Most of you know that studying Revelation isn't easy for me. I'm glad to be able to puzzle through what it means, but I don't look forward to writing the sermons, usually. Revelation is draining and exhausting. Except, I'm happy to say, for this chapter, which is pretty hopeful and entertaining.
As I was writing the sermon, Fern and Bob and crew were replacing the carpet in the church, which meant that most of the doors had to be cut to fit over the higher carpet. At the same time Paul and Pat were prepping the doors to be painted. It takes a lot of preparation to paint them; you have to measure, remove, shave, hang, measure, rehang, sand, patch, sand, and caulk. You have to know what's underneath before you can put on what's new. And the carpet layers especially need to know what's underneath. Sometimes old carpets can be used again, in pieces. Old hinges can be reused, after being soaked in thinner to remove old paint.
This week in the office I was aware of how much time was going in these projects. And I became aware of how much prep work I was doing on Revelation, teasing out the old testament verses, figuring out which ones mattered for our understanding. And I realized that John, the author or Revelation, had to cut Daniel to fit the new but similar situation of the church.
John draws on old testament ideas and imagery, especially from the apocalyptic book of Daniel. Daniel encourages and consoles Jews facing persecution during the reign of Antiochus, a Seleucid, or Greek, king. (Antiochus tries to turn the Judahites into good Greeks in the second century b.c.e ) Daniel uses the six hundred year old setting of the Babylonian exile to prophesy of faithfulness and deliverance.
In the late first century, after Jesus was resurrected, and the Christian church began, the Roman emperor Domitian begins persecuting the church. And so John spruces up old ideas from Daniel to encourage churches to withstand their persecution by Rome and thrive as witnesses to Jesus Christ. As Ginger reads from Revelation, I'll read from related Bible verses, mostly from the old testament.
Listen for the word of God as it is found in Revelation 11:19-12:18.
19 Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail. The God of glory thunders, the LORD, over mighty waters. The voice of the L ORD flashes forth flames of fire. Psalm 29: 3b, 7
1 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. 2 She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth. Before she was in labor she gave birth; before her pain came upon her she delivered a son. Isaiah 66:7 And as a woman in travail draws nigh to be delivered, and cries out in her pain; so have we been to your beloved. For, behold, the Lord is bringing wrath from his holy place upon the dwellers on the earth: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall not cover her slain. Isaiah 26:17, 21, Septuagint. (1)
3 Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. Then I desired to know the truth concerning the fourth beast…and concerning the ten horns that were on its head, and concerning the other horn…. As I looked, this horn made war with the holy ones and was prevailing over them, as for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings shall arise, and another shall arise after them. Daniel 7:19a, 20a, 21, 24a.
4 His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. [The horn] threw down to the earth some of the host and some of the stars, and trampled on them. Daniel 8: 10
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. And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. I will tell of the decree of the L ORD : He said to me, "You are my son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron." Psalm 2:7-9a The Lord shall send out a rod of power for you out of Zion : rule in the midst of your enemies. Septuagint version of Psalm 110: 2-3
But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne; 6 and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred sixty days. (2)In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? John 14:2
7 And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. But I am to tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth. There is no one with me who contends against these princes except Michael, your prince. Daniel 10:21
"At that time Michael, the great prince, the protector of your people, shall arise. There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. Daniel 12:1
The dragon and his angels fought back, 8 but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9 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. On that day the L ORD with his cruel and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will kill the dragon that is in the sea. Isaiah 27:1
10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming, "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah, for the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. 11 But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death. You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. 1 Peter 1:19
12 Rejoice then, you heavens and those who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, Rejoice, ye heavens, with him, and let all the angels of God worship him; rejoice ye Gentiles, with his people, and let all the sons of God strengthen themselves in him; for he will avenge the blood of his sons, and he will render vengeance, and recompense justice to his enemies, and will reward them that hate him; and the Lord shall purge the land of his people. Deuteronomy 32:43
for the devil has come down to you with great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!" Do you not know this from of old, ever since mortals were placed on earth, that the exulting of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless is but for a moment? Job 20:4-5
13 So when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. 14 But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle, so that she could fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to her place where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. The L ORD your God, who goes before you, is the one who will fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your very eyes, and in the wilderness, where you saw how the L ORD your God carried you, just as one carries a child… Deuteronomy 1:30-31 You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Exodus 19: 4 Thus says the L ORD : The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness; when Israel sought for rest, Jeremiah 31:2 A voice cries out: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the L ORD , make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Isaiah 40:3
15 Then from his mouth the serpent poured water like a river after the woman, to sweep her away with the flood. When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid; the very deep trembled. Psalm 77:16
16 But the earth came to the help of the woman; it opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the earth. You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. You cut openings for springs and torrents; you dried up ever-flowing streams. Psalm 74:12-15
17 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. The two kings, their minds bent on evil, shall sit at one table and exchange lies. But it shall not succeed, for there remains an end at the time appointed. [One] (3)shall return to his land with great wealth, but his heart shall be set against the holy covenant. He shall work his will, and return to his own land. He shall be enraged and take action against the holy covenant. He shall turn back and pay heed to those who forsake the holy covenant. Daniel 11:27,28,30b
18 Then the dragon took his stand on the sand of the seashore.
This ends our reading of God's word. I appreciate being able to read what scholars think about Revelation; I don't even mind reading that imagery from Revelation draws on Egyptian, Ugaritic, Babylonian, and Roman myths. I do spare you reading those myths, though. I get impatient with faith traditions that don't think their sacred texts can stand up to scholarly criticism. One Muslim scholar, Abu Zaid, is in exile from Egypt . He worked hard on a literary critique of the Qu'ran. As a result of his academic work, he was judged an apostate by an Islamic Court, forced to divorce his wife and banished from his country.
