated it as it truly is: much more like D-Day than like a birthday party? 

At the Incarnation, God came among us - not to make us feel better or to inspire pretty songs, but to destroy the darkness that oppresses us. Christmas is a Divine coupe d'état, overthrowing the ruling powers of this fallen world; God wants His world back, and He Himself is coming to get it.  

Not only that, but He invites us into his “great campaign of sabotage.” In light of the Christian understanding of the Incarnation, Christmas is not just a time to “be kind” or to do good deeds for others; it is a reminder of our mission to undo the work of Satan in this world, to bind the strong man and plunder his house in the name of Jesus Christ, the rightful King (Matthew 12:29). 

In this campaign, we do not wield the weapons of this world but those of Christ’s kingdom: prayer and penance, the spiritual and corporal works of mercy, the sacraments, and a shared way of life with other disciples. Our victory is not accomplished in the political, economic, or social spheres, and so we do not lose hope when evil wins the day there. We know that nothing can thwart the plan of God - not a global pandemic, not corrupt politicians, not Big Tech, not the relentless secularization of our culture. Nothing. 

Christ has ambushed Hell and crushed it, and that triumph is already mysteriously underway in His silent Invasion of our sin-darkened world at Bethlehem. That is what we celebrate at Christmas. That is comfort and joy of the highest kind. 

Yielding to the invasion

Advent is our opportunity to prepare for this Divine Invasion. It is a time to look soberly at the ways in which darkness reigns in our world and in our own lives, and to beg God to break in and bind it so that we can live our true identity as children of the light (1 Thessalonians 5:5). It is not a neurotic manifestation of “Catholic guilt” to linger on the bad news for a while - it is part and parcel of Christianity. The Gospel is Good News precisely because of how very bad the Bad News is. 

This year, God desires His Church to experience Christmas as truly Good News, as light in the darkness. The world will be depressed and despondent to see Christmas look different than normal; Christians will see, through the eyes of faith, radically new graces on offer precisely because it looks different. May we be found true disciples as we await the Invasion. 

Questions for reflection and prayer:

1. Where in the world can I see the reign of darkness at work? Where in my own personal life can I see it? Am I discouraged about it? If so, why? 

2. What are my expectations for Christmas this year? Are those expectations informed by the world or by authentic Christian hope? 

3. Practically, how can I take part in Christ’s great “campaign of sabotage” this Advent, fighting the kingdom of darkness with the weapons of God’s kingdom?

 

O come, o come Emmanuel

And ransom captive Israel

That mourns in lonely exile here

Until the Son of God appear

Rejoice, rejoice! 

Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!
 

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Sarah Carter lives in St. Paul with her husband, Will, and her son, Elijah. She and her family attend the Church of St. Mark and are members of the St. Mark Young Adult community. Sarah graduated from the University of St. Thomas in 2014, spent two years serving as a campus missionary for Saint Paul’s Outreach in Columbus, Ohio, and returned to St. Paul in 2016 to begin study for her master’s in theology at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity, which she completed in 2019. Now she teaches moral theology and Scripture at Hill-Murray School.