I believe, it is decidedly unoriginal to say that something
out of the book of Revelation is bizarre, but I’m going to anyway: the twelfth
chapter of Revelation is really bizarre. Especially during Advent, people are
often inundated with renderings and readings of the birth of Christ from the
gospels of Matthew and Luke, but not often do we Christians flip our texts open
to the back end of the New Testament to read the other nativity story. You
know, it’s the one with a seven-headed dragon, a woman crowned with stars who is
dressed in the sun, and an epic spiritual battle between archangels, angels,
and demons!
There are many things that could (and have been said) about
the meaning, plot, and theological nuances of the Revelation 12. Who is the celestial
woman? Where and when did these events occur? Did they occur at all or are John’s
words that he saw a “sign” mean they are to be taken metaphorically? To these
and many other inquiries, I leave you to your own study. However, there is one
thing presented in Revelation 12 that, to me, is not only the central message
of the chapter but also encompasses within it a key aspect of the Advent
season. That thing is idea of the in-between.
Here is what I mean. In the last few years, when I ruminate
on Revelation’s nativity scene, my mind often lands on a friend I had a few
years back, whom I met working at a soup kitchen in Juarez. In homage to the
season, I will refer to her as Mary. When I met Mary, she and her husband were
expecting a child, and it was evident, with every encounter, that she was overjoyed
to be having a baby. As we grew closer with Mary and her family, the group of
friends we were a part of experienced many joys in anticipating the arrival of
her newborn. There were baby gifts, a growing belly, complaints of achiness and
morning sickness, occasionally one of our female friends would even probe Mary’s
belly convinced the little tike was kicking her hand.
Soon, however, we started to notice that Mary was having
some troubling interactions with some of the other workers at the soup kitchen,
other ladies who had been working there for a while. At first, my friends and I
just noticed some subtle things like when Mary would talk about her baby in
front of certain people, there would be a huff or an eye roll or a head shake.
It seemed a little rude, but I just assumed I was misunderstanding their
reactions. Not long thereafter, we began to see instances where Mary, obviously
distraught, would leave the soup kitchen early after speaking with some of these
ladies. Eventually, one day, in the dusty concrete structure that served as our
mess hall, we found Mary alone, crying, and angry. When we asked her why she
was so upset, she would only tell us that one of the ladies had said something
incredibly mean to her. My friends and I decided it was time to get to the
bottom of this behavior.
So, the next time we were together working to prepare a
lunch, we slyly tried to probe the woman who had supposedly said these things
to Mary. She and some of the other workers said that they believed Mary was a
liar who was manipulating people into buying her things. They recounted how Mary
had claimed to be pregnant many times before and never had a baby! She would
occasionally come to the soup kitchen with high hopes that she was with child,
and for the first couple times, the ladies said they would celebrate and
prepare with Mary. But, this pregnancy being the fourth or fifth iteration of
her tale, the women had begun to believe her to be some grand grifter vying for
the spoils of rich Americans who would come to serve in the soup kitchen.
None of this made much sense to me. Mary was not poor in the
way others were so desperate in the neighborhood, and she never inquired about
handouts or the like. Her husband had a steady job, they had a large
comfortable home (at least in comparison to her friends and neighbors), and she
was usually generous with both her time and money. In fact, in my memory, I was
more often on the receiving end of her hospitality and generosity than the
other way around. So, I was more than skeptical of what these women at the soup
kitchen were telling me. I just didn’t see evidence that the pregnancy was faked.
Nonetheless, when it came around the time for her to
deliver, she simply disappeared. We could not get a hold of her. Maintaining
hope, I convinced myself that she was simply recuperating from childbirth and
tried to stave-off dread that something terrible had happened during the birth.
After a few weeks, with a hung head, and a gaze that was devoid of eye contact,
she came around to see us.
She admitted that she did not have a baby, was never
actually pregnant, and that this was not the first time such a thing had
happened (something she had never told us before). By her telling, every time
she thought she was pregnant, she was really convinced that she was! Her body
would go through the changes, she would feel that the baby was growing within
her, and a sense of expectation would progress in her household. But each time,
when birth pangs began, she would rush to the doctor only to arduously find out
that her womb was empty. Then, her “symptoms” of pregnancy would slowly
dissipate. I have often wondered how she could get so far along before she or
any doctor realized that she was having a false pregnancy, but it is not
uncommon for women in her area and economic standing to not have the best, or
any, access to proper medical care. And although, as I mentioned, she and her
husband were better off than many in the area, they would still be considered
deeply impoverished by U.S. standards.
The truth is, I believed her. I still do. At the time, my
heart ached for her. And now, raising my own children and having had the
amazing opportunity to anticipate their coming, my heart actually breaks when I
remember walking with her through this situation. I can’t imagine the pain she
and her family must have felt when hopes for a child were dashed.
When I think of her now, in connection with Revelation 12, I
cannot help but think that this situation poignantly illustrates what
Revelation means to tell us and what a large part of Advent means to remind us
– we are in the in-between! A large part of Revelation 12 is spent telling how
Satan is repeatedly defeated until he is finally thrown to earth where he wages
war against “those who keep God’s command and hold fast their testimony about
Jesus Christ.” In Contrast, the chapter also tells us that the Christ child was
snatched up to the throne of God, which is meant to show Jesus’ true reign in the
post-resurrection/ ascension era. Revelation 12 also says that “now have come the salvation and the
power and the kingdom of God” and that “[believers] triumphed over [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of
their testimony! “ [it. added]. There is a real tension here that John
highlights. On the one hand, we ought to expect the hardship that comes from an
enemy who continually wages war against us, and yet on the other we have the
hope and assurance that the victory is already won.
That is to say, there is tension because we live in-between
two Advents. Christ has come, and He will come again; Christ inaugurated his
Kingdom when He rose, and we will consummate it when He returns! In the
meantime, 1 Peter 5:8-9 tells us, and I believe Revelation 12 confirms, that
our enemy prowls around like a lion seeking to devour us! And, although we can
rest assured in the power and salvation of the blood of the Lamb, we
continually wait for Him to finish what He started. We wait for him to return.
Advent is a season to remember what Christ has done and how the Presence of the
Lord, in the form of Jesus, broke into our reality to offer redemption and
salvation. But, maybe even more, Advent reminds us, as we anticipate Christmas
Day, that we perpetually wait for Jesus to come again!
Was my friend Mary’s ordeal a spiritual attack, a
psychological ailment, or simply a by-product of a broken creation? I am not
sure. Maybe, it was one or all of these things. What I do know, is that the “time
is short.” I hope and pray that she sought and was able to find real healing in
the wake of the tragic loss of her baby, even if her child only ever existed in
her mind. I also prayerfully hope that she, like many of us in this season of
hope, is able to cling to a different sense of expectation as she awaits the
arrival of our Lord. In this, I am confident there will come a time when our
damn-ed creation will breathe anew, when Mary’s pain will be replaced with joy
and everlasting love, when the tears of loss she shed will be forgotten for He
will have wiped them away, because then there will be no more mourning or
crying or pain.
