more from funerals

In my last post I chronicled the message of the preacher and some of the cultural dynamics at play in a funeral I attended recently.  Yet there are more insights I could share from such an experience.

1.  The event was actually a double-funeral.  The old man from the Bible School was buried alongside his twenty-something grandson. The deaths were said to be interrelated. The stress of hearing that his grandson had been stabbed to death by some of his gangster mates was too much for the old man.  Consequently, the other major dynamic at play in the preacher's message was the predicament of youth in modern South African culture.  This was not the first funeral we have attended for a young man who met a violent end; to my memory we have attended three other such funerals and have known of several other like incidents.  Youth violence among peers thus was the context for the preacher's admonition by way of the text not to look for Jesus "among one's relatives and friends".  "Friends may give you drugs," he said, referring to the known habit of the grandson to smoke dagga (marijuana) with his friends.

2.  The event also included a "tombstone unveiling" for a previously deceased member of the family.  Typically tombstone unveilings among the Xhosa are events separate from the burial of the dead, occurring perhaps a year or more later.  The tombstone unveiling on this day was quite literally an aside, performed in one corner of the large field where the funeral-goers were gathered for the burial, out of sight and earshot for many.  Still, I was able to get some explanation for the procedure.  The biblical justification for the tombstone unveiling was taken from Joshua 24:26-27, in which Joshua sets up a "large stone" as a witness against Israel should they forsake their pledge to "put away the gods that their ancestors served" and "serve the Lord" (24:14ff.).  Previously, I have seen church leaders base the practice on Genesis 35:20, in which Jacob "sets up a pillar" at the grave of his beloved Rachel, or 2 Samuel 18:18, in which Absalom sets up a pillar of remembrance prior to his own death because he had no son to do it for him.  What each of these texts has in common, it seems, is reference to a stone--and that in itself seemingly is enough to justify the practice of unveiling a stone for the dead in the name of being "biblical".

In my own cultural context for funerals, I don't ever recall the setting up of tombstones as something requiring special rationale; I suppose it is taken very much by the religious communities in which I grew up to be a stone of remembrance for the dead.  In the Xhosa context, however, it is clear that church leaders--if they have concerns that the event might be misconstrued by those attending--do feel pressure to explain the practice.  Thus, in this case, the attending bishop explained that "this is not a sin, we are not worshiping.  This is just a stone for remembrance."  He then proceeded by way of Joshua to locate the practice in the Bible, and also added the scriptural reference to Jesus Christ as the true "cornerstone."  I assume that the leader meant to guard against conceiving of the tombstone as a place where power could be conferred upon the dead person's living relatives, such as in the case of another pastor who once told the grandchildren at an unveiling for their grandfather that "now you have a place to come back to.  You can kneel here and be healed."  And so, while I still puzzle over how the stone of Israel's covenant with Yahweh is directly analogous to a stone of remembrance for a family's deceased, some rationale in the direction of memorial over magic is likely better than none.

3.  Xhosa funerals always include elaborate narratives from the person who most nearly attended or "nursed" the deceased in his or her last days or hours.  One of our students divulged to me that these narratives sometimes lend themselves to insinuating blame on others for the death of the person.  It has oft been noted that death in African traditional religion is not due to "natural causes"; there is a human agent of ill-will behind the death of a person.  Thus what in former times may have more commonly been ascribed to a witch (usually an old woman) plotting evil somewhere in the shadows (not that the days of fear of witchcraft have passed) has become in the present the fault of "some old woman who doesn't know how to drive" (my student's example), if the cause of death, for example, had been a car accident. The tendency to assign blame can easily drift into the call for vengeance (we found ourselves in the midst of such a situation at a funeral last year).  No such call was issued at this funeral, and the nearest blame for the death of the grandson was assigned to the grandson himself for not "listening to his parents"--a common complaint in the conflict between generations which deserves its own post.

Funerals are a treasure trove of cultural knowledge.  I am grateful to those African companions who enable me to reach some level of understanding.

