To Encourage You

Revelation 12:1-4 “And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it.”

I heard a pastor speak about Christmas in a sermon awhile back in a way that I’d not heard the story before.  So many of us have such an idyllic view of this season of the year. There’s such a spirit of joy and love, more so than is typical at other times.  It’s a time when we send Christmas cards and decorate our homes, both inside and out.  It’s a time of gift giving, caroling, and feasting.  So, what is it that we are celebrating? What’s the truth behind it all?

Usually, we turn to Luke chapter 2 for this as well as Matthew chapters 1 and 2. It’s the story of Mary and Joseph, of shepherds, and angels.  It’s about the wise men and their wonderful gifts.  But there’s another place that we find the Christmas story.  It’s in Revelation chapter 12.  It’s a vision given to the apostle John that’s full of incredible symbolism that speaks of invisible things that are going on in the world but that we don’t have eyes to see.  In this particular vision John sees a woman, a great dragon, and a child.  It’s a picture of the nation of Israel through which this child came.  And it’s a picture of the opposition of the dragon, i.e., Satan, to this child from the very beginning.  It is a dragon that often does his work through people, those like Herod who made the decree to kill all the children under two years old in Bethlehem and the surrounding region after Jesus was born.  The dragon was also at work in the Jewish scribes and Pharisees who constantly opposed Jesus and schemed to put him to death. He was at work in Judas as he betrayed the Son of God, Peter as he denied Him, and Pilate as he sentenced Him. He was at work in the soldiers that beat Him, mocked Him, plucked out His beard, spit in His face, cast lots for His clothes, and nailed Him to a cross.  Likewise, it is the dragon who has been at work in those who have opposed the followers of Christ ever since. 

You see, Jesus came into this world to destroy the works of the devil, but he does this by freeing those who are the unwitting dupes of his schemes.  As the devil works to kill, steal from, and destroy the very ones he controls, Jesus works to free them from his grip. He did this by enduring all that Satan and his minions could throw at Him, and He does this by empowering His born-again children to endure the blows today that are really meant for Him.  It’s a picture of Christmas that we are apt to miss, for although the coming of the Christ child was, indeed, joy to the world, that joy has come in spite of the incredible opposition, suffering, and death the dragon has wreaked because Jesus came. 

Jesus came into a world that hated Him. He came to free those who were slaves to the dominion of darkness and bring them into the kingdom of the Father Who is Love (Colossians 1:13).  But what a cost has been paid for that freedom, what incredible suffering so that we could be saved.  May God help us to remember what He has done for us, and how the Son of God came to free us from the dragon who hates Him and all who love and follow Him, for that’s a vision of the true story of Christmas, rather than visions of sugar plumbs dancing in our heads.