A Cosmic Christmas
Christmas according to Revelation
This year Christmas for many is out of sorts. It’s not just the economy that is weighing down on so many this year—or the hole the death of a loved one this past twelve months may have left—but the utter chaos of the world right now that many of us have not see for a half century at least and to those younger not at all. Even the angst of 9/11 may seems pale in comparison to today.
God, do you see? What are you doing?
Those questions drive us back to the Bible, which over and over tells us God does see and he knows what he is doing. And we are asked to simply trust.
We get a glimpse of what God is doing in the Christmas stories in the New Testament—those passages that speak about Jesus’s birth and its importance.
Maybe the most surprising Christmas story in the New Testament occurs in Revelation.
So many think that Revelation is only about the future, but within its pages are the story of a cosmic conflict between good and evil from the beginning of time.
The Christmas story according to Revelation is at the heart of that conflict.
The conflict is described in Revelation 12.
Revelation 12 is in the center of the book.
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Revelation 12:1-5 are the most pertinent to begin with:
And a great sign appeared in the sky:
A woman—clothed with the sun—and the moon under her feet—and on her head a wreath of twelve stars—and she was pregnant—and she cries with birth-pangs and torment in child-birth.
And a different sign appeared in the sky, and look!
A great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns—and on his heads seven crowns—and his tail swept a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.
And the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might swallow her child.
And she birthed a male son who is about to shepherd all the nations with an iron rod, and her child was snatched to God and to his throne. Revelation 12:1-5
John’s Purpose
Wow! What do we do with these crazy words? The birth of Jesus is easy enough to detect in 12:5, but all the words around are bizarre, outlandish, mysterious, baffling.
To us.
John’s readers in the churches of Asia weren’t baffled.
They understood exactly what John was writing—and so can we if we apply the same key as they had: every image is a symbol for something, maybe more than one thing, like the woman.
But we must first realize John’s purpose.
John is writing the story—using apocalyptic imagery—of how God has already defeated the evil perpetrated by Satan through the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
That story is compressed into one verse here in Revelation 12: “And she birthed a male son who is about to shepherd all the nations with an iron rod, and her child was snatched to God and to his throne.”
The rest of Revelation twelve is the back story. And what a story it is.
John’s Symbolism
If the symbolism of the rest of Revelation may be unclear, in this chapter the clarity is much sharper:
The woman stands successively for Eve, for Israel as God’s betrothed, for Mary, and perhaps for the church.
The sun represents God.
The twelve-starred wreath around the woman represents the twelve sons of Jacob and the twelve tribes, the twelve apostles, and maybe the twelve gates of the new Jerusalem—in other words the people of God through the ages.
The dragon is Satan—we are told specifically that in Revelation 12:9. The seven heads and seven crowns are the divine (and hydra-like) aspirations of Satan to usurp the power of God, and the ten horns represent humanity.
The third of the stars of heaven are the angels in rebellion with Satan thrown to the earth. The rebellion is described in 12:7-9.
The male child is Jesus.
Most of these symbols appear in other places in Revelation also.
The first readers did not miss a beat, and neither should we.
Christmas in the OT: The Woman as Eve and Israel
The woman at the beginning of Revelation 12 is the most malleable symbol. She broadly represents all of the women in Scripture through whom God worked to bring his purposes as well as Israel as a nation.
A woman—clothed with the sun—and the moon under her feet—and on her head a wreath of twelve stars—and she was pregnant—and she cries with birth-pangs and torment in child-birth.
In 12:1, the woman represents the vehicle for the Messiah, going all the way back Eve in Genesis 3.
First, Eve is told of the pain and anguish of child-birth: “To the woman [God] said: I will greatly increase your sorrow and your pregnancy; in pain you shall birth sons.”
The genealogies of Jesus in Matthew 1 and Luke 3, do not name all the woman but they attest to the unbroken plan of God leading to the Incarnation over thousands of years.
The Grinch who Tried to Steal Christmas
And a different sign appeared in the sky, and look!
A great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns—and on his heads seven crowns—and his tail swept a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might swallow her child.
John follows the description of the woman with that of the great dragon.
He is the adversary to all God wants to do with the child.
Again in Genesis 3 this very conflict is set: God said to the serpent as deceiver of Adam and Eve: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
The conflict between Satan (the serpent) and Eve’s offspring is set.
The story of Moses birth is an Old Testament example: Pharaoh tried to stamp out the Israelites, but Moses was rescued and became the savior to the Israelites.
Many years later Moses prophesied that God would raise up a prophet like him (Deut 18:15).
In the immediate context Moses may have thought this to be Joshua, but in the context of God’s plan it was Yeshua, Jesus.
So after Eve, the people of Israel become “the woman” with the twelve stars around her head (the twelve tribes).
Satan continued his attempts to stamp out the seed, but despite the flaws of Israel (see Zechariah 3:1-10, another Joshua!), God prevailed.
The last ditch efforts of Satan to devour/swallow/eat up the child are recounted in the Gospels. Matthew tells the story of Herod in Matthew 2 and all of the Gospels tell of the growing desire and even attempt to kill Jesus (we do not even know all of the other efforts), which culminated in the crucifixion. But once again the wiles of Satan were foiled—the cross was Satan’s Pyrrhic victory that became his eternal defeat.
The Christmas Event: The Woman as Mary
The Christmas story proper is told with only one verse:
And she birthed a male son who is about to shepherd all the nations with an iron rod and her child was snatched to God and to his throne.
In Revelation 12:5, John includes the entirety of Jesus’s Incarnation from birth to ascension in one verse!
The Christmas story in the barest of terms.
The woman in Revelation 12 is now Mary who gives birth to Jesus.
These few words connect Revelation to Matthew 1 and Luke 2 and to Psalm 2 (“he is about to shepherd them with a rod of iron”).
Revelation 12:5 skips right from the birth to the Resurrection and Ascension, from incarnation to victory (the cross appears in verse 10).
If Satan thought he won at the crucifixion, in the Resurrection and Ascension, God dealt Satan the decisive blow.
Christmas Victory
The rest of Revelation 12 fills in the story of Satan’s rebellion in heaven and his defeat at the hands of Michael and his angels, followed by Satan’s lashing out in anger against the woman and her children and God’s protection of the woman and her children (now the Church).
The heavens rejoice in the victory and the truth that those who trust in the Lamb conquer Satan too:
Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah (Christ) have come because the accuser of our brothers who accuses them before our God day and night has been thrown down. And they defeated him through the blood of the Lamb and through the word of their testimony, indeed they did not love their lives even to death. Because of this, Rejoice! O Heavens, and those dwelling in it. Woe earth and sea because the devil has descended to you having great anger, knowing that his time is short. Revelation 12:10-12
The Christmas story of Revelation gives hope to all who trust in Jesus.
John’s Christmas story is cosmic, a much bigger story than most of us ever think of or imagine at this time of year.
What Jesus accomplished in his birth, death, and resurrection gives those who entrust themselves to Jesus everything they need to be victorious in this life, including death, despite the work of Satan and all of the evil in this world, now and to come.
That is a beautiful Christmas message.
Merry Christmas. Thanks for reading.