(avg. read time: 9–18 mins.)
Finally, we come to Rev 12, the most unusual of the biblical Christmas stories. Of all these stories, Rev 12 fits most easily into an Advent context in that the book as a whole looks back to the First Coming while looking forward to the Second Coming and draws its imagery of hope from a wide swath of the grand story of God and his people, much as other Christmas texts and our Christmas/Advent hymns do. Revelation as a whole is also a perfect text for Advent because of its emphasis on the theme of waiting through its stress on the virtue of perseverance. But here, I am most concerned about how Rev 12 functions as a Christmas story in a Christian context.
I have often said that apocalyptic literature and apocalyptic thought have as one of their central tasks the work of pulling back the curtain of empirical reality to reveal the heavenly significance of earthly events. Apocalyptists often do this by showing the powers behind the orchestration of history, especially the One who orchestrates everything according to his will. This case follows that precedent with a scene set in heaven featuring a woman clothed in the sun, a seven-headed dragon, and a child with an iron rod. In this short description, there is much to unpack. In each case, one should remember that these symbols tend to be multivalent, so whatever I say below is not going to exhaust them. Rather, I am more interested in how the symbols bear on the Christmas story.
The woman who bears the child has multiple levels of meaning. On the one hand, the woman represents the people of Israel as often described in the scriptures. The sun, moon, and stars are often used in apocalyptic imagery, in part because of the significance traditionally ascribed to them throughout the surrounding cultures in terms of effecting/affecting one’s fate, which is described in the astrological terms of a set of zodiac signs. But there is also the sense even in the Genesis creation narrative that the celestial bodies serve as signs and as markers of seasons (i.e., “sacred time;” Gen 1:16; cf. Isa 13:10; Jer 31:35; Ezek 32:7; Joel 2:10; 3:15). They would thus be effective symbols and signs for visionary literature to ensure people paid attention. In fact, they are frequently used in Revelation itself. The first few references to a group of seven stars in Jesus’s right hand symbolize the angels of the seven churches (1:16, 20; 2:1; 3:1). The promise to the conquerors in Thyatira is that they will receive the morning star (2:28), which is an indication that they participate in the victory of Christ, who has the morning star (22:16). The stars fall to the earth as part of the cataclysm of judgment that comes with the breaking of the sixth seal (6:13). A star called Wormwood falls on a third of the rivers and springs to turn them bitter at the sounding of the third trumpet (8:10–11). This particular judgment gives a heavenly source to a type of judgment described in Jeremiah (9:15; 23:15) and represents a reversal of one of the key miracles of the wilderness wandering (Exod 15:22–23). Likewise, the judgment that comes with the fourth trumpet (8:12) signaling the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars by a third has a distant resonance with the darkening of Egypt, but it is more directly linked with phenomena referenced in prophecies in Isaiah (13:10), Ezekiel (32:7), and especially Joel (2:10, 31; 3:15), though none of them specifically reference the portion of a third. This portion makes sense in this context as an increment prior to the full darkening later in ch. 16. Finally, stars are also used as a symbol for angels, so that a star falling from heaven in 9:1 is an angel with the key to the pit of the abyss, which will release the judgment of the fifth trumpet.
But as we turn to ch. 12, as the text specifically mentions the sun, moon, and twelve stars, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion—especially in light of the multitudinous allusions to Israel and Israel’s Scripture throughout Revelation—that there is a connection to Israel here. It is reminiscent of Joseph’s dream portending his exaltation in comparison to the other eleven stars (his brothers) and the sun and moon (his father and mother; Gen 37:9). The stars had also been associated with the great patriarchal promises of descendants, though obviously they were not limited to twelve in those instances (Gen 15:5; 22:17; 26:4; Exod 32:13; Deut 1:10; 10:22; 28:62; 1 Chron 27:23; Neh 9:23). The famous text concerning the star of Jacob in Num 24:17 with its messianic connotations may also provide another level of significance here (cf. Dan 12:3). In any case, it is clear that this woman is of cosmic significance.
