The Maiden, the Prince, and the Dragon

The Bible is a very long book with lots of details and twists and turns, but it really tells a single story.
That story concerns a maiden, a prince, and a dragon.
If this sounds like a fairy tale, that’s because most fairy tales – indeed, most stories in the world – are variations of the story that the Bible tells.
Sometimes the dragon is a wicked stepmother or a greedy uncle or a corrupt politician.
Sometimes the maiden and the prince are the girl next door and a guy across town.
But it’s the same basic story.
And we never tire of hearing it as long as it is told right and well.
If the villain wins, we feel more than disappointed – we feel cheated because the story hasn’t been told right.
That’s because this story is the story.
It is the story that God wrote, the story that history tells, the story that we are living in.
In fairy tales, the fouler the villain, the deeper the dungeon, and the more hopeless the situation, the more we love the story as long as good prevails in the end.
The story with the foulest villain, the deepest dungeon, and the most hopeless situation of all is the true story that the Bible tells.
In the Bible, the fair maiden’s name is Eve, and the brave prince is named Adam.
As we follow Adam’s and Eve’s story, we realize that there is a mysterious second maiden involved, and her story shadows Eve’s story, just like your shadow shadows you.
Sometimes you can see your shadow, and sometimes you can’t.
In the Bible, sometimes you can see this mysterious maiden, and sometimes you can’t.
But you know she is there, just like you know your shadow is there if only you had sufficient light to see it.Sometimes, your shadow is very small, and sometimes it is very big – much bigger than you.
In the Bible, the mysterious maiden is small at the beginning but grows bigger and bigger, like your shadow when the sun is going down.
The mysterious maiden is named Mankind.
You see, God, who wrote the story, planned for Adam and Eve to have many children, who would marry and have more children, who would marry and have still more children, until there were so many you couldn’t count them all.
Adam’s and Eve’s children would have their own families, but together they all would be one big family, God’s family.
The Bible speaks of Mankind both as God’s family and as a beautiful maiden, God’s Bride.
That is because God loved Mankind the way a husband loves his bride, and God wanted Mankind to love him the way a bride loves her husband.
So, in one sense Adam and Eve are the parents of Mankind, and in another sense they are part of Mankind – in the same way that your shadow seems to be part of you when it is very small, but when it is very big, you seem to be part of it.
But whether your shadow is small or big, one thing is always true: whatever happens to you happens to your shadow.
And thus it was with Adam and Eve and Mankind – whatever happened to Adam and Eve happened to Mankind.
One day, Adam and Eve were in the garden that God had made for them, when a dragon came up and began speaking to Eve.
Dragons are very clever, and this Dragon was the cleverest of all, which is not bad in itself.
But this Dragon was also vain and evil, and he hated God.
As Adam listened in, the Dragon cleverly deceived Eve and persuaded her to eat some fruit that God had forbidden.
Then Eve gave the fruit to Adam, and he ate it, too.
You probably think the fruit was poison, but it wasn’t.
Unfortunately, obeying the Dragon was.
The Dragon came to God and demanded that he honor Adam’s and Eve’s choice.
“Eve believed my word, not yours,” sneered the Dragon, “and Adam obeyed me, not you.”
He had a point.  And so, Adam and Eve fell under the power of the one they had believed and obeyed, and Mankind fell with them.
In fairy tales, this is the point when the brave prince comes to slay the fiery dragon and rescue the fair maid.
But in this story, the not-so-brave prince was taken captive with the not-so-fair maid.
How can there be a rescue when the rescuer needs rescuing?
Adam and Eve were covered in shame.
Eve was ashamed that she had believed the Dragon over God, and that she had coaxed her beloved Adam to follow her in eating the forbidden fruit.
It hurt her terribly to think that she had been created to bring good to her husband, but she had brought him evil instead.
And Adam was ashamed that he stood by and let the Dragon deceive his beloved Eve, and then he compounded his sin by knowingly following the Dragon.
It pierced his soul to think that he had been created to fight dragons and protect his bride, and he had done neither.
