Apocalypse 12:1-17

THE WOMAN IN THE SUN

A Sermon by the Rev. Grant R. Schnarr

Now a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars.

We have all beheld that woman, not just in our imaginations, but in our hearts and in our dreams. This woman is a part of us and we her. She is the New Church, a spiritual mother, surrounded in the glory of love, supported in the truths of genuine faith, and crowned with intelligence and wisdom from the Word now understood.

We’ve all cherished this image as we strive to live the best lives we can, and to love the Lord with all our hearts. We know that there is no higher love than devotion to the Lord, as it flows through us, wraps around us, gives us light and warmth. This is being clothed with the sun. It is our most intimate moments with the Lord in love to Him. For instance, when we open our hearts in prayer, in confession of our failings, in our pleas for help, in our quiet moments of gratitude and shared consolation with our God we are surrounded by the light and warmth of the Divine. In our best times we know that the Lord loves us with a love so powerful, vast, and enduring that it is beyond description. And yet He comes to us with the gentleness of a lamb, and as human as a man with arms outstretched, inviting us into His embrace. Our relationship with the Lord is the sunlight in which we are surrounded, clothed in mutual love with our Creator.

Remember the time, if you can, when you discovered the power of the Lord’s Word, how the Heavenly Doctrines lifted you out of confusion and strife, and supported you in a new life, and a new way. Perhaps you found the teachings as if by fate, and you knew instantly you had found your spiritual home. Perhaps as you entered the world as a young adult you found that these teachings you received are such a support as compared to the emptiness and lack of meaning in the world around you. The moon under the woman’s feet signifies the faith of the church, the belief itself in the teachings that bring such support. Think of some of these. How much the doctrine of the afterlife brings comfort in times of bereavement, or the teachings of the gentle stream of providence when things do not apparently go the way we expected? Reflect on the teachings of a loving, Divinely human God who never turns His back on you, and what a foundation that is upon which to build a happy and spiritually optimistic life, and to have this teaching to share with God’s children that they should know of His unceasing love and support. These are only a few matters of faith which bring comfort, hope, and support. And there are so many more: such as the gift of love in marriage, the promise of a meaningful life of use for all, of the deeper richness in the Lord’s Word, or the promise of His new coming, not in fiery cataclysmic end of the world scenarios, but in the still small voice of His Word, and in the revelation of His Divine Human and its manifestation in our lives.

No wonder we feel so gifted, as if given a crown of royalty. Look at this cathedral itself as a testament to that majesty of what the Writings call the crown of all churches, and the Bride of the Lamb descending from Heaven in all her glory! The crown here, adorning the woman’s head signifies intelligence, spiritual intelligence, and from it, wisdom. What is possible today, because of the truths revealed in the Heavenly Doctrines given through Emanuel Swedenborg, is nothing short of the potential of heaven on earth--heaven in our lives, heaven now, heaven here and forever more. "Behold the tabernacle of God is now with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God" (Revelation 21:3).

The woman clothed with the sun is an image of the spiritual New Church both in spiritual world and in the minds and hearts of those on earth. The sun, moon, and stars are the gifts of spirit from Doctrine, which surround the church, give the church her beauty, protect her, support her, and give her the potential for incredible love and all the joy love brings. This is the promise for everyone who endeavors to live by the Lord’s Word now revealed in His Second Advent.

However, there is more to this story, and the prophecy of the New Church. We are told that the woman was with child, and cried out in the pain of childbirth. The Writings say, "She cried out in travail, and was in torment to bring forth," (Apocalypse Revealed 535). We are told, "In the spiritual sense of the Word by ‘being with child,’ ‘being in travail’ and ‘bringing forth’ nothing else is signified than to conceive and bring forth the things that are of spiritual life" and "the difficult reception of that doctrine on account of the resistance by those who are understood by ‘the dragon’" (Apocalypse Revealed 535).