Of course, the image of the woman with these heavenly accoutrements could also point to Israel because Israel was at times pictured as a woman, including as a barren woman whose womb is made fruitful and as a woman in labor pains (Isa 26:17–18; 54; 66:7–8; Jer 4:31; 6:24; 13:21; Mic 4:9–10). Hosea also presents Israel as a woman, but since that fits into an overall picture in which Israel is an unfaithful spouse to God as Gomer is to Hosea, it is not a completely appropriate analog here. Likewise, the aforementioned Jeremiah texts use this imagery for the travails and pains that are forthcoming for Judah, thus they are not relevant here either. The Isaiah and Micah texts, however, use this imagery for Israel and Daughter Zion to describe a forthcoming new situation of deliverance, like birth pangs that bring forth a new life into the world. Given the rest of the scene in this text and the actual situation surrounding Christmas, the image of a woman ready to give birth is fitting for the people of God in trouble eagerly awaiting deliverance.
To be more specific, the people of God come to a focal point of sorts in the young Mary in the story leading up to Christmas, which Matthew signifies by his citation of texts fulfilled because of her (besides Isa 7:14, note Mic 5:2–3), and which Luke signifies by his reference to the Magnificat as a song from Mary (not to mention the other ways in which Luke focuses the story on Mary until Jesus is born). The people of God are certainly the origin of the Messiah and Daughter Zion, and all the hopes she bears certainly fits as a symbolic woman, but Mary is most directly the mother of Jesus and thus most directly the one whom these symbols apply to in the context of Christmas. This young lady (perhaps a younger teenager at the time) from the tiny village of Nazareth, having become an obedient servant to God’s will, has been drawn into a story with a cosmic scale, in which her labor will be the great turning point, as the embodied union of God and human comes forth into the world. The glory of her role in salvation history is fittingly symbolized by her clothing in heavenly splendor and her victor’s crown of heavenly luminaries.
But this great turning point in the cosmic story of salvation history will not take place without challenge and resistance from the powers that claim rule over the world. The figure who represents this resistance in this vision is a seven-headed red dragon with ten horns and seven diadems on those heads. Now obviously the text later explicitly designates him as Satan/the devil (12:9), so the identity question is less of a mystery than in the case of the woman. It is also generally accepted that the third of the stars swept out of the sky are to be identified with the fallen angels who follow Satan (as is consistent with the use of star imagery in Rev 9:1), and while this imagery fits with Dan 8:10 (part of a book that John regularly appeals to in expressing his visions), it also fits with the typical association of royalty and angels with stars (Num 24:17; Judg 5:19–20; 1 Sam 29:9; 2 Sam 14:17, 20; Isa 14:13; Wis 3:7–8; 1 En. 104:2–6; 108:11–15; 4 Ezra 7:97; 2 Bar. 51:10; T. Levi 18:3–4; LAB 26:13; 1QS IV, 6–8, 1QM XVII, 6–8). The following scene in which Satan and his angels fight against Michael and his angels would seem to imply this interpretation of the stars as well. But there are still two questions I want to address: 1) Why is Satan described as such here? 2) How does the dragon’s attempted eating of the child relate to Christmas?
On one level, dragons are archetypal and have representations in many cultures as powerful, intimidating creatures associated either with regnal power or the forces of chaos (depending on the culture). But given the importance of the OT context to the text and imagery of Revelation, it is worth considering what shape that collection of texts gives to this image. The base image of the dragon resonates with the figure of Leviathan, the dragon of the sea that is the chief representative of the forces of chaos (cf. Ezek 32:2). In Job 41 and Pss 74:14, 104:26 Leviathan is part of the realm of creation that ultimately submits to God’s will, which is a stark illustration of God’s power and sovereignty in the ancient context (cf. Amos 9:3). Interestingly, Israel contrasts with its surrounding cultures in that it lacks a conflict component to its extant creation narrative precisely because even Leviathan is seen as powerless before God, no matter how much fear and trepidation the monster may inspire in humanity. In Isa 27:1, God’s destruction of Leviathan is part of God’s promised redemption of Israel. This image follows the reversal of death in 26:19 and fits in the larger context of return and reconstitution of the people of God. Any power that would offer resistance to God’s redemptive and re-creative will is thus destroyed or subdued; Leviathan is no exception. Likewise, Isa 51:9 refers to the great dragon as Rahab, the one who God cut to pieces, an action that serves as a precedent for the promised new exodus (Isa 51:11). God’s future action will thus be a recapitulation and amplification of God’s creative power subduing Leviathan. On a different note, Dan 7:7 does not refer to the climactically dangerous fourth beast as a dragon, but its description of having ten horns contributes to the image of the dragon here. The seven heads are not from any biblical precedent, even though Leviathan has multiple heads. The use of “seven” is, of course, not unusual here as the number has important symbolic value and pervasive presence across Revelation (fifty-five times in thirty-one verses to be exact). It is also possible that the seven heads of the dragon and the beast he controls are directly related to the seven-headed beast in Rev 17, where the description quite strongly implies a reference to Rome. Whatever other meaning there may be for this consonance of images, this similarity creates a close link between the actor on the stage of empirical reality, the visionary description of it, and the power that ultimately lies behind it, orchestrating its actions in defiance of God.