There would be no more story to tell had not God himself broken into the story with a promise – that a new prince would come from Eve, and he would fight the Dragon.
And a terrible fight it would be.  The Prince himself would be wounded, but he would wound the Dragon even worse with a head wound that would eventually kill it.
Adam and Eve believed God’s promise, and they had high hopes that each son born to them was the promised Prince.
But with each child came the sad realization that their children were all born under the Dragon’s evil spell.
How could one born under the Dragon’s spell hope to slay the Dragon?
Still, Adam and Eve believed that somehow, someday a prince would be born who would deliver them and their children from the Dragon.
Adam and Eve lived a very long time, much longer than people do today, but they never saw the promised Prince.
They grew old and died trusting God’s promise.
Many of Adam’s and Eve’s children also trusted God’s promise, but sadly many others did not.
Those who did not trust the promise began to change the Old Story.
They wrote a new story in which there was no Prince to come, because there was no Dragon and no evil spell, and there was no God, and no fair maids or brave princes.
Such things only lived in fairy tales, which were for children and weren’t true.
The authors of the new story did find it odd, however, that there should be so many fairy tales concerning non-existent things, and odder still that so many people should love to hear such silly stories.
There must have once been a survival advantage to telling such stories.
Making matter worse, those who believed in the new story saw no reason why they shouldn’t live however they pleased, and they often mistreated those who believed the Old Story.
Those who believed the Old Story, on the other hand, believed that they should live by it.
Even though they were sorely affected by the Dragon’s evil spell, they knew every girl should try to live like a fair maid, and every boy should try to live like a brave prince.
They couldn’t do it perfectly, of course, but they knew they should try, and when they fell short, they prayed to God for forgiveness.
Generation after generation of those who believed the Old Story lived and died without seeing the coming Prince.
To give them hope, God from time to time gave them sons who foreshadowed the promised Prince.
A foreshadow is when you see someone’s shadow before you see them.
When you see their shadow, you know that the person is coming.
These special sons foreshadowed the coming Prince by living in a way that revealed something of what the Prince would be like and what he would do.
If you are waiting for someone, you are always happy to see their shadow, but what you really want to see is them.
So, for hundreds and hundreds of years, Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve waited for the Prince.
Just when it seemed that the promised Prince would never come, God sent an angel from heaven to visit a most unlikely couple – a simple carpenter named Joseph and his betrothed, a young maiden name Mary.
The angel announced that before they came together as husband and wife, the Spirit of the Most High would overshadow Mary, and she would give birth to the promised Prince, who would be the Son of God.
True to the angel’s word, Mary gave birth to a baby boy before she ever came together with her husband, Joseph.  And they named the baby Jesus, which means “God is our Salvation.”
Jesus grew up just like all the other children.
He loved to laugh and play.
But there was something different about him.
The other children, no matter how good they were, always showed signs of the Dragon’s evil spell.
But Jesus never did.
Jesus grew to be thirty years old, which is a good age to fight dragons.
But Jesus acted strangley for a dragon fighter.
Everyone knew how dragons ought to be fought, or so they thought.
And Jesus wasn’t fighting the right way.
Indeed, he didn’t seem to be fighting at all.
How could he be the promised Prince?
People’s puzzlement grew into disappointment, and disappointment into anger.
Before you knew it, everyone seemed to be against Jesus, and many were calling for his death.
The Dragon, you see, was working his evil spell to manipulate the people to kill Jesus, for the Dragon knew that Jesus was the Prince.
(This is how the Dragon does most of his fighting.
He uses others to do his dirty work.
So, fighting the Dragon usually means dealing with people –
matching wits against evil men,
helping those who are oppressed by the Dragon’s  spell,
and telling the Old Story so people might escape the Dragon’s clever lies and follow the Prince.)
Jesus had a saying he used to tell his followers: “Be as innocent as doves and as clever as dragons” (Mat 10.16).
And that is just was Jesus was doing.
