Dear friends and readers of Prophets, Priests, and Poets.info,

We have had a tradition for the last couple of holidays of posting a joint post featuring reflections from several of the writers of our little blog. We are keeping up with that tradition again with this post which features reflections on Revelation 12.

The world has changed a lot in the last year and much has remained the same. The election of the first black president, debates about health care, ongoing revelations and debates about ‘global warming’, continuing conflicts in the Middle East, and the deaths  of some of the world’s best known celebrities have all contributed positively and negatively to the world we inhabit now. (I’m thinking of Patrick Swayze, Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, and David Carradine. Maybe Brittany Murphy.) I’m sure there’s more, but as it is, here we are.

The book of the apocalypse describes itself at the beginning as ‘the apocalypse of Jesus Christ.’ Now this could mean one or two things. It could mean that it is the apocalypse of Jesus Christ–meaning that we are about to learn something about Jesus. Or it could mean that it is the apocalypse from Jesus Christ–meaning that we are about to hear from Jesus Christ. There is probably truth to both ideas, so I do not want to limit your imagination, but keep this in mind as you read through the book and the particular chapter we are focusing on in this year’s collective Christmas post.We are going to learn from and hear about Jesus in this book. He has something to say to us; we have something to see of him.

A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.

And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Christ.
For the accuser of our brothers,
who accuses them before our God day and night,
has been hurled down.
They overcame him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
as to shrink from death.
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!
He is filled with fury,
because he knows that his time is short.”

When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach. Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring—those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And the dragon stood on the shore of the sea. (Revelation 12:1-13:1)

Neil:

Revelation 12 is not unlike other sections of the apocalypse in that the various elements have been taken to mean various things. The characters include a pregnant woman, a child, a dragon, a wilderness, and others. and depending on the perspective the woman has been interpreted as Israel… or maybe the church… or maybe the true remnant of believers of Israel… or even Mary. the of the child seems more obvious, but even here there are varying interpretations.
one thing is for sure – like so many passages in revelation this one does not fail to befuddle.
yet – amongst the imagery and (dare I say it) weirdness of a pregnant woman and a hungry dragon we see two very distinct, two very clear truths.

(v. 1) A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven… (v. 10b) …now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our god, and the authority of his Christ.

Tonight and tomorrow we remember and celebrate these facts. we remember how a great and wondrous sign appeared to a bunch of shepherd in Palestine several thousand years ago. and we remember and celebrate the coming of salvation and the power and the kingdom…

For each who read this I hope that these facts are as true for you personally as they are true for our world in general. just as salvation and power and kingdom have come to earth; let us each take time to remember the wondrousness of how the same has come to each of us.

Merry advent, merry incarnation, merry salvation and power and kingdom… to all of you.
- Neil

Jerry

Our Christmases are serene, bleached white with snow, made merry with various nogs and songs and snogs under mistletoe. Quiet, pristine, and immovable nativities sit under our Christmas trees next to presents wrapped in bright colors. But sometimes you have to wonder about it all. I wonder if the world of, say, war-torn Afghanistan is closer to the reality of Christmas than is Norman Rockwell Middle Town America? “The immediate consequence of the birth is not Christmas carols, but a great war spread across the heavens” (Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder, 120). War and Christmas are not two words that are typically tied together with conjunctions.

Eugene Peterson notes in his profound interpretation of the Revelation Reversed Thunder that John deliberately involves us in the political world by drawing our attention not to the birth prophecies of Isaiah but to the Kingship Psalms of the Psalter and, in the case of Revelation 12, Psalm 2. Thus he continues, “The marvelous Michael, captain of the angels, joins battle with the dragon and his demon horde. Back and forth across the skies the contest rages and then, as suddenly as it began, it is over. The dragon and his hosts, no match for Michael and his angels, falls out of the sky in a heap. ‘Bounced’ is more like it (eblethe)—unceremoniously tossed out” (120). I love that picture.

There was war: The dragon versus the woman, the dragon versus the child, and the dragon versus the angels. Then, as if that were not enough, “Then dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commandments and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.” This dragon sweeps stars from heaven. This dragon wants to devour the woman’s child. This dragon wages war in heaven. The dragon leads the world astray. The dragon makes war against the offspring of Eve.  The dragon never has enough.

Yet he is thwarted at every turn. The woman is snatched up and her child protected. He is bounced out of heaven. The earth swallows up his venomous rivers. Whatever he hurls—whether it is stars (4), venomous rivers (15), fists (7), or words (10)—he is turned back. Yet he continues to find new victims, new enemies, and new foes against whom to wage his war. So there is war and there will continue to be war.

It’s a perplexing picture. Revelation 12 is at once majestic (‘he will rule with an iron scepter’) and horrifying (‘the dragon stood in front of the woman to devour her son the moment he was born’); it is at once triumphant (‘they triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb’) and depressing (‘the dragon stood on the shore of the sea’); it is clear as day (‘a great sign appeared in heaven’) and mysterious (‘she might be taken care of for 1260 days’); it’s about beauty (‘a woman…clothed with the sun…’) and it is ugly (‘an enormous red dragon’); it’s about the Lamb (‘the blood of the Lamb’) and the Dragon (‘the great dragon…that ancient serpent, the devil, Satan’); and it’s about peace (‘now have come the salvation and power and the kingdom of our God’) and war (‘he went off to make war’).

