The Woman and the Dragon

CHAPTERS 12 AND 13 of the Revelation to John mark the beginning of an incredible drama, of a struggle of cosmic proportions. There are three dramatis personae: the woman, the dragon, and the child. All three are well-known images in apocalyptic writing and always portray specific realities, for those who write as well as for those who read. As he does so often, John reaches back again into the history of Israel to interpret the situation of the church in the world of his day. The powerful paradigm of the Exodus ... is taken a step farther (Revelation 12:l-2a):

And 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; she was with child...

The woman is the image of the people of God, the Messianic community out of which the Messiah is to be born, and she faces, alone and defenseless "a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads" (12:3). The very intent of the description seems to be that we should not try to picture this monster, so horrific is he. On his heads are symbols of royalty and dominion.

In his monstrous hellish power and malignity, the monster arrogates to himself power we cannot even imagine. As demonstration of this power and his willingness to use it, and surely to crumble any resistance beforehand, "his tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth" (12:4).

I can think of three reasons why the dragon sets out to kill the child. The first reason lies in the fact that the woman is pregnant, for that alone is an indication that the dragon has lost before the battle has truly begun. Almost from the very beginning the biblical writers knew the contrast and tension between barrenness and the gift of having children.

Barrenness is the way of human history without God. It is hopelessness, powerlessness, joylessness. It is to be without a future and without human power to invent a future. Wherever this theme appears, it is laden with depth and meaning far beyond the circumstances of the story, as with Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Hannah. And always the future of God's people - nay, more, the truthfulness of God's promises - is at stake.

"But barrenness is not only the condition of hopeless humanity. The marvel of biblical faith is that barrenness is the arena of God's life-giving action," writes theologian Walter Brueggemann. And as Yahweh steps into this hopeless, barren void and speaks a word of life which gives life to God's promises and creates a future for God's people, a major victory is won over the forces of death and despair.

Already it is clear: Not hopelessness but hope and joy shall triumph, not death but life shall reign. God ends the barrenness of Israel, and Sarah gives birth to Isaac, a living, tangible sign of promise. And, again, into the barrenness of slavery and bondage in Egypt comes God's life-giving and liberating word, and the Exodus is living promise and life-giving reality.

A second reason for the dragon to kill the child is that the woman's pregnancy is a sign that God has already taken up the fight for her. She is indeed defenseless, but the living and life-giving God is her helper, and therein lies her strength. Listen again as Hannah, the defenseless one, sings of her Lord (1 Samuel 2:1-2, 9-10):

My heart exults in the Lord;
my strength is exalted in the Lord...
There is none holy like the Lord,
there is none besides thee;
there is no rock like our God.

The Lord will guard the feet of the faithful ones;
but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness;
for not by might shall a man prevail...
The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces.

The third reason lies in the fact that her child will give life to the world even as the woman gives life to the child. To bring life to a lifeless world means to break the hold of the dragon over this world. The child will teach the world the meaning of real, meaningful, truthful life. Because that is so, all life in the world that depends on power and might and destruction and fear will be exposed, unmasked as meaningless, as lifeless as death. And because this is so, the dragon knows of only one solution: The child must die.

THE WOMAN IS AS DEFENSELESS against this dragon as Israel was against Egypt. She is defenseless and weak, but she is the bearer of life and hope. Besides, it is in loving and giving life that one is most vulnerable. Israel's new birth through the Exodus meant a new life, away from slavery and bondage, in the freedom of the service of the Living One. It meant leaving Egypt, land of enslavement and death, and walking in the footsteps of God to the land of promise and life. It meant leaving the "security" of Egypt, which was based on servitude and violence, and taking the risk of freedom and obedience, depending on nothing else but the promises of the Lord.

Listening to that voice, walking away from Egypt, was the public denouncement of the power and the gods of Egypt which were - how could it be otherwise? - Pharaoh. In taking that risk, Israel was most vulnerable, but it is a vulnerability which comes of God and which in the end is strength and power and glory.

The wilderness is once again the hiding place; it offers protection. It is the place to which Israel flees after the Exodus.

It is also a place in which to learn to depend entirely upon God and God's promise. It is the place where God gives Israel bread; more than that, it is the place where Israel receives the Ten Words - ten words of life without which no true human life is possible. For even then Israel knew that one shall not live by bread alone.