Dragons are greedy, and they love to steal treasure and take it to their lair, which is usually a deep, dark cave.
The great Dragon’s favorite treasure was Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve.
When his evil spell killed them, which it always did eventually, the Dragon would take them to his lair in the deepest, darkest cave of all – the underworld.
To free the myriads of souls held captive in the Dragon’s lair, Jesus had to get to the lair and break the Dragon’s power, which was death.
To do that, Jesus knew he had to die.
So while it appeared to all, including the Dragon, that Jesus was being defeated in death, he was really outsmarting the Dragon.
Imagine the Dragon’s shock when he learned that his death power had no hold on Jesus.
Jesus struck the Dragon a mighty blow on its head and seized the Dragon’s keys to death and the underworld.
Jesus burst out of the underworld and out of the grave, and he brought with him Adam and Eve and all their sons and daughters who had died trusting God’s promise.
But Jesus’ fight with the Dragon wasn’t over.
The fight continued in heaven, where the Dragon often came to taunt God and accuse the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve.But Jesus had outsmarted the Dragon again.
When the Dragon had killed him, Jesus had taken upon himself the punishment for the sin of the world going back to the first sin of Adam and Eve.
So, the Dragon could no longer accuse those who trusted in the Prince.
And with no accusations to bring, the Dragon had no right to come into heaven anymore.
The Dragon was furious, and war broke out in heaven between the Dragon and his evil demons and the Prince and his holy angels.
As powerful as the Dragon and his legions were, they were no match for the Prince and his angels, and the Prince threw the Dragon and his demons out of heaven forever.
You may think this is a good spot for a happy ending.
But the story didn’t end here, because God wasn’t content with a happy ending – he wanted the perfect ending.
What could be better than a happy ending?
A happing ending you don’t just read about but get to participate in.
A happy ending where you get to fight the Dragon and share in the Prince’s victory.
So, when the Prince threw the Dragon out of heaven, he threw him down to earth, where the Dragon  flew into a rage and began to fight the followers of the Prince who were on the earth.
That fight is still ongoing today, and so is the Story.
But we know how the Story will end.
The followers of the Prince will overcome the Dragon and deliver the world from his clever lies.
All the nations of people will see that the Old Story is really true, and they will follow the Prince.
When the Prince’s people have thus shared in his victory, the Prince will cast the Dragon and his legions and his  power of death and his lair into the Lake of Fire forever.
And the Prince will transform all his people and the whole earth so that they are completely free from the Dragon’s spell.
And the people and all the earth will share in the Prince’s glory and happiness.
What does this mean for you, children?
It means you are in the Story.
It means you get to fight the Dragon.
But you must beware, because the fight is fierce and dangerous, and the Dragon will devour whomever he can.
A wounded Dragon is the most dangerous dragon of all, for he knows his time is running out.
So, you must learn to fight like Jesus fought.
How do you do that?  You do what Jesus did.
First, honor and obey your parents like Jesus did (Luke 2.51-52).
Second, love the Bible and learn it like Jesus did (Luke 2.46-47).
Third, don’t give in to temptation – that’s the Dragon’s spell luring you.
Resist the Dragon.
Trust in God and his Word with all your heart like Jesus did (Luke 4.3-14; Prov 3.5-7).
If you do these things, you are becoming fair maids and brave princes, and you are preparing to fight the Dragon.  The Bible is a very long book with lots of details and twists and turns, but it really tells a single story.
That story concerns a maiden, a prince, and a dragon.
If this sounds like a fairy tale, that’s because most fairy tales – indeed, most stories in the world – are variations of the story that the Bible tells.
Sometimes the dragon is a wicked stepmother or a greedy uncle or a corrupt politician.
Sometimes the maiden and the prince are the girl next door and a guy across town.
But it’s the same basic story.
And we never tire of hearing it as long as it is told right and well.
If the villain wins, we feel more than disappointed – we feel cheated because the story hasn’t been told right.
That’s because this story is the story.
It is the story that God wrote, the story that history tells, the story that we are living in.
