16 Sun-Woman Giving Birth

Painting by by G. Roland Smith

Read Revelation 12:1-6 here

16 Sun-Woman Giving Birth

In heaven John sees a pregnant woman ‘clothed with the sun’, who cries out in pain as she is about to give birth to a male child. There also appears before her a great red dragon that stands ready to devour her child as soon as it is born. But once born, it is snatched up to the safety of the throne, whilst the woman flees into a place of safety in the desert.

A heavenly woman encompassed by the sun is a beautiful image of a human life full of love and light. The pains of childbirth represent the struggles associated with giving birth to new forms of truth needed for guiding us through a new stage of spiritual development. By contrast the devouring red dragon mirrors our pride in our spiritual achievements when we tend to ‘rest on our laurels’. This is an image representing the provision of vital divine protection for any elements of new spiritual growth.

“The dragon stood in front of the woman … so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. She gave birth to a son … [who] was snatched up to God and to his throne. The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God.”

(chapter 12 verses 4, 5 and 6)