On a globe made in 1510, just below the equator, an unknown artist wrote a warning: here be dragons. Yet a dragon also turns up where we least expect it, in the Christmas story seen from heaven’s side, as John describes it (Revelation 12). A woman, a fiery dragon waiting for a child to be born, and a newborn boy who steps up to fight: this is Christmas as an invasion and a declaration of war on evil. Listen if you want to see a familiar story from a completely different angle and hear that dragons can be defeated.
Discussion questions
For your small group or for personal reflection after the sermon.
- In Revelation 12 John describes a woman clothed with the sun, a fiery dragon and a child. What do these three signs point to, and what might they have meant to first readers who knew the Old Testament?
- What might the images of the wilderness, being fed for 1,260 days and the earth swallowing the river from the dragon's mouth have meant to persecuted Christians, given that they echo the Exodus and the Book of Daniel?
- John sums up Jesus' whole life as his birth and his being caught up to God's throne, and he portrays Christmas as an invasion in which God comes as a defenseless child. How does this picture change the way you see Christmas?
- The sermon compares Jesus' victory to the Normandy landings: the war was decided, but the fighting went on. Where in your life do you feel this tension between the "already" and the "not yet"?
- The dragon is called the accuser, who says, "You will never change," "You always lie anyway," "Forgiving is pointless." Which of these accusations do you hear most often, and how does the blood of the Lamb answer it?
- Believers overcome the dragon also by the word of their testimony. Who could you tell this week, in words or in actions, what Jesus has done in your life?