(As an aside before I move on, I am not so sure as I once was that the reference to the dragon as the ancient serpent is meant to evoke Gen 3. It is almost impossible for people with even a modicum of biblical literacy to avoid linking that language to Gen 3, and it is certainly possible that this resonance is there at some level, thereby identifying Satan as the serpent in that story [another association that is difficult for people to avoid]. To make this argument would be to engage in a sort of apocalyptic hermeneutic that is certainly similar to Revelation in general, so it has that going for it. I simply do not find it convincing because in some of the aforementioned texts the dragon is also referred to as a serpent. The notion is contemporary with Revelation, as it appears in Life of Adam and Eve, but I am not convinced that it is being referred to here. At best, it is an echo, rather than something formative for the text as a whole.)
The dragon’s attempt to consume the child upon birth, rather than killing the woman outright, illustrates an obsession with stopping the child in particular. The dragon does not seem to regard the woman as a threat in herself and only pursues her for the sake of vengeance afterwards. The child born with an iron rod in his hand is the threat that the dragon is trying to snuff out before he has the opportunity to grow into his destroyer. In salvation history, this description best fits with the tradition Matthew relates about Herod’s reaction to news of the Messiah’s birth. He attempts to get the Magi to point him to where Jesus is, but when that does not work, he enacts the Slaughter of the Innocents in an attempt to kill Jesus by killing every boy his age in Bethlehem. What Matthew does with theological framing and Scripture fulfillment citations Revelation does with a recast of apocalyptic imagery: investing the event with its proper heavenly significance. A client king operating on the outskirts of the Roman world to kill what is likely a small number of infants in a nearby village to remove even a perceived threat to his reign—an act which would be a drop in the bucket of Herod’s deeds of political subterfuge, assassination, execution, and overall consolidation in light of his paranoia—has a heavenly side to it involving Satan himself attempting to usurp the King of Kings while he is an infant. Herod becomes more than a mad provincial king who is suspicious of everyone (including his own family, many members of which he had executed), as in Revelation’s rendition of the story he is an agent of Satan, performing the satanic will in order to maintain his own power (which in turn would serve to uphold satanic power). But as in Matthew’s story, Revelation features God delivering the child and forever putting the child beyond his power.
There is no mistaking who the child is. Already in Rev 2:26–28, the rod of iron signifies the authority that Jesus received from the Father that he will also bestow on those who conquer. This image is drawn from Ps 2:9, in the midst of a royal psalm in which God declares the king as his son, the nations as the king’s inheritance, and the power he gives over them through the image of the rod of iron. The royal Messiah, as the ideal king, would fulfill these words in a way no other king had before (cf. Pss. Sol. 17:23–24). Naturally, Jesus is this Messiah (and the unique Son of God), as implied in Rev 2 and later reaffirmed explicitly in Rev 19:15. Though the draconian usurper attempts to consume the one who would be his conqueror (νικάω has Jesus as its explicit subject four times explicitly [3:21; 5:5; 17:14] and once implicitly [12:11]) and the King of Kings, God snatches him away to himself. On the level of the Christmas story, this action would signify the escape of Jesus’s family to Egypt via God’s protection. However, the description here essentially condenses the entire Christ narrative so that his birth leads directly into his ascension/accession to the throne. From this perspective after the gospel story of Christ has already unfolded, the promised goal of the larger story of Scripture, including the eucatastrophe of the Jesus’s personal conquest of death by resurrection, is already contained within its beginning. Just as Matthew and Luke (as well as John in his own indirect way) front-load their Christmas narratives with eschatological significance, Revelation likewise sees the end in the beginning