A Different Perspective

The Adversary was bored.  Things had been quiet for a very long time.  His domain was under control with little interference from anyone who mattered.  The Adversary smiled to himself as he considered the success of his work.  The Presence had been silent for many years now, sending no representatives to present His word for over four centuries.  He didn’t understand it, but it made his work very easy.  With things going this well, he was entertaining thoughts of trying to take over another realm, a realm he had been evicted from quite some time before.

But tonight, he was uneasy; something was in the air, but he didn’t know what.  The Adversary liked to know things – he did not like surprises.  So, he had decided to visit Jerusalem.  A visit to the city gave him pleasure and eased his mind.  It was supposedly the stronghold of The Presence, but that was a farce.  Of course, he had no desire to enter the inner areas of the temple where The Presence was strong, but the rest of Jerusalem belonged to him and that gave him satisfaction.  Tonight, though, it did not seem enough to give him peace.

He sensed a change, some kind of activity, and immediately turned his head to the south; something had drawn his attention there.  The Adversary sped in that direction, the uneasy feeling growing stronger in him as he covered several miles in a few moments.

He stopped, amazed.  There, hanging before him in the sky, was a messenger.  It wasn’t unusual to see messengers at work, but this one was appearing to men in the fields, shepherds apparently.  He was speaking.  The Adversary listened intently.  Something about a baby, but he had missed the first part.  What about a baby?  What about a baby was so important that a messenger was sent to announce it?

Suddenly, a host of messengers filled the sky singing praises to The Presence.  The Adversary reeled in pain and confusion.  What was happening?  This wasn’t the way The Presence did things, so out in the open, so … miraculously!  He watched, cringing as the messengers sang.  For an instant something played across his face: regret? longing? pain?  He shook his head and looked angrily at the host.  He would find out what was going on and put a stop to it.  He had claimed this world for his own and was not going to allow such an intrusion.

Just as suddenly, the sky was dark, and the shepherds and The Adversary were gazing at nothing.  Then the men began to move.  Curious, The Adversary followed them as they ran (why are they running, he wondered) to the village of Bethlehem.  Something tugged at the back of his mind about a prophecy concerning Bethlehem, but he couldn’t remember it.  He would have one of his servants find it.

The shepherds led him to an inn, then around to the back of the inn to a stable.  The Adversary could not fathom what was going on … and it bothered him.  He hung back as they approached the stable.  The Adversary considered the scene before him:  a man, poor, tired, but seemingly content.  He had a look of concern on his face as his gaze shifted from the face of a woman to a trough and back again.  He had his arm around the woman, who was really just a girl, supporting her.  The Adversary sensed the man was good, but he felt he was no prophet, no miracle worker.  Of course, he had been wrong about that before, he thought grimly.

His gaze turned to the girl.  He knew instantly that she was something special.  It was certainly not her appearance.  She was obviously poor, just as obviously very tired, in fact, worn out completely, if he could judge these things.  But her smiling eyes told him more.  She was someone to be reckoned with.  The Adversary knew she bore watching.

Both the man and the girl were looking into the trough and he realized the shepherds were, too.  What could be so interesting about a feeding trough?  He approached the stable.

He stopped immediately, at a complete loss as to what to do or where to turn.  The Presence was in the trough.  It was so unexpected, so completely foreign that he felt fear, a fear he had not felt in eons.  The Adversary wanted to turn and flee from the stable, but using every ounce of his will, he stayed.  Once he felt he had a grip on his fear he began to move forward.  He had to see what was actually in the trough that bore the glory of The Presence.

His nerves screaming protest, The Adversary could only move a short distance.  The girl seemed aware of his presence as she looked up, troubled, then reached for the trough.  The man reassured her, but she continued to look about nervously as she picked up a bundle from the trough.

The Adversary clearly saw what she lifted and through a haze he remembered the words he had heard from the messenger earlier:  a baby!  Senses reeling, he turned and fled.  He felt completely out of control.  What was The Presence doing?  He knew the Presence was in the baby, but he did not understand it.

Finding himself in the fields again he stopped.  The shepherds were gone but the sheep remained.  The Adversary wanted to scatter them in anger, to somehow strike back for his sense of helplessness, but he stopped himself.  If any of his servants were to hear of it, he would be mocked behind his back.  His rule was tenuous at best, held in place only because they were all in the same situation, all castaways from The Presence.

That thought made him truly angry and the anger felt good.  His fear retreated although it did not disappear.  He could deal with this.  He could discover what The Presence was doing and create problems.  The Adversary had resisted all the efforts of the puny men The Presence had used over the millennia and this would be no different.

But it was different.  He knew.  The Presence Himself had been in that trough, had been in that baby, had lived and breathed in that baby!  He could never fight The Presence directly, although he once thought he could.  That had been a painful lesson; yet, he still harbored hopes of wrecking earthly plans and somehow defeating The Presence.  But he could fight a baby and a poor couple.  He could assemble his servants and plans would be made to use weak men to do his will, to slaughter the baby, in fact, to slaughter every baby in the area.  That would be a lesson!  He thought with pleasure of seeing that baby die.  What would The Presence do then, he smirked?

The Adversary began making plans as he glanced into the empty sky where the host had been.  He had not looked up into the night sky for a long, long time, for it gave him pain.  He noticed a star he did not remember seeing before, and he recoiled from it.  The star was different, special, and he knew it was somehow tied to the baby in the stable.

Shaking his fist at the star he turned, but then he turned back to look up again.  Although it hurt his eyes to look at the star, he did, for a long time.  He spoke, “I don’t know what you’re doing.  I don’t know what this means.  I don’t know what you expect to accomplish.  But know this: I will fight it and I will fight it with the very men you love.  And I will see this end.”  He paused, “This will come to nothing … nothing.”  His voice trailed off, sounding hollow in the empty night.

The Adversary turned to leave.  There was much work to be done.