So although the wilderness can often be a place of fear, desolation, and temptation, here it is a reminder of the place where God offered Israel shelter and protection against "the great dragon that lies in the midst of his streams," as Ezekiel speaks of Pharaoh (Ezekiel 29:3).

John is meticulous in drawing the analogy. The time of the stay of the woman in the desert is 1,260 days. This equals 42 months and corresponds with the 42 stages of Israel's trek through the wilderness, about which we read in Numbers 33. The fullness of God's love and protection shall be the woman's until, so to speak, her journey is completed.

All this John applies to his own situation, and his readers relive once again the power of the story of Israel's liberation. There is God's people, the Messianic community out of whom the Messiah, the promised One of God, is to be born. This birth the dragon cannot prevent, and the child, who will rule with a rod of iron, gives life to the world, becomes the life and light of the world, and the darkness cannot overcome it.

The dragon is the great enemy of God and God's people. John is not directly speaking of the human personification of evil; that comes later. Here he is concerned with the power behind Pharaoh, or Herod, or Caesar: the devil, the serpent, the ancient enemy of God - the deceiver and liar, the accuser of God's children, the destroyer who cannot stand life and love and freedom.

AS DEFENSELESS AND POWERLESS as the woman is against the dragon, so is the church in the midst of the powers of the world. The church does not understand, nor does it seek to understand, the ways of worldly power. The church does not seek to master what is called the power game, nor employ what the world calls power. There is no question of becoming the world's equal in this regard, of finding an equal stand where we can be as strong, as threatening, as powerful as the world. For the power the world seeks is the power to dominate, to oppress; it is a power "over others" (see Matthew 20:25).

The church seeks power that is not over others but with others, power not to destroy but to build, not to dominate but to share, not to oppress but to liberate. True power is not the ability to claim but to serve. It is not the ability to destroy life in order to survive or feel secure, it is the ability to give one's own life so that others may live.

When we are willing to give up our life, the power of the world is truly unmasked as powerlessness, as mere brute force, and therefore inauthentic. The church should really know this. But we don't. We are far too busy imitating the power structures of the world in the life of the church. We really believe that the highest power in the church lies with bishops, moderators, and secretaries-general instead of in the daily risks of faith and obedience taken by the little people of God in the streets.

We are far more interested in speaking with the government than in speaking with the people. We send "high-powered" delegations to meet the "high-powered" delegation from the government. We do not know what we are doing. If we cannot understand these elementary things, how can we understand the joy and the anguish in that blessed paradox of true disciple-ship: giving one's life in order to save it in the life of others and the triumph of good?

But this is precisely what young blacks are teaching the church in South Africa today. Their statement directed at the South African government, "You can only kill us," is not simply the innocent, unthinking bravado of youth. That particular innocence was indeed displayed in 1976; we did not expect the South African government to react with such incredible violence to the nonviolent resistance of the young generation. Neither did we expect the horrific, cold-blooded murder of our children. That innocence was shot to pieces on the streets of Soweto.

We now know what the South African government is capable of doing in order to maintain white oppression in our country. What we are learning is the truth that in order for a new South Africa to be born, we have to be willing to give up our lives. We are learning the meaning of the reply to the souls underneath the altar. And in the process we have exposed the true nature of the South African state. Its only power is the power to destroy. It can never last. If the church as a whole in South Africa does not learn that now, soon it will have nothing to teach.

"NOW WAR AROSE IN HEAVEN" (12:7). John writes this with a nonchalance that is staggering. Either we follow the vast majority of commentators who spiritualize this war into absurdity, or we look for a way closer to John's meaning. John is expounding a truth that is basic to the biblical message and yet unpalatable for many. John is saying what Israel discovered in the Exodus: This God in whom the church believes, out of whose love the church lives, upon whose mercy the church stands, does not and cannot leave the church alone. This God refuses to remain aloof while God's people are locked in battle with the forces of evil. God becomes passionately involved when God's people suffer and struggle for the sake of the truth. And when they cry out the heavens are disturbed.

It is not true that the peace and bliss of heaven cannot be turned into battle, as some claim. John is saying exactly the opposite! The heavens are disturbed, even as Jesus was torn when he saw the suffering of God's people in the world. Isaiah knows better than modern commentators the relationship between God and God's people. He knows that "in all their affliction he was afflicted" (Isaiah 63:9), and he knows what it means to pray, "0 that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at thy presence" (Isaiah 64:1). This happens at the Exodus, and how Egypt, that mighty mountain, quaked in the presence of this Liberator God! John believes it will happen again.