and tells the story accordingly. There is no need here to progress through the entire incarnational story, its end is already known and regularly confessed by the author and his readers (1:5, 17–18; 2:8; 3:21; 5:5–6; cf. Matt 12:38–40; 16:1–4; 21:42–44; 26:24, 31–32, 54–56; 27:9–10; 28:18–20; Luke 24:25–27, 44–47; John 2:18–22; 11:25–26; 17:12; 20; Acts 1:3–11, 21–22; 2:14–36; 3:13–26; 4:2, 9–12, 33; 5:29–32; 8:32–35; 10:39–43; 13:26–41; 17:2–3, 11, 31–32; 18:28; 26:6–8, 22–23; 28:23; Rom 1:1–4; 4:24–25; 5:6–11; 6:1–11; 8:11, 17, 34; 10:9; 14:9; 1 Cor 6:14–15; 15; 2 Cor 4:10–14; 5:6–11, 15; 13:4; Eph 1:17–23; 2:4–7; Phil 3:10–11, 18–21; Col 1:18–20; 2:11–15; 3:1–4; 1 Thess 1:10; 4:14; 2 Tim 2:8–13; Heb 2:9–18; 5:7–9; 7:16, 23–25; 12:2; 1 Pet 1:1–2, 18–21; 2:4–8; 3:18–4:2), so the end and the beginning might as well be tied together in this narration. Is that not how the creeds proceed as well? (For more on the aforementioned gospel summaries, see the series here.)
As it goes beyond the scope of the Christmas story, I will not spend much time on the rest of ch. 12. The woman flees into the wilderness to her place of nourishment and the dragon gives chase, but only after a heavenly battle between Michael’s army of angels and Satan’s army of demons. The defeat of Satan here is a preview of his coming complete defeat, but it is already an occasion for both rejoicing and woe as the devil has been thrown down, but he is wrathful because of it. His wrath is only further exacerbated as the woman escapes his attack and he turns to attack the rest of her children: the people of God. While detailed examination of these scenes is beyond my scope, I think it does illustrate that the apocalyptic context of the Christmas story is one of cosmic battle, of attempted violent usurpation by the powers of evil only to be conquered in turn by the one they tried to usurp. For Revelation, the Christmas story is one of peril, conquest, and enthronement. The rest of the story of Revelation proceeds likewise until the joyous conclusion of the new creation, in which all the grand promises of God reach their final fulfillment.
In other words, Revelation, even more starkly and vividly than Matthew and Luke, portrays the paradoxical reality of Christmas and Advent that modern-day Christians and non-Christians alike (at least here in the West) have found so easy to truncate. It is a time of hope because God has already fulfilled some of his grand promises through the humble virgin of no repute and her son, the King of the universe, born in humble circumstances in Bethlehem, and thus we can have confidence in God’s faithfulness to fulfill what he has promised. But it is also a time of danger as the powers of evil seek to resist this hope and cause all to lose their confidence in it by the oppression of despair. It is a time of peace on earth and God’s goodwill toward all as the Prince of Peace emerges to enact God’s shalom. But it is also a time of war as rebellion against God’s shalom extends from a mad king at work in a small corner of the Roman Empire up to heaven itself as the powers seek to stop the birth and rising of the King. It is a time of rejoicing in the birth of the King of Kings and the delivering joy (both the joy that delivers and the joy of deliverance) he brings. But it is also a time of woe as the age of the last days features the death throes of the powers that wreak great destruction. It is a time of love as God’s love comes into the world not simply as an act, but as a person, the incarnation of love who is executor of God’s will of love. But it is also a time of hate as the powers of evil attempt to snuff out this embodier of love and, when that fails, turn in bitterness to take out their hate on the children of his love. There is always more going on in heaven and on earth in actions and actors on the stage of our world than we can perceive. This was as true for the young virgin Mary of Nazareth and the child brought forth through her as it is today. The Christmas story—whether told by Matthew, Luke, John, or Revelation—reminds us of what it looks like when the promises of God and God’s inexorable, faithful, loving dedication to them meets a world that is enslaved to the powers of evil in rebellion against God. But thanks to Easter we know how the story of Christmas ends, and thanks to Rev 21–22 we know where the story is headed in the hands of the inexorably faithful, loving God.