And then there's the scholar whose book says that the 72 virgins in heaven really meant 72 grapes in heaven. He has to publish under the name Christoph Luxenberg so he won't be persecuted. Lest I get too judgmental toward Muslims, I have to remember what the Presbyterians in the US did in 1893. A pastor and seminary professor, Charles Briggs, wanted to teach the new biblical criticism he learned in Germany . He was excommunicated from the Presbyterian church, and his seminary split from the denomination. And it wasn't just the Presbyterians; over the centuries other churches have excommunicated, tortured, and even executed scholars for examining the Bible critically. I did a funeral for a man who was asked to leave his church because he talked about what natural phenomena could have caused the Red Sea to part and let the Hebrews pass through.
When I study, I find my faith deepened. I pray to be open to God's word. I like knowing where ideas in the Bible come from. I always have a lot of questions about the text. Revelation 12 was a little more fun than the first 11 chapters, what with the woman sprouting eagles' wings and flying off to safety. The woman represents Israel-Zion, or the heavenly church, or the wisdom of God, or the messianic community on earth. One commentary summed it all up by saying “The vision intends a multivalent mythological symbolization of transpersonal divine realities.” (4)I love that line. It means there's a bunch of different ways to interpret this holy figure.
This chapter lists different names for the divine evil being: devil, dragon, Satan, serpent. Later chapters personify evil as the beast. Other names are adversary, slanderer, Leviathan, deceiver. One theologian says “Satan symbolizes that which stands between humans and the divine presence, and the personification of him as a dragon or a serpent is a sign of the reality of evil. …Satan's power …can be institutional and social as well as personal. The beast is the embodiment of evil power. Evil does not take the form of a single king but an imperial institution …; it is a way of operating, and its agents … take many shapes. Babylon is not an individual but a city with its whole network of relationships and institutions contributing to a pattern of life, …which John calls fornication.” (5)
Did you notice that the dragon had seven diadems on each of its seven heads? That's forty-nine crowns; excessive wealth is included in this description of evil. Forty-nine crowns would have kept a lot of peasants out of poverty. And there were a lot of poor peasants in those days. We have a lot of poor people now. At the peacemaking conference I was at, we talked a lot about how economic globalization exploits the poorest of the poor and benefits the richest of the rich. Wealth is not bad in and of itself, but how one acquires wealth can be very bad.
One of our speakers said that we don't tell of the horrors of exploitation, destitution and slavery to wallow in the bad news, but to hold up another light up to it; if we examine it, admit it exists, then we might learn to live the new way God is revealing to us.
One way I learned was about a fund called Oikocredit that supports agencies that give out microloans. It's hard to believe that a $100 loan to one woman for one year can lift an entire family out of poverty for many years, but it can and it has. Lots of those small loans have already been made in Africa, Asian, and Latin America , and the payback rate is 93%. In the US , loans have just a 79% payback rate.
Revelation is about facing evil. Jesus rooted out evil not just in individuals, but in society as well, challenging unjust temple laws as well as oppressive strategies of the Romans. The system apparently crushed him on the cross. But the resurrection gives the lie to the system's power. And Revelation also exposes that lie. Be not afraid. An early civil rights pastor, Howard Thurman, said “Fear causes insecurity; and once fear takes hold, we will do anything we can to prevent it. Prayer and dignity prevent fear. A profound sense of worth immunizes us against believing the world that tells us we are nothing. And in Revelation 12, we learn that we are worth protecting. Evil's power is great, but God's power is greater. Please join me in our statement of faith.
What is the nature of resurrection hope?
Resurrection hope is a hope for the transformation of this world, not a hope for escape from it. It is the hope that evil in all its forms will be utterly eradicated, that past history will be redeemed, and that all the things that ever were will be made new. It is the hope of a new creation, a new heaven, and a new earth, in which God is really honored as God, human beings are truly loving, and peace and justice reign on earth.
Does resurrection hope mean that we don't have to take action to relieve the suffering of this world?
No. When the great hope is truly alive, small hopes arise even now for alleviating the suffering of the present time. Reconciliation—with God, with one another, and with oneself—is the great hope God has given to the world. While we commit to God the needs of the whole world in our prayers, we also know that we are commissioned to be instruments of God's peace. When hostility, injustice, and suffering are overcome here and now, we anticipated the end of all things—the life that God brings out of death, which is the meaning of resurrection hope.
Amen.
(1)The Septuagint is a third century b.c.e. Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Legend (Letter of Aristeas) says 72 Jewish translators worked on it, and so the Septuagint is often abbreviated by the Roman numerals. LXX.
(2)T he mysterious 1,260 days is really just a reference back to Daniel where he said the faithful “shall be given into [an enemy's] power for a time, two times, and half a time.” (7:25) It's a year, plus 2 years, plus half a year, 3 and half years, which is roughly 1,260 days. Harper's Bible Dictionary says it was 7 out of 19 years they added a second Adar. This works if the months are 29.5 days long, p. 1,072.The time period isn't indefinite; it is limited.
(3)NRSV he
(4)Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth, Revelation: Vision of a Just World, p.81.
(5)The New Interpreter's Bible, vol. XII, p. 653.
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First Presbyterian Church