Revelation 21 is about the new, better things God has planned for the future at the close of history and our final state in the new heaven and new earth. Yet, because we hear that word ‘new,’ we might feel a bit like someone using a new piece of technology. It’s all a bit technical, mysterious and fancy, so we’re intimidated by it. Is the close of history the beginning of something greater? Is the grass greener on the other side of the fence – in the new universe? Is new better? We need to first get our heads around the passage.

At Christmas time we know the name Jesus and recognize him as the baby born in Bethlehem. Revelation 19 is about the same Jesus, but he is unrecognizable from the nativity scene. There he is born in obscurity, laying in an animal’s feeding trough while the city slept. Here Jesus comes in power from glory, riding a white horse and every eye will see him. Why do we need to see Jesus on the horse, even as we remember his birth in a manger? Why do we need to move from ‘see him lying in a bed of straw’ to Revelation’s Jesus at Christmas? As it was announced to Mary, Jesus is the Son of the Most High. He is inheritor of God’s throne and he will reign forever. The Saviour we celebrate being born is King and Judge of all.

The real reason we sing at Christmas is because the event we celebrate at Christmas – Christ the Saviour being born – is filled with singing! Mary sings as she carries Jesus in her womb, the angels sing as they announce Jesus’ birth to the shepherds, the old man Simeon sings as he holds baby Jesus at the temple. Why so much singing about Jesus? The last book of the Bible, Revelation, helps us understand why we sing about Jesus.

A cross wasn’t something that you would have emblazoned on anything. It was a symbol for defeat, despair and death. Yet, the Bible puts the cross as the symbol, the picture, the summary of Christian faith. What looks like defeat the church glories in! That’s the reality painted for us in Revelation. If you imagine the book of Revelation like looking through an art gallery, the focal point of the gallery is here in Revelation 5:1-10. Why is the cross so important? It is central because it unlocks history and it creates a people. 

Revelation gives us the grand tapestry of human history, God’s salvation and the future through a gallery of smaller pictures. Here in Revelation 12:1-6, Christmas is put in the telescope of God’s redemptive plan.