Day by day Devotional • December 21
A Studying from Revelation 12:1-10
1 An amazing portent appeared in heaven: a girl clothed with the solar, with the moon beneath her toes, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. 2 She was pregnant and was crying out in delivery pangs, within the agony of giving delivery.3 Then one other portent appeared in heaven: an incredible purple dragon, with seven heads and ten horns and 7 diadems on his heads. 4 His tail swept down a 3rd of the celebrities of heaven and threw them to the earth. Then the dragon stood earlier than the lady who was about to ship a toddler, in order that he would possibly devour her little one as quickly because it was born. 5 And she or he gave delivery to a son, a male little one, who’s to rule all of the nations with a scepter of iron. However her little one was snatched away and brought to God and to his throne, 6 and the lady fled into the wilderness, the place she has a spot ready by God, in order that there she might be nourished for one thousand 200 sixty days.
7 And struggle broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought in opposition to the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought again, 8 however they have been defeated, and there was now not anyplace for them in heaven. 9 The good dragon was thrown down, that historic serpent, who is named the satan and Devil, the deceiver of the entire world—he was thrown right down to the earth, and his angels have been thrown down with him.
10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven proclaiming,
“Now have come the salvation and the facility
and the dominion of our God
and the authority of his Messiah,
for the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down,
who accuses them day and night time earlier than our God.
Meditation
Yearly, the Creation readings shock me. Because the festivity of Christmas Day approaches—as I pick a tree, bake cookies, and wrap presents—I count on candy passages about love and hope, starlight and woodsy fragrances (Frankincense! Myrrh!). I count on innocuous passages concerning the pending delivery of Jesus, a chubby, sleepy child. I count on one thing simple and lightweight. In different phrases, I count on to learn a tidied-up Scripture that doesn’t really exist.
As a substitute, I discover these weird apocalyptic visions, such because the one we learn from Revelation as we speak. A pregnant girl clothed within the solar, topped with stars, standing on the moon. A ferocious, offended dragon bent on devouring the lady’s new child little one. An amazing struggle in heaven between the angel Michael and mentioned dragon. It’s, nicely, bizarre, and in no way the type of factor I affiliate with cheery celebrations of Christmas.
We may speak concerning the symbolic that means of those portents, and there’s lots to unpack there. As a substitute, I’d wish to direct us to the strangeness of this passage, to permit its unusual texture and really feel to essentially sink into us as we speak. One thing essential and strange is about to occur. The delivery of God. God coming into creation. God turning into certainly one of us. It’s the form of factor we Christians discuss and listen to others discuss so usually, we are able to turn into numb to the way in which this radical occasion has reshaped all of human historical past. At present, let this weird imaginative and prescient open our eyes to the astounding and great thriller of Jesus.
Elizabeth Hamilton’s writing has appeared within the Dallas Museum of Artwork, Southern Humanities Assessment, and Texas Month-to-month. She has an MFA from Seattle Pacific College. Discover her work at elizabethannehamilton.com
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Day by day Devotional Cycle of Prayer
At present we pray for:
