The dragon in the nativity

Revelation 12:1 A great and wondrous 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 his heads. ⁴ His 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 he might devour her child the moment it was born. ⁵ She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. ⁶ The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.

All of you have your nativity scenes set up in your homes. I know it is last minute, but you may want to move a few things around. Take out the Wise Men. They haven’t arrived yet. Take out the sheep. They are out in the pasture. Take out the angels. They just finished their cantata in the fields and are now watching everything unfold from heaven. You can remove them and replace them all with a red dragon.

In the twelfth chapter of his revelation from Jesus Christ, John tells us the Christmas story. Did you recognize it? It’s a little bit different from the nice, idyllic setting we like to portray in our nativity scenes. There are no shepherds, Magi, sheep or camels. There is no little drummer boy or snow lying on the ground. This is war! A cosmic war! This is a description of the devil’s attempts to destroy Christ during His earthly life. This is the Christmas story from God’s point of view. This is the way all of heaven and the angels saw the very first Christmas … and it’s a lot different from the way we usually portray it.

“A great and wondrous 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.” The pregnant woman is not the Virgin Mary. Rather, she is the Christian Church. She is “clothed with the sun.” Through faith she shares the perfection of the Savior, whose face shone like the sun at His transfiguration. The moon under her feet reminds us that believers share in Christ’s reign, including His rule of the universe. She has already received her crown of glory. The twelve stars on her head remind us of the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles, for twelve is the number of God’s chosen people.

In a symbolic way, John takes us back to the time of the birth of Christ. The woman in the vision is pregnant and ready to give birth. But John saw more than the impending birth of the Savior. He saw a great red dragon, which is the ancient serpent, the devil (Revelation 12:9). “Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth.” The dragon is fiery red, the color of bloodshed and death (Revelation 6:4). Its huge size shows its great potential for inflicting harm. Its tail has swept one third of the stars from the sky, probably a reference to a third of the angels falling from God’s grace and rebelling with the devil. The dragon has seven heads, ten horns and seven crowns – all demonstrating his enormous power and influence.

This powerful dragon was intent on destroying the woman’s child as soon as it would be born. “The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born.” This portrays the way that Satan tried to demolish Jesus’ work before it could be completed: Satan used King Herod to kill all the two-year-old baby boys and younger in Bethlehem in an attempt at slaying the newborn King (Matthew 2:16); Satan attacked Jesus personally with his desert temptations (Matthew 4:3); the devil’s demons went wild with their possession of people to hinder Jesus’ work; Satan influenced the attempts of the Jews to stone Jesus or throw Him off a cliff; he suggested to Peter that Jesus shouldn’t suffer (Matthew 16:22); he prompted Judas to betray Jesus (John 13:2) and united the Romans and the Jews for the the crucifixion of Jesus. All of this is pictured in the dragon’s attempt to devour the Child.

The child who rules all the nations with an iron scepter is obviously Jesus, for David had prophesied the coming Savior would rule His enemies with that same iron scepter (Psalm 2:9). But then John writes, “And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.” In this version of the Christmas story, Jesus goes from being born in Bethlehem to ruling on the throne of the universe. It skips the whole middle part of His life. Why? Because the whole point of the Christmas story isn’t just that He was born. It’s what He came to do after He was born. Jesus was born into the world for the specific purpose of being the Savior-King of the world!

After His death and resurrection, Jesus ascended into heaven, away from the devil’s attacks. Since the dragon was frustrated in his attempts at getting at the Child, now he is going to turn his attention at the object of the Child’s affection – the mother, the Christian Church, you and me. John writes, “He pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child” (Revelation 12:13). “Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring-- those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus” (Revelation 12:17)

The great red dragon hates the Church. He hates me for preaching Christ. He hates you for believing in Christ. He despises you because you are baptized with Christ’s forgiveness. He loathes you for being strengthened with Christ’s body and blood in the Lord’s Supper. He detests you for your prayers, your devotional life, your support of Lutheran education and Christian worship. Satan, the old evil foe, is on the prowl. And he is after you.

No wonder that the Bible calls the devil “the dragon.” Full of fire and fury. Piercing eyes that see you and never lets you rest in peace. A cunning mind that knows what tricks to use to seduce you. Powerful claws that grab on and won’t let go. Bloody jaws that tear lives apart. Terrorism worse than any on this earth. Martin Luther put it this way: “At all hours the devil is seeking to kill us all. After you have been baptized, he will not let you have any rest. If he could kill you in your mother’s body, he would do it … Far less does he spare us who are exposing his shame, who rebuke him to his face, and preach what we should – God’s grace. … He would now rather break my neck in a moment than let me stand here and preach and storm his kingdom” (What Luther says, 1959, p. 398).