-Joe

searching for Jesus

I had the privilege of hearing one of my students preach last Saturday at a funeral for another member of the Bible School.  I liked what he did with his chosen text, Luke 2:41-49.

The preacher fastened on two key lines in the story of the twelve-year-old Jesus' journey with his parents for the Passover in Jerusalem (2:41).  First, the preacher fixed on the fact that, when his parents departed Jerusalem after the festival not knowing that Jesus was not with them, "they started to look for him among their relatives and friends" (2:44).  Second, the preacher emphasized the "anxiety" of the parents when they could not find Jesus; "Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety", his mother says to Jesus after they have found him in the temple (2:48, 46).  The preacher's point was that, in his words, "Life is very painful outside of Jesus", and that the pain of life without Jesus cannot be quelled even among one's relatives and friends.  Rather, the deliverance from the anguish of life comes only in the persistent "search" for Jesus, just as his parents continued to look for him when he was not to be found in the company of their relatives and friends (2:44, 45).  It was only in that persistent search that they "found him" (2:46).

Jesus Among the Teachers, from the Jesus Mafa Collection

The implications of such a message were not lost on the preacher's Xhosa audience, which hung on his every word, many among them encouraging him on with whoops and hollers.  I suspect that the impact of the sermon, the preacher's gospel meeting the people's context, had a lot to do with the continuing tension between loyalty to one's blood family (the text's "relatives and friends") and allegiance to Jesus.  True believers often find themselves having to choose between participating in family rituals that invoke spirits other than or alongside Jesus or hold their ground in the name of an exclusive loyalty to Jesus.  Many Xhosa Christians have found the satisfaction of life with Jesus in a way that was unavailable to them in the traditions of their elders.  The overall persona of the preacher as he spoke about life "outside of Jesus" exhibited an intensity seemingly impossible for one in whom the struggle to honor Jesus above relatives is not real.

Other elements in the proceedings also attested the side-by-side existence of Christian and non-Christian approaches to the challenges of life among those gathered.  Hence, while Christianity and/or the culture of the church has in important senses clearly won the day in this society, one family member of the deceased who made an announcement near the close of the funeral had no compunction about saying that, with the spate of death that had befallen that family recently, he would recommend that they go consult a sangoma (traditional diviner) for a remedy.  This announcement came--and I don't think with any confrontation intended--even after the preacher's clear counsel that Jesus is the answer to life's questions.

Perhaps we can only say that, given the spiritual competitors still vying for our loyalty in this world, our search for Jesus goes on.  Where can he be found?

In details not particularly emphasized by the preacher, Luke's story of the boy Jesus leaves us not without direction.  Indeed, those who were searching for him found him "in the temple", in Jesus' own words, "in my Father's house", "sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions" (2:46, 49).  It is noted that Luke's writings (the gospel and the book of Acts) are perhaps more favorably disposed toward the temple than those of the other evangelists.  Indeed, his gospel ends with the disciples of the ascended Jesus in Jerusalem, "continually in the temple blessing God" (Lk 24:53).  Similarly, the Pentecost community (see previous post) "spent much time together in the temple" (Acts 2:46).  Nevertheless, Luke also records Jesus' pronouncement of judgment against the temple in response to the disciples' adoration of it, and is thereby consistent with the united witness of the New Testament that in Jesus the Messiah, "something greater than the temple is here" (Mt 12:6; Lk 21:5-6).  In the end, the New Testament, both gospel and epistle, relativized place of worship in light of a people which worships "in spirit and truth" (Jn 4:24).  The community of Christ, the church, is the temple, "the dwelling place for God" (Eph 2:20-22; 1 Pet 2:4-5).

It is in that context, therefore, that we might, like his parents, find Jesus "in the temple" (2:46).  Indeed, he is there, "sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions" (2:46).  He is with us, sitting among us and asking us questions, wherever "two or three are gathered in his name", around the story of which he is Lord (Mt 18:20).

-Joe  

the baptized life

Over the weekend I taught on the subject of ecclesiology, the theology of the church, at Bethany Bible School.