Over and over the Bible rejoices in the truth that God cannot and will not simply stand on the sidelines and remain neutral. Neutrality is leaving things up to the dragon - no, taking the side of the dragon. And so in the struggle for shalom, for justice, for humanity and the true life of the church and of the world, God takes sides, becomes involved, makes war on behalf of God's people. Right down through the centuries, the Pharaohs, the Nebuchadnezzars, the Ahabs, and the Herods have discovered to their peril that they were not simply facing weak, powerless slaves. They have engaged in battle with the living God of heaven and earth who is afflicted in the affliction of God's people and wounded in their wounds. In God's presence the persecutors will disappear, "as when fire kindles brushwood" (Isaiah 64:2).

The prophets proclaim this and the psalms sing about it. In the struggle between Elijah and Ahab, Elijah not only represents God, he also represents Naboth, a symbol of the weak and defenseless, powerless against the power and greed of the king. And in taking the side of Elijah so that all Israel can know that Elijah speaks for God, God takes also the side of Naboth, wronged, robbed, murdered.

In the struggle of the prophets against the rich and powerful in Israel for the sake of the poor and oppressed, God vindicates the prophets by taking up the cause of the poor for the whole world to see. God is a stronghold for the oppressed (Psalm 9:9); God does defend the cause of the poorest, give liberation to the needy, and crush their oppressor (Psalm 72:4). John believes it will happen again.

The one who takes charge in this war on the side of the heavenly hosts is Michael, whose name immediately takes us back (again!) to the story of the Exodus. "Michael" means "Who is like God?" Again the church hears the proud, arrogant question of the all-powerful Pharaoh: "Who is this God, that I should listen to his voice?" Again the church is reminded of God's intention: "That you [ Pharaoh ] may know that there is none like me in all the earth" (Exodus 9:14).

In the struggle against the powers of evil, the church is small and defenseless. The little people of God are no match for the strong, proud, arrogant men with their medals and loud voices and weaponry. Their menacing presence seems to fill not only the earth but the heavens too, and the insane clamor of their armaments is all around us. Behind them the dragon rises up and shakes the stars with his preventive show of force in order to intimidate the faithful. The struggle is uneven; it seems that the battle will be lost even before it has begun.

The appearance of Michael changes all this. His very presence is an announcement of the power of God, a question whose answer is already given. The answer is given in the Exodus, in the actions of God in history for the sake of God's people, in the resurrection of Jesus, in the coming liberation of the church. In spite of Pharaoh or Herod or Caesar, Michael's presence already represents victory. Who is like God? The church can only answer with the prophets: "There is none like thee, Lord."

THE APPEARANCE OP MICHAEL and his angels does not mean the end of the battle. To the contrary, the dragon is extraordinarily combative. He knows that the birth of this child constitutes a threat to his power. He will not give up his rule without a fight. But he is defeated, he and his angels: "There was no longer any place for them in heaven" (12:8).

The first battle is won, and, at least in heaven, there is no more room for him. What he has unrightfully claimed in the first place is now reclaimed by God. John calls him by all his names and therefore names all his works: the ancient serpent, Devil, Satan, deceiver of the whole world - he is overthrown, conquered, thrown down to earth.

In the understanding of the early church, this is what Jesus Christ had done in his battle against the powers of evil. In his life, death, and resurrection he had conquered or, in the words of the writer of the First Letter of John, "destroyed the works of the devil" (3:8).

Jesus came, not simply to pour oil on our wounds or cover up the sinfulness of the world. He came to destroy the works of Satan. He did this not by matching the power of Satan with equal power, not with propaganda or violence, or with the simple, pietistic sentimentality of the sweet, gentle Jesus invented by Western Christianity. He did it by his incarnation, his identification with the poor, the meek, and the lowly; by his engagement in the struggle for God's kingdom of shalom and justice and love, even at the price of his life.

In the life and death and resurrection of the Messiah, more than in anything else, God^s radical involvement in human history becomes clear. All this is reflected in Michael's war against the dragon. The Devil understands: If he will not give up his rule without a fight, certainly God will not give up the people, the world, or God's own purposes for the people and the world without a battle.

