Scripture References: Luke 2:1-20

Within the last couple of decades, due to the advancement of space telescope technology, scientists believe they have discovered several planets that are beyond our solar system. That discovery, as it always does, has stimulated a question we have asked many times: Is there intelligent life out there in the universe, beyond our planet?

The late Carl Sagan, popular Cornell University astronomer, says that it is virtually a statistical certainty that intelligent life has evolved elsewhere over and over again and that many civilizations must be far older and more advanced than ours.

If there are intelligent beings out there, they must be curious about the possibility of us as we are about the possibility of them being out there. Do they try to send us signals and would they like to invade our planet? And if they did invade it, would they come as friends or foes? We wonder about that kind of thing and it is easy to develop a mentality that expects it. That mentality may become a panic button as it most certainly has in the past.

It was a bit before my time, but I can still remember the stories of Halloween 1938, when a twenty-three-year-old producer named Orson Welles turned our nation into panic with a radio play, “Invasion from Mars,” based on the H. G. Wells story, War of the Worlds. He simulated news broadcasts that interrupted the program, announcing the landing in New Jersey of Martians who were devastating the countryside with death rays. Many parts of the nation became truly hysterical. People rushed from their houses into the streets screaming, while many went to their churches to pray. Earth was being invaded.

The mentality that halfway believes in an invasion from outer space explains why so many people have seriously pursued the myth of flying saucers and of “little gray men.” But long before we knew about rockets, satellites, and spaceships, the church has known that our planet had been invaded.

It happened at a time long ago that we now celebrate as Christmas. Christmas is of earth. It tells about shepherds, a manger, and swaddling clothes, and wise men seeking after a birth of two years previous. Yet, it is of heaven, too. There is something extraterrestrial about Christmas. There is a bright light from heaven, a heavenly chorus that sings, and an angel that announces: “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). Christ with great love and grace, like a benevolent invader, has come to our earth at Christmastime.

Love Came Down

Like most invasions, it came at night.

During World War II and in the wars and skirmishes since, many surprise attacks were accomplished by an amphibious infantry division. They were trained to establish beachheads, and they made their landings mainly at night. They moved under the cover of darkness in order to take the enemy by surprise. And, of course, the natives were surprised. We had come while they slept.

Luke tells us that “And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night” (Luke 2:8). And we sing the words, “While shepherds watched their flocks by night.”

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, ESV © 2016 by Crossway Bibles.
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