I studied and selected several texts for the lesson, one of which was Acts 2:41-47.

Acts 2:41-47 is framed by two statements which speak of people being "added" to the number of the apostles.  First, after Peter's Pentecost Day sermon, about "three thousand people were added" (2:41). Finally, after descriptions of the early life of the apostolic community, the text states that "the Lord added day by day to them those who were being saved" (2:47).  These parallel statements about "addition" also invite comparison between those who were being added.  In the first instance, those who were added were those who "welcomed [Peter's] word and were baptized" (2:41).  In the second place, those who were added were those who were "being saved."  The text begins with addition through baptism and ends with addition by salvation.  One wonders, therefore, how baptism and salvation are related.  

A possible explanation of the connection between baptism and salvation may be found in the description that falls between the bookends of verses 41 and 47.  Verses 42-46 are exclusively about what happened to those who were baptized, those who, like others after them, "were being saved."  After being added upon baptism, the text states that they "continued in the apostles' teaching, the breaking of bread and fellowship, and the prayers" (2:42).  These activities find an echo later in the description that they "broke bread from house to house", the centerpiece of a life of daily worship in the temple, "sharing food with glad and generous hearts, praising God, and having the goodwill of the people" (2:46-47).  Between these parallel descriptions are two other statements which each feature a couplet--the first "wonders and signs" (2:43) and the second "possessions and goods" (2:45).  The first statement says simply that "many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles" while the second specifically enumerates the activities of the early church: "they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need."  The structural parallelism in the text invites the reader to consider whether the "wonders and signs" of the apostles were not in fact the "possessions and goods" which they sold to meet human need.  Finally, in between all of these statements is the summary of the apostolic community: "All who believed were together and had all things in common" (2:44).  Everything else in the text is an illustration of this basic apostolic unity.

It is equally true, of course, that the central unity of the church in the text, around which everything else gathers, is itself the product of the distinct practices in the text which surround that center.  The unity of the church was forged by those who were baptized being devoted to "the apostles' teaching, the breaking of bread, fellowship, and the prayers."  Unity was forged by generosity and mutual aid, the fulfilling of human need.  Those who welcomed Peter's word about Jesus "continued" in that word, in word and deed.  It is that continuity with the message and ministry of Jesus that enabled those were baptized to become truly a church--a community devoted to one another under Christ in service to the world.  And it is those who continue in the baptized life to which the text points who are "being saved."

-Joe

looking again at "born again"

The well-known text of John 3 came up in the lectionary last week, and I had the chance to preach on it on Sunday.

Aside from verse 16, John 3 is conspicuous for its introduction of the "born again" theme in Christian thought. Certainly in South Africa, the "born again" label is in coinage.  Christians of the Pentecostal and Charismatic stripes self-identity as "born agains", and their insistence on being "born again" sometimes makes Christians of the "mainline" churches--Presbyterian, Anglican, Methodist, Catholic--distance themselves from the term.  Because we are in the position of having regular fellowship with both mainline and Charismatic Christians, we can neither completely deny the claims of one nor ignore the complaints of the other.

The text itself, John 3:1-10, is a dialogue between two "teachers".  The first teacher is Jesus, whom Nicodemus, his visitor "by night", calls a "teacher who has come from God" (3:2).  At the end of the text, Jesus refers to Nicodemus as a "teacher", albeit in a prodding manner--"Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?" (3:10).

The "these things" that the two "teachers" are discussing and which Nicodemus has "not understood" is the meaning of "birth".  Jesus himself makes two statements about birth in response to Nicodemus.  "No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above" and "No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit" (3:3, 5).  A third statement is like the first, "Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above'" (3:7).

