Monday 12th December
Read Revelation 11:19-12:6
“Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant. And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake and a severe hailstorm. 12 1A great 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. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. 3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4 Its 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 it might devour her child the moment he was born. 5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who ‘will rule all the nations with an iron sceptre.’ And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. 6 The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.” (NIVUK)
In the Revelation given to John insight was granted into the way things really are. The seven Seals and the seven Trumpets showed what life held between Christ’s first coming and His return for those who were sealed in Him (Seals) and those who were not (Trumpets). He was then granted a new series of seven Visions, ‘God’s temple in heaven was opened’ (v19a). The introduction to those seven Visions of ultimate reality begin with signs and succour.
For John, signs reveal truth that is otherwise hidden (cf John 2, 5, etc), but demands reflection. The first two signs, a woman (v1) and a dragon (v3), reveal the true combatants in cosmic history. We will consider the dragon tomorrow, suffice to say that John tells us who the dragon represents later in his vision (v9). But who is this woman? Keen readers of scripture will recognise the imagery of the sun, moon and stars from Joseph’s visions (Genesis 37:1-11). She represents the community of God’s people, the true image of God exercising the proper and right rule over creation promised from the beginning (it is why she is crowned with stars, clothed with the sun and has the moon under her feet). She is the one from whom and through whom the promised seed would arise. John is drawing on pictures from the very beginning of creation to tell this mighty story, to set the scene. Consider the echoes with Genesis 3…
“And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.’”
“To the woman he said,
‘I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labour you will give birth to children.” (Genesis 3:15-16a) (NIVUK)
John’s sees the lasting enmity between the woman and the serpent, between her seed and his, writ large. In Revelation, John sees a woman, who looks like Israel, in the pangs of childbirth. The incarnation of Jesus is promised from the beginning of creation. The Christmas story is not simply one of shepherds and mangers and magi but one of mystery and majesty and mending.
