By Mike Mason

A few years ago Canadian writer Mike Mason (author of The Mystery of Marriage, The Gospel According to Job, etc.) launched what he called "an experiment in joy": he made up his mind to be joyful in the Lord every day for ninety days. A moody person by nature, for him this was a radical experiment that changed his life. Throughout the ninety days he kept a journal, which eventually became a book on joy entitled Champagne for the Soul.

Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them!
But woe to the earth and the sea,
because the devil has gone down to you!
Revelation 12:12

Day 60 of my experiment in joy happened to fall on Christmas. In all ninety days I had only four thoroughly unhappy ones - an astonishing record for me. However, I regret to report that one of my joyless days was Christmas.

It didn't begin that way. For the first half hour of Christmas morning, starting at midnight, I experienced an unusually pure and intense joy accompanied by an almost palpable sense of Jesus' presence. Then, as suddenly as this began, it was over and I was plunged into the worst night of my entire experiment. All night long I was gripped by the foolish, but very real, fear that I might not be able to enjoy the next day! Sure enough, I fulfilled the truth of the saying, What I fear I create, and Christmas was horrible. Recalling my experience at midnight, it was almost as if I personally lived through a small version of the events of Revelation 12, in which two signs appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun who was about to give birth, and an enormous red dragon. When the woman gave birth to a son, a male child, immediately there was war in heaven as Michael and his angels fought against the dragon (12:27).

Continue article >>

My friend Ron Susek has written a book with the intriguing title Silent Night, Holy War. In this fictional retelling of the Christmas story, Ron imaginatively weaves together the events of Jesus' birth, as recorded by Matthew and Luke, with the apocalyptic events of Revelation 12. His thesis is that we have every reason to expect Christmas to be a time not only of great joy but also of great struggle and spiritual warfare.

Though we seldom consider this somber side of Christmas, it's nonetheless real. A false god rules over Christmas, manifesting itself as commercialism, busyness, and shallow merriment, making the true Christ as difficult to find now as He was that first Christmas night in a stable in Bethlehem. How many of us approach the birth of the Prince of Peace prepared for conflict?

I, for one, had been looking forward to Christmas being a joyous day, a highlight of my experiment in which I could sing with all my heart, Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Perhaps these high expectations were a large part of my problem. With such an attitude, even small annoyances become disproportionately vexing. Joy will not be scheduled. A zealous plan for everything to go smoothly on Christmas Day, or on any day, is a recipe for disaster. Joy lives in the shadow of the cross, not in a pollyanna world where everything goes well.

I'm reminded of a Christmas card I received, depicting a decorated tree whose shadow, falling across the floor, takes the form of a cross. For Christians the shadow of the cross falls across every day. We live in a spiritual war zone where our enemy the devil observes no holidays but continually prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). Why should we expect the road to Christmas to be any easier than the road to Easter? It wasn't easy for Mary or Joseph, or for many others in the original drama. As T. S. Eliot wrote in Journey of the Magi, This Birth was / Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

Christ doesn't come to our righteousness but to our unrighteousness. He doesn't come to our airbrushed fantasies but into the heart of our real pain. Indeed if we do not let Him into our pain we will not experience His coming at all.

December 18/2008