I do prefer the NRSV's rendering of the Greek word anothen, "from above" (3:3, 7), for, although the Greek may be rendered as either "from above" or "again", context suggests it is not Jesus who begins speaking about being "born again".  It is Nicodemus, in response to Jesus, who elaborates on the meaning of birth from his own understanding as "a person entering into his mother's womb a second time", that is, "again" (3:4).  And it is as a result of Nicodemus's misinterpretation of Jesus' words about being born anothen that Jesus must clarify that he is talking about being "born of water and Spirit" (3:5).  It is because Nicodemus wishes to talk about being born "a second time" or "again" that Jesus needs to talk about "water and Spirit" as a synonym for being born "from above."  And it is because of Nicodemus's preoccupation with the subject of being "born again" that he fails to grasp the meaning of being "born from above" and does not "understand these things" even though he is "a teacher of Israel."

For a "teacher of Israel", being born "from above" has everything to do with knowing the story of Israel, with "setting one's mind on things above" (Col 3:2).  The story of Israel which Nicodemus "the teacher of Israel" might have taught was a story of "water and Spirit" and of Israel's God thwarting human wisdom by the wisdom "from above."  If Nicodemus had known his story, he would have seen that the earth was created "through waters" by the "spirit of God" (Gen 1:3).  He would have remembered that Israel became Israel, a people saved from slavery to foreign powers, by God's mercy through the cloud and fire of his spirit through the waters of the Red Sea (Ex 14:19ff.; see also 1 Pet 2:10).  He would have seen that Israel's was a story of God's ways above human ways, of battles won by downsizing at the riverside (Jdg 7), of anointing through humility (1 Sam 16), of cleansing in waters beautiful not to human eyes but in which God's Spirit chose to dwell (2 Kgs 5).

A teacher of Israel knows that to be born "of water and spirit" is to be born "from above".  A teacher of Israel knows that being born of God means to abide in the wisdom of God's "higher ways" (Isa 55:8-9).  A teacher of Israel knows not to "be conformed to the pattern of this world" but to "be transformed by the renewing of the mind" (Rom 12:2).

What then can we say about the "born again" debate within contemporary Christianity?

If being born "from above" or "by water and Spirit" has priority over being "born again", and if being born "from above" is something like being born into the world-confounding wisdom of God, then Christians will neither,

1) demand of individuals certain prescribed experiences in the world of the spirit which in and of themselves, apart from the "fruit of the Spirit" (Gal 5:22), are evidences of God's presence within a person's life; nor

2) reject the category of spirit as antithetical to a reasonable faith.

Rather, those who are "born of God" (Jn 1:13) will look for an ethics of the Spirit as the sign of God's presence in the world.  Wherever lives conform to the story of Israel fulfilled in Jesus, the Christ, there on earth is the kingdom of God which has come "from above."

-Joe

a conceptualization of ministry

I conceived the image below from several conversations I've had recently about holistic ministry.  The first of these was the whole process of preparing for, teaching, and then responding to students on the topic of worship at Bethany Bible School earlier this month.  Second, the first rough sketch of this image came to me yesterday while discussing experiences of Charismatic churches with Joanna Epp, a young woman from North America who is completing one year with Mennonite Mission Network's Radical Journey program.  Third, the chart reflects conversations I've had with biblical texts, most notably Matthew 4:23-25, going back as far as two years ago.

The Matthew text offers us a threefold description of Jesus' ministry--"teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease among the people" (4:23).  I have suggested that the second of this trio--"proclaiming the good news of the kingdom"--is the overarching concept for the other two.  In other words, "teaching" and "healing" are two primary expressions of communicating or "proclaiming" the kingdom of God.

This understanding of Matthew 4:23 fits well with Paul's twofold description of ministry in Colossians 3:12-17.  In that passage, Paul seems to divide our Christian labor into two halves--that which is done by "word" and that which is done by "work" or "deed" (see my previous post).  It is not hard to see how these--"word and work"--correspond respectively to the "teaching and healing" of Matthew 4:23.  If that is so, then what is the equivalent to Matthew's "proclaiming the kingdom" in Colossians 3?  I suggest below that it is the church's imperative to "clothe" itself with the Christ-like virtues which may be summed up as love.  When we see this, we are very near to what Paul said elsewhere--that "the kingdom of God is justice and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit", or that "the Spirit" is "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" (Rom 14:17; Gal 5:22-23; compare also with Col 3:12).

