The Dragon Can't Win - Revelation 12

“In brightest day, in blackest night, No evil shall escape my sight.  Let those who worship evil’s might, Beware my power…Green Lantern’s light!”  That quote may not be familiar to many here, in fact, I’d be surprised if more than a hand full of folks here have ever heard it before…but for DC Comic fans, it is a line they are pretty familiar with, and anticipate hearing from the big screen in a little less than a month when the live-action movie Green Lantern hits the screen.  Within the DC Universe, Green Lanterns are long time protectors of peace and justice throughout the universe…and so when a great power of evil threatens any part of the universe a cosmic battle ensues.

It is a cosmic battle that we come across in our reading from Revelation this morning.  As we talked about early on in our series on Revelation, apocalyptic literature such as Revelation is made up of visionary units.  We have completed three of those visionary units so far.  The first contained the identification that this is the revelation of Jesus Christ to John, the addresses to the churches of Asia Minor, and the scene in the throne room of God, with the appearance of the Lamb who was slain, yet is still alive.  The second visionary unit was made up the opening of the seven seals; the third, the blowing of the seven trumpets.  Now, as we move into chapter 12, we come across another part of apocalyptic literature…a history lesson.  Actually, scholars call it a “historical survey.”  In the “historical survey,” the author, within apocalyptic literature, seeks to use symbolic language to describe how the people got into the situation they find themselves in—being persecuted—and how God is going to get them out of the situation.

So here, as God is giving this revelation of Jesus to John, we read as it addresses how the people of John’s time came to find themselves being persecuted for their faith as they were experiencing under the Roman Empire…and it all begins with a cosmic battle.

A great portent 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 pangs, in the agony of giving birth…and she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.  But her child was snatched away and taken to God and his throne…

Who is this woman?  Consider the imagery of her description, particularly the description of the crown she wore upon her head.  It was a crown of twelve stars.  And if we remember, or check our apocalyptic symbolism, what is the significance of the number twelve.  Twelve represents the people of God.  This woman, then, is symbolic of the people of God…but which people of God? 

The description of her child leaves no doubt…he is the one who is to rule all nations with a rod of iron.  We touched on this in the second chapter of Revelation as we read the same description that is pulled from the ninth verse of the second chapter of Psalms…a Psalm which describes the Lord’s anointed…it is a description of the Messiah.  If there is any doubt in our mind, we simply look to the rest of the description in which the child was snatched away, and taken to God and to his throne…who was raised up to the throne room of God…none other than Jesus Christ.  And so this woman, who gave birth to the Savior, and represents the people of God, who could be, at this point, none other than Israel.

At the same time John sees the woman about to give birth, and the birthing of the son, another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his head.  His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.  Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born.  Just to make sure that we don’t miss who this dragon symbolizes, in a few verses, we read, “The great dragon…that ancient serpent, who is called Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the world…”

And as the dragon watches, and the child is born and then taken up to heaven, the woman flees into the wilderness.  Here we are reminded once again, of the importance to hold on to the Hebrew Scriptures as part of our faith, for this is not the first time that God’s people flee into the wilderness to escape evil…the story of Exodus tells of God’s people fleeing into the wilderness to escape Pharaoh and his army .  Yet, though we still remain connected to the scene from God’s Word to His people in Exodus, there is a subtle shift in who this woman represents…for after the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Messiah, who finds themselves as God’s people, the Church.  So God’s people, symbolic of the Church, flee (figuratively speaking of course) into the wilderness.  In the wilderness she finds a place prepared for her by God…just as God provided water, quail, and manna for His people fleeing Egypt…so too will God provide for His people once again that find themselves in the wilderness.  How long will God be preserving her in the wilderness?  One thousand, two hundred, and sixty days.  How long?  3 ½ years…and 3 ½ is…the amount of time God allows evil to appear to have the upper hand before He intervenes.

So as the church is being protected by God, we get a glimpse of this major cosmic battle. And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon.  The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.  The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.  In this cosmic battle, we see that the great dragon, Satan himself, is defeated…he and his angels at one point had a place in heaven…and we remember from the story of Job how Satan, the accuser, was there with God in heaven, as they had conversations with one another about Job…this connection to Job is strengthened by the last part of verse ten which reads: the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down.  So Satan is defeated and cast out of heaven, and down to the earth…giving explanation to why evil pursues the people of God on earth.

Hear this message of hope.  When Satan was at his strongest…in the full realm of heaven in the audience of God himself…in the realm in which he was created, Michael and his angels defeated him and he was cast down.  Hear it again, when Satan was at his strongest, he was defeated.  God wins…the dragon can’t win the war…he has already lost it. 

“But, Preacher, isn’t evil still going on?”  Yes it is, fights continue, but the outcome has already been decided…the devil is just not going to lie down and give up…he’s going down fighting.  It is just that we and he know that in the cosmic scheme of things, it is finished.

