Red Dragons

God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant could be seen in the temple. A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth. 

Then another sign appeared in the sky; it was a huge red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven diadems. Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth.  

She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod. Her child was caught up to God and his throne. The woman herself fled into the desert where she had a place prepared by God. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have salvation and power come, and the Kingdom of our God and the authority of his Anointed.” (Revelation 11:19,12:1-6, 10)

Twelve is the number for Israel because of the 12 tribes.  Mary’s crown likely represented those tribes.  After all, Mary was Jewish, as was the author of Revelation probably written between 81-96 during the reign of Domitian and after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.  Jesus, of course, is the child, the Messiah,  

The red dragon represents Satan and evil forces – the dragon of chaos as opposed to the God of order.  Its seven heads represent ancient Rome – the city built on seven hills: the Palatine, Capitoline, Quirinal, Caelian, Aventine, Esquiline, and Viminal.

Alternately, the seven might have represented Satan's dominion over the seven world empires that alternately ruled the Jewish people: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, and the future Revived Roman Empire.  There is no way to confidently know the author’s intent.

According to Scottish scholar, William Barclay, in his 1959 study of Revelation: “The picture of the dragon sweeping the stars from the sky with its tail comes from the picture in Daniel of the little horn [Roman emperor Antiochus Epiphanes] who cast the stars to the ground and trampled on them.  The picture of the dragon waiting to devour the child comes from Jeremiah in which it is said of Nebuchadnezzar that ‘he has swallowed me like a monster.’” Revelation is a study unto itself.  

Perhaps the message for us today is the passage: “…I heard a loud voice in heaven say: ‘Now have salvation and power come, and the Kingdom of our God and the authority of his Anointed.’”  We await our Christ whose birth we celebrate this month.  He is our salvation and power, when we choose to use that power to resist and fight evil.  Many red dragons confront us.  They have many heads and horns.  Let us make sure they don’t devour us.  They keep trying.

Deacon David Pierce