Finally, the two parts of Christian work which together comprise a complete witness to "the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ" (Rev 11:15) may be found in Acts 6:1-6.  Because the apostles, consumed with teaching the "word of God", needed help in fulfilling the ministry of Christ, the church selected seven "deacons" to oversee the "daily distribution of food" to those in need.

The various descriptions of ministry from these three texts should be visible in the chart below.

The chart is not exhaustive.  It does not include every activity of ministry "in the name of the Lord Jesus" but paints broad contours which are intended to guide the ministry which God has entrusted to the church.  I notice, for example, that prayer is missing from the chart, though prayer should infuse every act of ministry.  The chart might be used to evaluate the ministry of your particular congregation.  Does your church exhibit a healthy balance between ministries of word and ministries of work?  If so, it is likely that Christ is present in the Spirit and the kingdom of God is visible in your witness.

-Joe

our twofold worship

Last Friday I taught on the topic of worship at Bethany Bible School, taking as my primary text Colossians 3:12-17.

I needed some fresh insight on worship, and so I selected one text to see what it might suggest about worship.  I did not want to start with my own thoughts on the subject and then find texts to support my pre-existing ideas.  Rather, I wanted a theology of worship to rise from the text.

Of course, even my selection of a starting point showed a pre-existing bias.  I chose a text which I guessed had something to do with worship.  The reason I chose Colossians, then, is its line about "singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God" (3:16).  In other words, I chose the text for its mention of a common feature of the worship service, namely singing.  But by paying closer attention to the broader context for such singing, I was to discover a much larger context for worship than as defined as what most congregations do on Sundays mornings.

Near the heart of the text lie two parallel statements which use the name of "Christ" (at least this is the case in the NRSV).  These are:

"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts" (3:15).

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly" (3:16).

These frame a very simple sentence, "And be thankful" (3:15).

If we add the three statements together, we find something virtually equivalent to the summary statement with which Paul ends this text.  As the first statement speaks of the "peace of Christ", the second "the word of Christ", and the middle statement thankfulness, so 3:17 declares,

"And whatever you do, in word or work ("deed" NRSV), do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."

If we begin to group like with like, we see that the closing sentence has in common with the cumulative central triplet a focus on "the word".  As there is the "word of Christ" (3:15), so there is "the word" (3:17) which is one of two things which the church in Colossae might "do".  Continuing with exact matches, both the conclusion and the triplet speak of "thanksgiving", whether it is the imperative "be thankful" (3:15) or "giving thanks to God the Father through [the Lord Jesus]" (3:17).

Moving beyond exact matches to like ideas, we see, by implication, that if the "word of Christ" (3:16) finds an exact match with "the word" which the Colossians might "do" (3:17), then that which is parallel to each of these two must also go together.  Thus, if "the peace of Christ" (3:15) is parallel to "the word of Christ" (3:16), and if "the word of Christ" finds its exact match in the "word" which is done (3:17), then "the peace of Christ" must refer to that which accompanies the "word" in 3:17--the "work" which the Colossians might do "in the name of the Lord Jesus".

Thus, if it is fair to say that this text has something to do with worship (a word, admittedly, which does not appear in the text), then Paul is saying that true worship is essentially thanksgiving to God in the name of the Lord Jesus, and that that worship has two basic parts: "word" and "work".

Seen in this way, Colossians 3:12-17 itself may be divided into two halves, the first pertaining to worship as "work" and the second pertaining to worship as "word", before culminating in the one-sentence conclusion which ties these themes together.  Indeed, the first half, ending with "the peace of Christ" in 3:15, pertains to "works" which can be done even without words.  "Clothe yourselves", the text begins, with "compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience" (3:12), over which "love" is put on as a garment which "completes" the outfit (the Greek of 3:14 calls love "a bond of completion").  Between these virtues of "work" is "forgiveness", literally, "generosity of spirit", which has the same root in Greek, charis, which is elsewhere translated as "thanksgiving" ("thankful", "gratitude", etc) and appears no less than five times in the text.  All of these find their natural conclusion in "the peace of Christ" which is to "rule in [the Colossians'] hearts", in the "one body" called the church "to which [they] were called" (3:15).  "The peace of Christ", closing out the first half of 3:12-17 (3:12-15), is the final state of a community which practices these works of love toward one another.

