Two
Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday August 24, 2025
Scripture: Revelation 12:1-17
And now we get to the dragons. Or a
dragon, since there is only one in this story.
This is maybe the most, “Wait?! What?! That’s in the Bible???” story
that we are going to read all summer, and I’ve been looking forward to this
week all summer.
I have loved fictional dragons ever since I read Anne McCaffrey’s Pern
books when I was in high school. The
dragons in her world were majestic beasts, coloured gold or bronze or green or
blue. Each dragon would telepathically
pair with a rider, and together, the rider and dragon would protect the planet
by breathing fire that scorched the Thread, a lethal substance that fell from
the sky like rain. Her world also
contained fire lizards, like mini-dragons, who were two small to be ridden and
unable to fight the Thread, but who still had the ability to bond with humans.
I only read the first Game of Thrones book, but I loved Daenerys’s
dragons that hatched at the end of it.
Then there is the dragon in The Paper Bag Princess, who is more
comical than scary. There is a dragon in
Narnia, specifically in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Actually, there
are two dragons, because when the old dragon dies, a greedy selfish child gets
transformed into a dragon and needs to be un-dragoned by learning that
relationships are more important than gold coins and jewels.
My list could go on. There are dragons
in Tolkien’s Middle Earth. There are
dragons in Harry Potter’s world. And who
doesn’t love Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon?!
And don’t forget the dragon on the Welsh Flag.
In fact, the screen name that I often use on the internet is Draig,
which is the Welsh word for “Dragon.”
But the dragon in the story from Revelation that we read today doesn’t have any
of the redeeming characteristics of most of these fictional dragons. The dragon that we read about in Revelation
is completely scary, wholly evil.
One of the keys to reading the Book of Revelation is to understand that it is
allegory. The author of this book isn’t
predicting some future event; instead, the author is writing about what was
going on in the right-now. But it has
always been dangerous to criticize those in power, and so to be safe, the
author writes in code, writes in allegory where one thing is standing in for
what is really going on.
This book was written in the very early years of the church, in a time before
Christianity became adopted as the official religion of the Roman Empire;
before, even, it was legal to be Christian.
Which, if you remember your history, led to all sorts of horrible
things. Christians being thrown to the
lions, etc.
Our early Christian ancestors were committed to their faith though. Despite all evidence to the contrary, they knew
that Jesus had lived, died, and risen again, and they were convinced that Jesus
was the Messiah, the anointed one, their saviour. Neither death nor the threat of torture and
death could sway them from following the Way of Jesus.
This is the world in which Revelation was written – a time when it was very
dangerous to be a follower of Jesus, a time when the threats were very real and
very violent, and a time when it might sometimes feel like the easier path
would just to give up and worship the Emperor in Rome rather than worshipping
God as made known in Jesus.
Enter the dragon, and a great cosmic battle.
On one side, we have a woman clothed with the sun, moon under her feet,
and a crown of twelve stars on her head.
Fighting on her behalf, we have Michael, and the rest of the good angels
in heaven. In the other corner, we have
the dragon, and the dragon also seems to have angels, or messengers of God, on
his side. In the course of the battle,
the dragon gets thrown out of heaven, down to earth.
Like I said, Revelation is written as allegory, with people and things within
the story representing something in real life.
So let’s explore these symbols a bit more.
Let’s start with the woman, clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet,
and wearing a crown of twelve stars. The
woman is pregnant, and in labour when the dragon attacks her, and we’re told
that the dragon wants to eat her baby as soon as it is born. Typical dragon behaviour. Her son is to rule the nations, and is taken
away to be with God, while the woman is left to run away from the dragon, into
the wilderness.
The son is a pretty easy symbol to pick apart, since it is almost certainly
referring to Jesus. A child who was born
to rule the world, who was taken out of the world to be with God.
So who then is the mother? The first
answer that pops into my mind is the literal answer – Mary. The mother who carried Jesus within her body,
then birthed him into the world, and raised him into who he became. Mary, who is sometimes call the Queen of
Heaven, and who is sometimes called Theotokos, or God-Bearer.
But that answer doesn’t quite fit, because even though her son was taken from
her too soon, she didn’t need to escape into the wilderness after his death,
afraid for her own life.
The other option, the other place where Christ is birthed, is in the
church. The church is the Body of
Christ. Every time we baptize a new
person, baby or adult, we are birthing a new part of the body of Christ. Every time we grow together in our faith, we
are nurturing the body of Christ. In
many ways, the church that stretches through time and across space is the
Mother of Christ and is clothed with glory.
