When the Battle Is Already Lost

Michaelmas III — Revised

Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah.

— Revelation 12

I come from a small Christian tradition in which people took Bible study very seriously and were not particularly frightened by the possibility of reaching unconventional conclusions. My Great-Aunt Mae Turnbow used to say, “For the truth, I'd stand one to a hill!” I grew up around people willing to do exactly that. They studied, argued, reconsidered and sometimes arrived at understandings of Scripture quite different from those of the Christians around them.

When I first wrote this reflection, I admitted that I no longer remembered exactly how Revelation 12 was understood in that tradition, and I invited some friends who know our Shamrock roots better than I do to help me. They did. One explained that Michael could be understood as representing Jesus, but more completely as a symbolic representation of the New Dispensation, with Gabriel representing the old. Another recalled the war in heaven being understood as the struggle between pagan and/or papal Rome and the true church. Both emphasized that their interpretation of Revelation depends heavily upon Daniel and its relationship to history. That is considerably more nuanced than what I had remembered.

What catches me today, however, remains what is proclaimed after the battle: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah.” Whatever interpretive framework we bring to this extraordinary vision, God's enemies have lost. And yet the story isn't finished. The dragon remains active and furious, knowing that his time is short. A friend once described Satan's predicament to me this way: he knows he will ultimately be destroyed, and he wants to take as many of us with him as he can.

There is something sobering in that image. Defeated does not necessarily mean inactive. Something that has lost the ultimate battle may still cause enormous damage. Revelation does not require me to identify every frightening development in my own time with its dragon. Christians have been doing that for centuries. It does, however, invite me to live differently if I believe that evil does not get the final word. The announcement is already being made: the kingdom belongs to God and the authority to his Messiah.

Perhaps there is another lesson for me in the way this particular Reflectionary was written. Earlier this week I wrote about remaining teachable. This time I had an opportunity to practice it. I published what I remembered, admitted what I did not know, and asked people who knew more than I did to teach me. They did. Aunt Mae taught me something important about being willing to stand alone for truth. But standing for truth does not require pretending that I already possess all of it. Sometimes seeking truth means standing one to a hill—and listening to the people standing on the other hills.

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