Of course, it is not as if any of these "works" must be done without "words", as if "words" somehow did not enhance the expression of, for example, the practice of forgiveness.  In all likelihood, quite the contrary is true.  It is just to say that, according to the text, there is in life a distinction between worship (or ministry or service) as "work" and worship as "word".

The text itself reflects this distinction, for, separated only by the command to "be thankful" (3:15), it moves from speaking of ministries of "work" to ministries of "word".  It moves from one summary statement--"let the peace of Christ rule"--to its introductory counterpart--"let the word of Christ dwell".  The switch to "the word of Christ" ensues in an unbroken litany of activities which are done principally with one's voice.  The text begins to speak of "teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom" and "singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God" (3:16).  Teaching, admonishing, singing--these are things done with "the word".

And then it is there--after all is said and done--that Paul says, "whatever you do, in word or work, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (3:17).

In contemporary discussions of "holistic" ministry, mission, or service, distinctions are sometimes maligned.  Concerns that distinctions lend themselves to undue prioritizing of work over word or word over work call into question whether we should think in so-called "dualisms" at all.  Yet having distinctions, giving names to things we experience to be true of life, can help us to identify those particular gifts which God has entrusted to us and others for the work of ministry "in the name of the Lord Jesus".  Distinctions can set our sights and focus our energies on that which God has called us to do, "whether by word or work".

-Joe

the heart of Revelation

In my last post I argued that Revelation 12 lies at the very center of the book, and that that central location commends it also as the crux of Revelation’s message.  Furthermore, it was the recurrence of “three sevens” in the middle section of Revelation and another “three”—three “woes”—which pinpointed chapter 12 as the locus of meaning which draws together the threads of Revelation.

Immediately after the announcement that “the second woe has passed” and “the third woe is coming very soon” (11:14), John hears “loud voices in heaven, saying,”

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord , and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever” (11:15).

A parallel announcement comes a few verses later, in 12:10:

“Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming,
Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah.”

The second announcement, quite obviously, is of one piece with the first, for both speak of the arrival of God’s reign which is likewise the rule of the Messiah.  As one, therefore, the two statements act as a frame around yet more material.  In this case, that material is the appearance to John of two “great signs (“portents” NRSV) in heaven” and the interaction of these signs.

The first sign is “a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (12:1).  Moreover, the woman was “pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth” (12:2).

Immediately following is the second sign.  John sees “a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads” (12:3).  Like the woman, stars also figure in John’s vision of the dragon, though in this case they are not part of a crown but those which the dragon sweeps down to earth with his tail (12:4).  Though the dragon “swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to earth”, the “twelve stars” in the crown of the woman were not among these.

Now comes the interaction of the two, the woman and the dragon. 
“The dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born” (12:4).
The interaction of the dragon and the woman is one of enmity.  The dragon crouches before the woman with his sights set on her offspring.  As for her offspring, the woman “gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to shepherd all the nations with a rod of iron” (12:5).

Now that the child has been born, and is to rule the nations, one wonders how—for the presence of a large, red, seven-headed dragon hell-bent on the child’s destruction does not hold out much hope for a helpless baby’s survival.  At that very moment, however, from the very claws of death, “her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne” (12:5).  As for the woman, she also met with God’s provision: “And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred sixty days” (12:6).

The woman’s having “a place prepared by God” is in direct contrast to the predicament of the dragon, described in the next scene.  For with the outbreak of “war in heaven” between “Michael and his angels” and “the dragon and his angels”, the “great dragon and his angels” are found “no longer'” to have “any place in heaven” (12:8).  Having “no place” in heaven by heaven’s decree, they are “cast down to earth” (12:9).