We see from history how difficult it has been for those who hold the Heavenly Doctrines as the coming of the Lord to bring these truths to the world, or even to agree upon an understanding of the Doctrine themselves. There have been heresies, and divisions, and struggle to manifest these new teachings in community and personal life. And reflect on this, if only for a moment, the picture of the pain and anguish depicted in this revelation. Hear the cry of the woman. We don’t often think of this when we think of the church. This picture is as real as the bride descending. Establishing the church is painful, at least in the beginning. Temptation is hard and sometimes messy. Temptation is not depicted here as quiet desperation, but loud and uncontrolled, or rather identical to the cries that come from the depths of a mother’s soul during childbirth. Can we accept that this thing we do called church can sometimes be less than prim, proper, neat and tidy? It’s life at the core, for all of us, laboring to bring forth goodness and truth into our world.

With this in mind, turn to the individual here spoken of as this woman in childbirth. In some ways it is easier to see, for we know our own hearts, and we have felt the anguish in our own souls as we have endeavored to, as the Writings say, bring forth this new faith into life. The ideals presented in the Writings are high. For instance, the truths now revealed about conjugial love and marriage are said to be something so special and heavenly that the concept itself had been lost for centuries, or even denied by people. Knowing what is possible in the way of an ideal, and struggling against what may very well be the most evil and adulterous influences now manifest in the history of our world, it is of little surprise to witness how difficult the process of translating ideals into reality can be. Knowing the true nature of hell makes it easier for us to see it in our own lives, and how opposite it is to heaven. Yet that same knowledge may invite a state of anguish knowing just how far we fall from the path of heaven.

The truth revealed about the New Church depicted in this vision of the woman who labors hard to give birth is a realistic picture of life. This could be considered a depressing fact, but can also be seen in different light which uplifts. If you’ve ever asked yourself, in times of temptation, "Why me?" or "Why now?" or "What did I do to deserve this?", the answer may very well be, "This is less about you than you may think. It is about life, and how life works." We just celebrated Memorial Day last Monday, remembering those who have themselves given their lives to protect us. In one of my favorite war movies, depicting the battle for Guadalcanal, the camera moves with an American soldier who walks a silent battlefield still hot from recent struggle. He looks down onto the half buried face of a dead enemy soldier, and we hear the voice of this dead man’s spirit speak aloud to us, and to all who will hear. The voice asks, "Did you think that you would suffer less because you loved goodness, truth?" The Writings, in fact, tell us it is the love for goodness and truth that puts us into spiritual labor. And this labor is not in vain, but the birthing process itself, of new life. Yes. Life is a struggle. But not without consolation, and not forever. The pains of labor give way to the joy and consolation of birth, to the miracle of life. For with God, we are told, all things are possible, even when the ideals seem so far from our own abilities, and "weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning" (Psalm 35).

So the struggle of the woman, whether we like it or not, is the good news. It is a struggle which leads to life. The bad news is that there is a seven-headed dragon looming over the woman ready to devour her child. The dragon symbolizes the ancient enemy of genuine goodness. It is faith separated from charity, as it is manifest in devils in hell, in people on earth, and in our very selves. Historically we look at a world upside down when it comes to spiritual matters. We live in a day when fornication is the norm, adultery is glorified, books, television shows and movies profane the Lord’s Word, with humor, lies, and disdain. People hardly blink an eye. It is not hard to see hatred manifest itself against the two essential doctrines of the News Church, namely that of the Lord Jesus Christ as the one God of heaven and earth, and the command to follow the teachings of His Word. The boy who is to be born and lead all nations to pasture with a rod of iron is the Heavenly Doctrine and the hope for salvation the Heavenly Doctrine offers. The dragon is the influence of hell that would destroy it.

To lead all nations to pasture with a rod of iron means to use truths of the literal sense of the Word combined with the rational things from natural light (Apocalypse Revealed 544). This is the hope, that now all can enter with understanding into the mysteries of faith, that we can believe in the letter of the Word and use our minds to explore the deeper secrets within, and within life itself. It is indeed a religion that makes sense, as we so often say in our explanation to others.
That this child is born and caught up to God and His throne signifies, we are told, the Lord’s protection of this doctrine, guarded by the angels (Apocalypse Revealed 547). There is no natural explanation as to how this protection takes place on our earth, but even the image itself, of a child taken up and away from the dragon, and from the woman, indicates that these truths revealed may seem too high and out of reach to ponder or engage. People in a dragon faith don’t have the patience to explore truth more deeply. The Doctrine is too high and too much work to even attempt to grasp. The child remains safe high above in the throne of heaven. The woman fleeing to the wilderness, and later given wings to escape the dragon signifies once again the divine protection. In this case, even though things may be incredibly desolate on account of the rule of faith separated from life in our western culture, the church will survive in anonymity among a few. It will find protection right under the dragon’s shadow, unseen, in obscurity, protected until time is made for the church to be among many. The fight of Michael and his angels against the dragon signifies the fight of those who are wise in the New Church, the spiritual church which worships the one God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and lives by His commandments, that they will overcome and the dragon will be defeated.