Satan is not playing games. He is furious with God. But because he knows he can no longer get to Christ, he is going to come after the object of Christ’s affection, Christ’s brothers and sisters. Satan has set up shop here on earth after his expulsion from heaven. He knows he has a limited time before Judgment Day ends all his wicked activity forever. That explains why there is so much suffering on the earth. That’s why it seems like there has been an explosion of evil in these Last Days.

Last week our attention was focused on Newtown, Connecticut – and rightly so. But on the same day of this calamity in Connecticut, 22 children were stabled in an attack at a Chinese elementary school. On the same day, hundreds of children under five died from malaria in Africa. On the same day, close to a hundred people were killed in Syria. On the same day, countless children died while still in their mother’s wombs. Evil is everywhere. Because the dragon’s attention has turned to this world. Guns, knives, fertilizer, poison gas, IEDs – the devil has been helping people kill each other ever since Cain and Abel.

Only the Child begotten of the heavenly Father can release us from the dragon’s claws. Only the Child born of Mary can free us from Satan’s influence. Only the Child born to Mother Church, can deliver us from the devil’s tyranny.

The Child’s everlasting care is expressed in the cryptic sentence by John: “The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.” The 1260 days symbolizes the New Testament age that we are living in right now. In this hostile world, God has prepared for His Church a place of safety. It is a “desert,” a place of discomfort and suffering, but nevertheless a place prepared by God. Jesus during His days on earth had promised that the gates of hell would not be able to destroy His Church (Matthew 16:18). When John saw this in his vision, it must have reminded him of when he heard Jesus say, “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it” (John 17:15,16).

Even in the desert of this world, God will provide for us in some way, just as He provided for Elijah when the ravens fed him at the Kerith Ravine (1 Kings 17:6) and the widow fed him at Zarephath (1 Kings 17:9). So while this world is parched and dry, God will water you with new life in your baptismal waters. While this world is starved for righteousness, God will feed you with His Son’s body and blood in His holy Supper for “he has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:50). While evil is on the rampage, “He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts” (Luke 1:51).

You are in a battle. You know you have been harassed in this desert by the evil one. You can hear him growling. You feel his hot breath on your neck. You feel the sting of sin at your heels. But you will not be overcome because you belong to Christ. This is why He came in the manger, so that He might defeat the devil on the cross. He entered this desert of sin and death in order to destroy sin and conquer death and make the water gush forth in the wilderness and streams flow in the desert (Isaiah 35:6).

God deals with the real devil in a real way, by sending His real Son as the real Savior to conquer the devil’s real evil in your real daily living. Revelation pictures that work of Jesus Christ “having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon … and bound him … and threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him” (Revelation 20:1-3). The dragon has been doubly defeated! He couldn’t devour the Child. And now he has a chain around his neck that the Child can yank at any time that he gets too close.

We are engaged in a battle, but it is a battle whose outcome is guaranteed. We are fighting an enemy who is, in fact, already defeated.

After the Battle of the Bulge during World War II, one German officer described the capture of an American unit early in the fighting. Among the spoils of war was a box that contained a cake. What was remarkable about the cake is that it had been sent to an American soldier from Boston and was still fresh. The German described his feelings when he realized that the Americans had the resources to fly over cakes from home even in the midst of a global war. He said that he knew then, that they would never defeat an enemy that had such resources for the waging of the battle.

When we stand in Christ, we have that sort of support, and so much more. Behind the manger, shepherds, angels and Magi, a battle is going on. It isn’t the idyllic setting we imagine in our nativity scenes. It is a war! This Christmas, if you want to be accurate, you can remove the lowing cattle and replace them with a roaring dragon. But a dragon that has been defeated. Placing a dragon in the nativity may seem odd, but it is a constant reminder of God’s view of Christmas. A battle was waged between the dragon and the Child. The dragon in the nativity reminds you that the devil may be strong, but he has lost. He may have been hurled into the world, but he is defeated by Him who sits in heaven. “The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). There’s no better dragon-slayer than Jesus Christ, the Child who rules with an iron scepter, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Amen.

“My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Amen.