The expulsion of the dragon and his cohort from heaven to earth is cause for the earth’s lament—for the third “woe” of Revelation’s large middle section.  “But woe to the earth and the sea,” cries the “loud voice in heaven”, “for the devil has come down to you with great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!” (12:12b).

Even though he has come down to earth with “great wrath”, however, the devil with “no place” is not allowed to harm the woman who “has a place prepared by God.”  For now that the dragon was found powerless against her male child, he fixes his evil intent upon the woman—but to no avail.  First, she “was given the two wings of the great eagle, so that she could fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to her place where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time” (12:14).  When the dragon tried again, casting a flood of water from his mouth to drown the woman, “the earth came to the help of the woman; it opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth” (12:16).  Powerless, in succession, against the woman’s child and the woman herself, the dragon, “angry with the woman”, “went off to make war on the rest of her children, those who keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus” (12:17).

The woman’s “other children”, as Revelation calls them, bear a remarkable similarity to the “comrades" (Greek: “brothers”) acclaimed a few verses earlier by the great voice in heaven.  For just as the brothers “conquered [the dragon/serpent/devil/Satan/deceiver of the whole world] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony,” so the woman’s “other children” “keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus” (12:11, 17).  Moreover, if the brothers “have conquered”, if their victory is already complete, then the woman’s other children will also conquer.  As the dragon did not prevail against the comrades, so he will not conquer the children.

Why will the dragon not prevail against the woman’s children?  It is for the same reason that he did not prevail against the woman and the son born to her.  For the male child, taken to the very throne, into the very power of God, as “the Lamb that was slaughtered” has “ransomed for God from every tribe and language and people and nation . . . a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on earth” (Rev 5:9-10).  The first “kingdom and priests serving God” on earth, was, of course, those whom God ransomed from slavery in Egypt—Israel his prized possession (Ex 19:5-6).  This is the woman, she who wears the twelve-starred crown for the twelve sons of Jacob.  This is she through whom came her deliverer, the Messiah who shepherds his people from every nation with a rod of iron against the adversary.  This is she who has other children, those who, by virtue of their faith in her God and of his Messiah, have become God’s people.  These children are the church, they who, like the faithful before them, “conquered by the word of their testimony” (12:11 compared with 12:17).

It is this church, a Jewish-Gentile body of Christ-followers in first-century Asia Minor, with which John shared his revelation of Jesus.  This was the church which the dragon was persecuting, against which the dragon waged his war.  That war undoubtedly shook their confidence, for otherwise it would not have been necessary for John to remind them that their Lamb “has conquered.”  Nor would it have been necessary to urge them on, as John does, in the way of “the Lamb who was slain.”  For indeed, it was not just the “word of their testimony” or “the testimony of Jesus”, or “the blood of the Lamb” or “keeping the commandments of God” which unites the children and the comrades.  These actions of the whole people of God—“conquering by the blood of the Lamb”, “conquering by the word of their testimony”, “keeping the commandments of God”, and “holding to the testimony of Jesus”—are but four ways of saying what the voice in heaven proclaimed in one further description applied to the activity of the comrades.

“For they did not cling to life even in the face of death” (12:11b).

It is this elaboration of conquering by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony which is missing from the parallel statement applied to the woman’s other children a few verses later (12:11, 17).  It was this—not clinging to life in the face of death—which was yet to be completed by the persecuted church to whom John wrote.  Unlike their comrades, the children had not all yet “resisted to the point of shedding their blood” (Heb 12:4).   Yet this was the ultimate test of obedience to God, and that which was needed to conquer as Jesus had conquered.  Only the church which is willing “to lose its life in order to save it” is the faithful church (Mk 8:35).  Only the church which takes up the cross, not as Rome to crucify its enemies, but as Jesus to love its enemies—even unto death—is the faithful church (Mk 8:34).

This, I submit, is the call buried deep within the heart of Revelation for God’s people.  It is a call which entails suffering amidst the woes and suffering of our world, but it leads on to “the crown of life” (see Rev 2:10).

-Joe