In our personal lives these images hold the promise of that same protection on the most intimate level. The Lord knows that the dangerous dragons in our own lives live in our minds and hearts, and that even in the midst of our own chaotic struggles to free ourselves from its rage, the truths which will serve to lead us to our spiritual pasture are protected within our unconscious until we are ready to accept them into life, and allow their power to unfold before us. These are aptly named remnants or remains in the Heavenly Doctrines. The protection we are offered is that of the Lord’s providential leading as we wander our own wilderness searching for goodness, truth, and a life in these. We are fed and nourished for our own time, times, and half a time, that is, until we are ready to fight the power of hell for ourselves, as Michael and his angels, as the wise and faithful who shun evil and have the courage and fortitude to live the church.

And so the woman clothed with the sun and her story precedes the descending of the Holy City New Jerusalem, the Bride and wife of the Lord, descending on earth in all her majesty. Even as the Lord spoke of His own temptations saying, "Thus it was written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise" (Luke 24:46), so the church shall follow in taking up the cross of temptation, willing to lose all life in order to take it up anew. From labor and pain comes birth, the birth of ourselves made new, the birth of a new era for humankind—the Lord now present with all His people.

"Awake, awake! Put on your strength, O Zion; Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city.... Shake yourself from the dust, arise… Loose yourself from the bonds of your neck, O captive daughter of Zion!" (Isaiah 52: portions). "O Zion, you who bring good tidings, get up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, you who bring good tidings, lift up your voice with strength, lift it up, be not afraid; Say to the cities of Judah, "Behold your God!" (Isaiah 40:9). "And the Spirit and the Bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" And let him who thirsts come. And whoever desires, let him take of the water of life freely" (Revelation 22:17). Amen.

Lessons: Isaiah 29:17-24, Revelation 12:1-17, Apocalypse Revealed 532

Apocalypse Revealed 532
And a great sin was seen in heaven, signifies revelation from the Lord concerning His New Church in the heavens and on earth, and concerning the difficult reception and resistance to its doctrine. By "a sign from heaven" is here meant a revelation concerning things to come; and by "a great sign seen in heaven" is meant a revelation concerning the New Church, for "the woman clothed with the sun," which is the subject treated of in this chapter, signifies that church. "The male" which she brought forth signifies its doctrine; her being pained to bring forth signifies its difficult reception; "the dragon desiring to devour the male" and afterward "he persecuted the woman," signifies the resistance it meets with. These things are meant by "a great sign was seen in heaven." "A sign" is mentioned in the Word of things to come, and then it is revelation; it is also spoken of truth, and then it is testification; and it is also spoken of the quality of any state or thing, and then it is manifestation. "A sign" is spoken of things to come, and then it is revelation, in the following passages:–"They shall tell you what shall happen, that we may know their end, or make you hear things to come; show signs of the future" (Isaiah xli. 22, 23). "The disciples said unto Jesus, what shall be the sin of Thy coming, and of the consummation of the age?" (Matthew xxiv. 3; Mark xiii. 4; Luke xxi. 7). "There shall be signs from heaven, and signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars" (Luke xxi. 11, 25). "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man" (Matthew xxiv. 30). It was said unto king Hezekiah, This shall be a sign unto thee that Jehovah will do this thing, the shadow on the degrees of Ahaz shall be brought back. Afterwards Hezekiah said, "What is the sin that I shall go up into the house of Jehovah?" (Isa. xxxviii. 7, 8, 22; and in other places). That "a sign" is said of truth, and then it is testification, and also it is said of the quality of any state, and then it is manifestation, is evident from other passages in the Word.