Week 52 Revelation
Religious Christmas cards show Mary & Joseph travelling on a cold-winter’s-night. The-stars-in-the-bright-sky are looking down at the baby Jesus. The cattle-are-lowing, the shepherds worshipful. All-is-calm. All-is-bright. A gospel’s Christmas.
Close to the end of the NT there’s a parallel Christmas narrative. It’s a bigger-than-normal Christmas story. John tells it this way:
I saw a woman clothed with sun, with moon beneath her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant, and she cried out in the pain of labour as she awaited her delivery.
Suddenly, I witnessed in heaven another significant event. I saw a large red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, with seven crowns on his heads. His tail dragged down one-third of the stars which he threw to the earth. He stood before the woman as she was about to give birth to her child, ready to devour the baby as soon as it was born.
She gave birth to a boy who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And the child was snatched away from the dragon and was caught up to God and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness.
This is John’s Big Happenings Christmas Story.
Things might be pretty quiet in the little-town-of-Bethlehem but all hell has broken loose in the heavenlies.
Note: quote from Revelation 12:1-6 (NLT)