That isn’t to say that the church is perfect – we are still human and we
still mess up – but we trust that the Holy Spirit is working in us,
transforming us ever-so-slowly, into this glory.
And Jesus was snatched away from the church too early. He only had a few years with his disciples,
who were the foundation of the early church; and after Jesus’s death, even as
the church grew exponentially, it was as if the church was thrust into the
wilderness without the immediate presence of Jesus, and vulnerable to all sorts
of dangers and persecution.
Which brings us to the dragon. Taken
alongside this other symbolism, the dragon is pretty easy to name as the Roman
Empire. The book of Revelation was
probably written either during the reign of Emperor Nero, or in the years
following his death. And in case it has
been a couple of years since you brushed up on your Ancient Roman History, some
of Emperor Nero’s “accomplishments” include:
suppressing a rebellion of the Indigenous people of England. Burning down the city of Rome so that he
could build a new palace, and then blaming the Christian community for the fire. Murdering anyone who opposed him, and
possibly murdering his mother, and possibly murdering his wife. Laying siege to the city of Jerusalem and
destroying the temple. Crashing the economy by abolishing taxes. Executing both Peter, Jesus’s disciple, and
the Apostle Paul. (Sometimes I wonder if
some of our world leaders today aren’t styling themselves after Nero…)
Life under the Emperor Nero wasn’t easy for anyone, not even for those closest
to him, and it was especially difficult for the early church who refused to
worship the emperor, and who made an easy target because they refused to fight
back, they chose to turn the other cheek instead, just as Jesus had taught. And so Nero and the whole machinery of the
Empire slide very easily into the image of a dragon trying to destroy the
woman, the church, in our story.
And as much as I love literary dragons, I don’t love this dragon, and I don’t
think that this is a story that is primarily about a dragon. I think that this is a story about hope. Because the dragon doesn’t win in this story.
The woman, the church, is given wings like an eagle (and here, the eagle’s
wings are meant to make us think back to Isaiah, and God carrying the people to
safety on the wings of an eagle, and not the eagle standards carried by the
Roman Legions). The woman is carried
away to safety, and the dragon turns its rage towards the rest of the woman’s
children, the children who remain faithful to God.
Which isn’t really a Happily Ever After sort of ending – more of a Happily For
Now. You have to read through to the end
of the book of Revelation to get the Happily Ever After, and unlike any novel,
the happy ending is truly forever and ever amen here. The end of Revelation describes a world
transformed into God’s peaceable kingdom, with no more tears, no more pain, no
more wars or fighting. And that dragon? We’re told that God binds up the dragon with
a strong chain, throws it into a bottomless pit, and seals the top.
And so to the original readers of Revelation, rather than a scary book, it is a
book that is filled with hope. It
describes the suffering that they are experiencing – using coded language, of
course, in case the manuscript falls into the wrong hands – it wouldn’t do for
a story depicting the horrific evils of Bad King Nero to fall into the hands of
Nero himself. The book describes for
them the suffering that they are experiencing, and reminds them that the
suffering isn’t the end of the story.
Our fight against the dragon will eventually end, and if we can hold on
long enough, the dragon will eventually be defeated, and God will dwell with
us, and we will be God’s people, and God will wipe every tear from our
eyes. Death will be no more; mourning
and crying and pain will be no more. We won’t need the sun and the moon any
more, for God will be our lantern and light; and there will be food and healing
for all. (Revelation, chapter 21, in case you want to look it up!)
And even though this book was written for a specific group of people,
undergoing specific persecutions, I think that this message is for all of us.
It can be discouraging to follow the news these days. Wars seem to be starting at a higher rate
than they are ending. Children are
starving in Gaza while much of the world looks the other way. Trust is disintegrating, everywhere you
look. People and groups seem to be
putting themselves in silos rather than looking for ways to work together. Everyone for themself, no matter who gets
trampled in the process.
And beyond the headlines, I know that many of us are dealing with dragons
closer to home – the loss of a loved one, struggling with a challenging
diagnosis, conflict within families or between friends.
But for all of us, the message of Revelation is that the dragon isn’t the end
of the story. No matter what dragons you
might be facing at the moment, either in your personal life or on the global
stage, know that in God’s story, dragons never win. Hold on, don’t give up hope, and trust in the
ending that is coming!
The message of Revelation is that the dragon isn’t the end of the story. The worst time is never the last time. Jesus’s story didn’t end with his
crucifixion, and the dragons can never win.
We are part of God’s story, and the ending is worth waiting for.
And may it be so. Amen.
A Dragon Skeleton I photographed last year
in Conwy, Wales
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