I often think of Christmas as the time of peace and sweetness and gentle songs. It can be. But I love the way pastor Tim Brown taught the Christmas story to Hope College when I was there. He told us the story from Revelation 12. Here's an excerpt:  "The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born...her child was snatched up to God and to his throne...And there was war in heaven."

What this tells us is that from the heavenly point of view there wasn't just cattle lowing with the poor baby waking. There was an invasion. Let us remember the cosmic nature of what God did that night and the incredible drama of it all. C.S. Lewis puts it this way in his amazing book "Mere Christianity":  Enemy-occupied territory - that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.

This Christmas may the conspiracy live on.