The Dragon Became Furious

The Dragon Became Furious.  Christmastime may be holy, but it was neither silent, calm, nor bright. Peace-making is not a peaceful campaign. The Prince of Peace arrived wearing a sword, so to speak. Herod shook with fury at the wise men for outsmarting him. “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him” (Matt. 2:8). “But being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way” (Matt. 2:12). “Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious” (Matt. 2:16).

It doesn’t take much digging to locate Revelation 12 as the only other time became furious was used in the Bible. Interestingly, both Revelation 12 and Matthew 2 orbit the Virgin Birth. “Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus” (Rev. 12:17). Contrasting to the only other, symbolic woman in the book of Revelation, who is named, “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations … drunk with the blood of the saints” (Rev. 17:5-6), the first woman, who is “clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars … pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs and the agony of giving birth” (Rev. 12:1-2), is symbolic for the faithful remnant of Israel who birthed and nurtured Jesus the Messiah. “She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron” (Rev. 12:5). Nothing awakens evil like the arrival of good.

The murder of “all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that [Herod] had ascertained from the wise men” (Matt. 2:16) was despicable, cowardly. Silent night, holy night for the holy family became violent night, bloody night for the unnumbered, other families of baby boys. In an eerie turn that never makes it into our Christmas cards or carols, so many of the nurseries in and around Bethlehem that should have been filled with many happy noises that only babies can make were dreadfully silent. Christ’s birth is forever tinged with the iron-taste of blood and death.