And now again there is a song of praise. Many make the mistake of interpreting this song, as they do the other songs in this book, in a purely triumphalistic fashion. Others ask if it is not premature to sing when the battle is not yet over. Neither view is correct.

Oppressed people in South Africa understand the need for singing. Sometimes a song is a song of triumph, celebrating a success, expressing hope that the ultimate victory will come. It is a song of anticipation. Other songs express mourning, ask painful questions that cannot easily be answered. Still other songs simply express the reality of our situation. This reality is not merely discussed or analyzed intellectually, it is sung and, by being sung, is brought into the sharpest focus not only in our minds but also in our hearts. Such a song is the song of Revelation 12.

This song has nothing to do with the shallow, triumphalistic "Jesus-is-the-answer" theology with which oppressed people are so often taught to comfort themselves. Neither is it premature, for the battle is won, even though the struggle is not yet over. And besides, it drives the dragon crazy when you sing about his downfall even though you are bleeding.

The song falls into three parts. "Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of Christ have come" (12:10). The battle has been won, even though it may take time for the end to come. In principle, the dragon has lost. We are engaged, then, not simply in a struggle but in a struggle which has to end in final victory. Note how John pinpoints all the attributes Caesar (as representative of the dragon) claims for himself: salvation (liberation), power, kingdom (rule, lordship), authority. These, he tells the church, do not belong to Caesar, not even to him for whom Caesar acts; they belong to our God and to Christ.

THE SECOND THEME is sung with fear and trembling; it is sober and quiet, almost chilling. "And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death" (12:11). God's victory is also the victory of the saints. Two things claim our attention here.

First, there is a war on; there is a struggle. There is a fight for justice, peace, freedom, and reconciliation. These are not things that come to us on the wheels of inevitability. They must be fought for.

Reconciliation presupposes alienation, from the Living One and from one another. To be reconciled means to face the truth about ourselves and about the things we do to each other. It cannot mean covering up the truth because it is too painful. It means confrontation with the evil in the world, the evil within us.

Can white and black South Africans be reconciled without facing their history of three-and-a-half centuries of oppression? Can we be reconciled without facing the children who die of hunger while white South Africans die of overeating? Dare we face a future together without coming to terms with the past and the present, with the humiliation and the pain, the suffering, the prisons, the torture, the murder, the massacres?

Seeking reconciliation means facing the guilt and knowing the need for forgiveness. In order for Christ to reconcile the world with God, he had to die on the cross. What makes us think we will get away with less? The reconciliation we need is costly. It is won only through the pain of struggle.

Freedom, justice, peace are the antitheses of the reality we live with. They will become reality in South African life only if we fight for them. The forces of evil would keep our country the way it is. But we have another vision: the end to apartheid and racism, bringing openness and freedom, an end to hatred and bloodshed, bringing peace for our children so that it will no longer matter that one is black and the other white. But these things must be fought for.

In his book Ah, But Your Land Is Beautiful, Alan Paton introduces a cautious middle-class black man who belatedly joins the struggle. To his bemused white friend he explains, "When I go up there, which is my intention, the Big Judge [ in heaven] will say to me, Where are your wounds? and if I say I haven't any, he will say, Was there nothing to fight for?"

The second thing we must take note of is how the saints triumphed: "By the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death" (12:11). Here John first of all affirms the testimony of the church; Jesus Christ, in his death and resurrection, has won the victory over Satan. In him it has already happened. But it has to be affirmed by those who believe through their own testimony, their lives, their deeds, which proclaim the liberation Christ has given them. In doing this, they understand that although life is precious, they should not cling to it at all costs, at all times. This call to the most radical form of disciple-ship is the most difficult of all. And yet there is no other way.

We think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, of Martin Luther King Jr., of Oscar Romero and Steve Biko, of Kaj Munk and Olaf Palme. We think of Matthew Goniwe, Sparrow Mkhonto, Ford Calata, and David Mhlawuli and many others in our country who have given their lives in the struggle for justice and liberation. One stands at yet another grave and thinks, "This is what I must be prepared for" - and one trembles.

We hear again the threatening voices and see what is happening, and we rise up in anger at those who speak so glibly of martyrdom. We get even angrier at those who, while hiding behind the guns of the oppressor, accuse us of seeking to become martyrs. There is no way to explain this to those who will never understand what it means to know that life may be all one has, but it is not all there is. We love life because it is a gift of God, we protect it from the destroyers of the earth because it is sacred, and yet we are willing to give it up for the sake of others because giving it thus is a gift of God too.