And you see, if that serpent has been bounced out of heaven, he landed on his feet here on earth. And so the war continues. But here’s the thing. For as much violence and war and agony and fury and anger and rage that there is because of the Dragon’s relentless pursuit of the offspring of the woman, we are assured of this: the apocalyptic demonstrates in verse after verse the dragon’s defeat. Peterson observes, “St John’s imagination is adrenaline to us of little faith, and we are again dauntless, unimpressed by dragon bluster, sure of God’s preservation. The child survives, salvation is assured. God’s rule is intact” (121). But make no mistake about it, there will be blood (11).

John notes later that this calls for ‘patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God’s people’ (13:10).

I’m not saying what we do at Christmas in America is evil or irrelevant–I don’t think God is opposed to our celebrations and customs. What I am saying is that we need to be realistic about everyday life at Christmas and as one hand rips paper off of boxes of plastic the other hand grips a sword and stays alert. The dragon stands on the shore and he is still waging war. Thankfully, praise be to God, the dragon cannot win—because the child survived; because the man died.

Chris L:

In early December, Christian P recommended a book to me, The Not-So-Silent Night: The Unheard Story of Christmas and Why it Matters by Verlyn Verbrugge.  While it was quite a short book (which is not a plus in my world), and I had some minor issues with parts of it, Verbrugge paints a picture of Christmas that is much more ominous – more reminiscent of Revelation 12 than the traditional depiction of Luke 2.

Jesus’ coming to earth was the beginning of a war – in similar fashion to the Allies landing in Normandy on D-Day – a war that has been waged and won, but whose outcome has not yet been fully realized.  When we read in Luke 2 about the ‘heavenly host’, we are often treated to a picture of an angelic choir in robes.  If viewed in context, though, the angels are described as a host – a military division, and their declaration of “Peace”, in the Greek, is more likely focused on the story’s future, not the situation present in AD1 (or 4BC).

The visions of straw, clean & friendly animals, white blankets and antiseptic conditions for the delivery of the Christ-child are so far from the truth, that the picture of Jesus’ humility and the stark, serious circumstances surrounding his birth are completely missed.

We should not miss the parallels between Revelation 12 and the story of the Nativity – the pregnant woman, the evil powers waiting to snuff out the lift of the child, the escape to the desert during his infancy.  Even if the child is not symbolic for Jesus, it is obvious that the author intends the parallel to be recognized by his early readers, as the language chosen is so similar to that of Jesus’ birth.

But even in these darkest of situations, Satan is cast down, and the place of the Father is infinitely secure, while Satan’s power is only temporal and temporary.

Even so, let us not be weary of doing good, or fearful of the evil that is still in the world.  Instead, let us celebrate the coming of Jesus, and the “true tall tale” (as Andrew Peterson puts it) of his birth.  And as we strive for peace within our families, let us also pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Shalom.

Phil:

Truth be told, I almost backed out of contributing something for this piece. It’s not that I don’t find this passage fascinating – I certainly do. I just didn’t know if I had anything worthwhile to add. I actually do not know if that’s the case, but after meditating on this passage for a while, some thoughts started coming to mind.

First, on the word “apocalyptic” itself – growing up in a conservative, Pentecostal household, I associated this word to mean people being sucked up into the sky or vast Russian armies forming to attack Israel for quite a while. Thankfully, my understanding has evolved from that now, and interestingly, it’s left me with a new urgency that those things never gave me. I now understand thanks to a big part to the writings of N.T. Wright that apocalyptic writings serve to give us windows into the workings of heaven itself. They pull back the veil, as it were, so we can see the “story behind the story”.

So the Incarnation was in big part an act of war. On one hand it could be seen as the most surprising thing that Yahweh could do. On the other hand, perhaps we should not be surprised that God gets His hands dirty. Isn’t that what He had continually been doing throughout the Old Testament narrative? Hadn’t He been acting in a very un-God like way ever since He came down from heaven and made a covenant with a nomad from Ur named Abram? There is a sense that doing things that are out-of-the-ordinary, at least not the standard operating procedure for a god, are things that God continually does. God had been warring for His people for a long time before the offensive of the Nativity. As N.T. Wright puts it:

What matters is the powerful, mysterious presence of the God of Israel, the creator God, bringing Israel’s story to its climax by doing a new thing, bringing the story of creation to its height by a new creation from the womb of the old. (from here)

The new thing that God is doing is bringing new life from the old that is dying and passing away. And perhaps that is the real miracle of this vision of warfare. When human beings war, the result is always death and destruction. When God goes to war, the result is life and redemption. So yes, the world is a scary place, and there are powers on earth and heaven that are warring against us, but as we look back to the Incarnation, let’s remember that the God who has continually been bringing order from chaos is still doing it. The dragon rages, but the Lord of Hosts has fought for us, and is still walking with us.

May the peace that comes from the Prince of Peace be with you through any trial you may be facing now or in the future.

Conclusion

Thank you for being a reader and a commenter here at PPP.info. Let’s together pray for the peace of Jerusalem in 2010. Let’s together work for the justice promised by Christ. Let’s together worship the King who loves us and gave himself up for us.

Grace and Peace to you and yours from us