A different Christmas story

As a Christian, you may be very familiar with the classic Christmas story from Luke, a somewhat romantic tale of shepherds and a baby in a barn and three far-flung travelers who followed a mysterious star.

This story shows a certain aspect of Christmas, and we’ve heard it so many times that we don’t hear the story at all. Perhaps it is time to hear another Christmas story from the Bible. I want to take you to Revelation, chapter 12.

The story

A 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. 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 its heads. 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. 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.

At first glance, you probably think of something like this:

There are a lot of mysterious figures in this scene, but before we try to understand who is who, let us put this scene in perspective.

• We have a woman who, despite some heavenly attribute, is one thing: pregnant and about to give birth. To say the least, she is in no shape for a major battle.
• On the other side is a huge and angry (red) dragon that has only one goal: to devour the child that is about to be born.

Looking at this scene without knowing the ending, we would surely say that this woman has no chance and the child has no future, but surprisingly the child overcomes by being transported to heaven.

But what is the story about? Let us take a look at the characters.

The dragon

The first one is easy to identify: the dragon. In verse 9, he is identified as “that ancient serpent called the Devil, or Satan” — which brings back memories of the Fall in Eden.

The child

Let us take a look at the child. There is not much description, but there is one very prominent feature: the iron scepter. Let us look around the Bible and see what we can find and there are a few references:

• Ps.2 describes a scene where all the kings rebel against God, but God threatens them that they should fear His Son who will rule them with an iron scepter
• Isa.11/4 describes the coming Messiah who will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth
• In Rev.2/27, Jesus refers to Himself as the one who rules with an iron scepter.

These references make it pretty clear that the story is about Jesus and his birth.The womanBut who is the strange woman clothed with sun, moon and 12 stars? There are three candidates (who gave birth to Jesus)

• Mary, of course, as she gave birth to Jesus,
• Eve, who was promised that her offspring would destroy the serpent,
• But there is also Israel who was promised to give birth to the Messiah (Jesus).

So who is the story talking about?

• Mary would seem to be the obvious one, but nowhere in the Bible is there a connection between Mary and the sun, moon, and stars — quite the opposite: Mary has been associated with the sun, moon, and stars in Church tradition, based on the interpretation that this woman must have been conceived by Mary.
• For Eve, one could see a connection between her and the sun, moon, and stars, since Adam and Eve are mentioned along with them in the [creation](http://Genesis 1). But it remains open why our story here refers to 12 stars!
• The best match is Israel, who not really a woman on the first sight, but is referred to in the Bible as daughter Zion. When we look at Joseph’s second dream, we see a very close parallel. There he speaks of sun and moon and 11 stars and his father interprets this to mean his 11 brothers and his parents (including Joseph makes it 12 stars). And these 12 brothers are (more or less) the 12 tribes of Israel.

Finally, the story

So what is the story of Rev.12/1–5?

• Israel (the woman) was promised to give birth to the Messiah (the child). (This happened at a time when Israel was under great pressure: being controlled and oppressed by Rome. There were many rebellions against Rome but they all were subdued.)
• It was during this time that Jesus was born and rescued from imminent danger when king Herod was about to kill Him. As Jesus began His ministry, the devil tried to tempt Him — both attempts were unsuccessful.7
• Jesus succeeds in spite of opposition of all kinds, even dying on the cross, finally raised from the death and ascended to heaven (Rev.12/5 skipped the part between Jesus birth and ascension).

This is the Christmas story that we already know from the New Testament, and it is a story full of emotions:

• the glory of the woman and her helplessness,
• the fear for her child,the anger of the dragon and his determination,
• the surprising conquest of the dragon.

It is not explained, how Jesus overcame this, but this tension between the seemingly helpless and the one who overcomes is present throughout the book of Revelation

• The only two churches without any complaint from Jesus in Revelation 2–3 are Smyrna and Philadelphia (which are in serious trouble given their circumstances), but the church that has the most confidence (Laodicea) does not get a single point of praise from Jesus.
• The lion who is really the lamb.
• The two witnesses, who seem be to defeated, but are actually overcome and be glorified compared to the [dragon and the beast, who seem to be in absolute control](http://Revelation 13), but will go into disaster and all who trust in him with him.
• …

Dig Deeper

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