More importantly, now that we have seen God’s agents, Michael and his angels, defeat Satan at his strongest point, we find that the people of God are able to conquer and defeat Satan as well.  Verse eleven gives us three ways in which the people of God, the faithful of God, are able to defeat Satan:

First, they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb.  Through surrendering their lives to Christ, by joining themselves to Christ through their baptism, dying and being raised with Christ, in this, they defeat Satan, because they now claim Jesus Christ as Lord.

Secondly, they defeat Satan, by the word of their testimony.  The people of God continue to praise God and give witness to his name.  They continue, despite Satan’s attacks in an attempt to silence them, to give witness to the love and redemption found in Jesus Christ.  If we go into hiding when threatened, what good is our faith?  If we cower when threatened, it displaces a lack of trust in God, and then evil wins in our lives.  It reminds me of a conversation with a friend after 9/11 when she told me that she was not going to ever fly again.  I asked her why, and she told me because of what happened.  I asked her if she was ever going to go into a tall building again.  I shared with her that when the terrorists do things like they did on 9/11, and then we change our behavior, like refusing to fly, then the terrorists win, the evil wins.  However, when we continue to move forward and trust God, it gives testimony to our faith that He is in control, not evil.

Finally, they took their heart off themselves and gave it to Christ…they did not cling to live even in the face of death.  God’s people defeated Satan, because despite the threat of being put to death they did not act in order to preserve their own life, they risked their lives for the sake of being true to God…and because they were unwilling to cower in fear before Satan, and stood firm for Christ, Satan was defeated.

Satan, having been cast out of heaven, pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.  But the woman was given two wings of the great eagle so that she could fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to her place where she s nourished for time, and times, and half a time.  Time, times, and half a time…3 1/2 …again, the woman is in the wilderness, being cared for by God while she waits for the time of God’s intervention.  Satan gives everything he’s got to go after the woman, but even God’s creation seeks to look after God’s people…as it swallows up the river that Satan pours forth.

Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her children, those who keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus.  Then the dragon took his stand on the seashore.  So Satan, even knowing that he has lost, continues to pursue the woman, and when he can’t get to the woman, he decides to launch a last ditch effort on her children, those who seek to live by God’s Word and believe in Jesus.

Evil doesn’t just lie down and die quietly, even when it has been defeated.  This reminds me of the scenario recounted by Elie Wiesel, in his book Night, where, even though Germany had been defeated on two different fronts, and the allies were closing in, rather than release the Jews that they held in captivity, they rounded them up, forced them through harsh conditions, killing more daily along the way.  Evil, though ultimately defeated, goes down swinging.

The hope is in knowing how to defeat evil…true evil…it is not through the power of a green lantern ring, not the power of allied armies, but it is in binding one’s self to Christ, giving open witness to what Christ has done for us, and being willing to lose our lives for the sake of the Gospel.

This historical survey points to how God’s people have begun to experience the attacks of Satan…it is because he has been cast out of heaven and now pursues God’s people to get them to turn away from God.  It explains why the folks are facing persecution…and in the following chapters we see exactly how he intends to do this…as Satan stands on the seashore and waits…

It is easy to see the hope this historical survey gave the people of the early church who found themselves under threat from Rome, that’s the hope for yesterday, but where’s the hope for today and tomorrow?

Our hope is found in the exact same place.  If Satan has been defeated, and we know that he has…that means that we can live and act and breathe in this world without fear.  For if evil has been defeated, then, no matter how bad things get, we can live through them knowing that evil cannot win, evil cannot have the final word, because God has already claimed that final world…if evil has been defeated then it cannot separate us from the love of God found in Christ Jesus our Lord.  No matter how dark the night is, the light of the morning dawn will break through.  It means that we, as we encounter evil, can stand up to it and face it in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord… for he cannot defeat us…it is we, that, through power of Christ, can defeat Him.  There is no such thing as “the devil made me do it,” because through Christ, we are conquerors of the dragon.  We conquer Satan when we are washed in the blood of the Lamb, when we bind ourselves to Christ through the sacrament of Baptism, and give our lives over to Christ, letting him have control…not allowing the world, our jobs, our families, or even ourselves control our lives, but allowing Christ and Him alone to be in control, to bow down to Him and Him alone as Lord of our lives.  We conquer Satan through testifying to what Jesus has done in our lives…by offering the hope that we have found in Christ to those living in the darkness that Satan seeks to cast over them, and therefore showing them the Light.  We conquer Satan by refusing to hold on to our own lives…we live by Christ’s promise that those who lose their life for His sake, or the sake of the Gospel, will find it.  It is standing firm for Christ, regardless of the circumstances.

Let us be able to say:

In brightest day, in blackest night, No evil shall escape His sight.  Let those who worship evil’s might, Beware His power…the blood of the Lamb…The True Light…

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…Amen!