THE THIRD THEME of the song is as much sober reflection as warning. "Rejoice then, 0 heaven and you that dwell therein! But woe to you, 0 earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!" (12:12). The theme is carried by the blessed paradox we have talked about. The devil is conquered, we have seen it, but the struggle is not yet over. The battle is won in heaven, but it is yet to begin in all earnest on earth. Even as the church rejoices in the first victory, it prepares for difficult days ahead. The devil has come down "in great wrath" because he has lost, but also because he knows his time is short. And precisely because his time is short he will do as much damage as he can.

How well do we know that! The South African government's time is up. That we know. We are seeing the beginning of the end. But that does not stop them. Still they invent new weapons, which they display with great pride at the Arms Fair in Brazil. Still they announce newer, more refined "anti-riot" equipment: instant barbed-wire fences falling out of the back of a truck like deadly vomit out of the mouth of a dragon. Still they legislate new powers for Louis Le Grange, minister for law and order, to declare any area an "unrest area," which means an emergency area without officially declaring a state of emergency.

But oppressed people know what that means: the respectability of "law" for wanton destruction, unending streams of arrests, besieged townships, invaded communities and homes, fear-ridden streets, thousands of policemen and soldiers, grim and wild-eyed as they feverishly grip their guns - in a word, legalized murder. Indeed, how well John knows it. Woe! Oy! Prepare yourself, for he knows his time is short. But then again, rejoice! For we know it too.

AS THE DRAGON SEES that he has lost the battle in heaven and is thrown down on the earth, he turns his rage on the woman once more. But she is in the care of God and escapes on the wings of an eagle. John never loses the thread of his narrative. Just as Pharaoh had given orders to drive the children of Israel into the sea, so the dragon spews forth a great river of water to drown the woman. It is almost as if John's congregation spontaneously picks up the words as the Exodus story unfolds: "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).

As this last desperate attempt to kill the woman fails, a curious thing happens. John puts it down without any explanation. "But the earth came to the help of the woman" (12:16). I do not know how to understand this sentence unless it means that apart from divine intervention, in the struggle against the forces of evil, ordinary, earthly things come to the aid of the children of God.

For example, in South Africa, the curse and, for Christians, the deepest pain of apartheid has always been the claim that the policy is "Christian." For years, white Dutch Reformed churches worked on the theology of apartheid, distorting scripture, concocting arguments from the Bible in defense and justification of that evil system.

All of a sudden, out of the blue as it were, came the action of the General Council of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, held in Ottawa, Canada, in 1982. It is not as influential a group as the World Council of Churches; its actions are never taken as seriously. But this body declared apartheid a sin, and its theological justification and persistent disobedience to the Word of God a heresy.

The impact went beyond anyone's expectations. Suddenly the South African system was stripped of its moral claims, the churches who supported it standing exposed and shamed. All that was left were the naked greed, the lust for power, and the desperate fear.

Consider a second example. For years "banning" has been a favorite, extremely effective, albeit despised tactic of the South African government. A banned person may not leave a certain geographical area, may not be quoted, may not publish, may not enter the premises of certain stipulated institutions, may not speak with more than one person at a time, may not attend any political, social, or church gathering. The government went to a lot of trouble to make sure that this form of silencing their opponents was covered by legislation, and merely reading those laws is a drain on one's spirit.

But these people are human, and in 1985, in their haste to have as many people banned as possible, they made some mistakes that were picked up by a vigilant lawyer, who then had the courage to challenge one banning order in court. To everybody's surprise, and to our delight and the government's chagrin, the appeal was upheld and the banning order was declared invalid. A lawyer had seen the possibility, and a judge had the moral courage to challenge the beast. As a result, the government was forced to lift the remaining banning orders in order to avoid more open humiliation in court. It still happens: The earth comes to the help of the woman, and the children of God rejoice.

But there is still verse 17: "Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring....And he stood on the sand of the sea." The church has been warned. The battle is not over yet; a new phase is about to begin. The dragon is still very much alive. Angered beyond words, he stands on the sand of the sea. And waits.

Allan A. Boesak was president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, chaplain at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa and a Sojourners contributing editor when this article appeared.