Revelation 12 -- It Just Got Weird

Up to this point some of the images have been strange, and some of the concepts of Revelation have stretched us, but this chapter puts a new art to the weirdness. The woman giving birth to a male child and the serpent, the devil, waiting to devour the child. There is a torrent river, the earth opening up, and torment of all the other children of the woman. Closed with an encouragement to hold to the testimony of Jesus.

Strange I can do, I do not even mind weird, it simply takes some time to process. The great temptation is to declare with certainty that the woman is Mary, and the child is Jesus. That certainly is a possibility which can be supported by the study of scripture. Another possibility is the woman is a God figure, and the child is Adam. Many are not comfortable with God as a female, but God is genderless, and since the days of creation Satan has been attempting to devour the children of creation.

No matter who is represented by the woman and the child, I do not think we are suppose to always know, what we can know is there is a battle. Satan is working to stop all the works of God. Not only to stop it, but to completely devour all the things of God. This means until the final victory is seen as reality, we on earth are the object of the enemies attack. As we prepare to celebrate the coming of our victor, Jesus, we can expect the enemy to be active. If humanity were to focus on the true celebration this Christmas, the enemy might lose some ground, so the battle is on.

The final encouragement of the chapter are words for all of us to hold on to, hold on to the testimony of Jesus. Many things will tug at you this Christmas time. It might be easy to lose sight of Christ in this time. We must fight the good fight and do all we can to resist the pull of the enemy. This might mean changing the patters of what we do, so we are ready.