In fairy tales, the fouler the villain, the deeper the dungeon, and the more hopeless the situation, the more we love the story as long as good prevails in the end.
The story with the foulest villain, the deepest dungeon, and the most hopeless situation of all is the true story that the Bible tells.
In the Bible, the fair maiden’s name is Eve, and the brave prince is named Adam.
As we follow Adam’s and Eve’s story, we realize that there is a mysterious second maiden involved, and her story shadows Eve’s story, just like your shadow shadows you.
Sometimes you can see your shadow, and sometimes you can’t.
In the Bible, sometimes you can see this mysterious maiden, and sometimes you can’t.
But you know she is there, just like you know your shadow is there if only you had sufficient light to see it.Sometimes, your shadow is very small, and sometimes it is very big – much bigger than you.
In the Bible, the mysterious maiden is small at the beginning but grows bigger and bigger, like your shadow when the sun is going down.
The mysterious maiden is named Mankind.
You see, God, who wrote the story, planned for Adam and Eve to have many children, who would marry and have more children, who would marry and have still more children, until there were so many you couldn’t count them all.
Adam’s and Eve’s children would have their own families, but together they all would be one big family, God’s family.
The Bible speaks of Mankind both as God’s family and as a beautiful maiden, God’s Bride.
That is because God loved Mankind the way a husband loves his bride, and God wanted Mankind to love him the way a bride loves her husband.
So, in one sense Adam and Eve are the parents of Mankind, and in another sense they are part of Mankind – in the same way that your shadow seems to be part of you when it is very small, but when it is very big, you seem to be part of it.
But whether your shadow is small or big, one thing is always true: whatever happens to you happens to your shadow.
And thus it was with Adam and Eve and Mankind – whatever happened to Adam and Eve happened to Mankind.
One day, Adam and Eve were in the garden that God had made for them, when a dragon came up and began speaking to Eve.
Dragons are very clever, and this Dragon was the cleverest of all, which is not bad in itself.
But this Dragon was also vain and evil, and he hated God.
As Adam listened in, the Dragon cleverly deceived Eve and persuaded her to eat some fruit that God had forbidden.
Then Eve gave the fruit to Adam, and he ate it, too.
You probably think the fruit was poison, but it wasn’t.
Unfortunately, obeying the Dragon was.
The Dragon came to God and demanded that he honor Adam’s and Eve’s choice.
“Eve believed my word, not yours,” sneered the Dragon, “and Adam obeyed me, not you.”
He had a point.  And so, Adam and Eve fell under the power of the one they had believed and obeyed, and Mankind fell with them.
In fairy tales, this is the point when the brave prince comes to slay the fiery dragon and rescue the fair maid.
But in this story, the not-so-brave prince was taken captive with the not-so-fair maid.
How can there be a rescue when the rescuer needs rescuing?
Adam and Eve were covered in shame.
Eve was ashamed that she had believed the Dragon over God, and that she had coaxed her beloved Adam to follow her in eating the forbidden fruit.
It hurt her terribly to think that she had been created to bring good to her husband, but she had brought him evil instead.
And Adam was ashamed that he stood by and let the Dragon deceive his beloved Eve, and then he compounded his sin by knowingly following the Dragon.
It pierced his soul to think that he had been created to fight dragons and protect his bride, and he had done neither.
There would be no more story to tell had not God himself broken into the story with a promise – that a new prince would come from Eve, and he would fight the Dragon.
And a terrible fight it would be.  The Prince himself would be wounded, but he would wound the Dragon even worse with a head wound that would eventually kill it.
Adam and Eve believed God’s promise, and they had high hopes that each son born to them was the promised Prince.
But with each child came the sad realization that their children were all born under the Dragon’s evil spell.
How could one born under the Dragon’s spell hope to slay the Dragon?
Still, Adam and Eve believed that somehow, someday a prince would be born who would deliver them and their children from the Dragon.
Adam and Eve lived a very long time, much longer than people do today, but they never saw the promised Prince.
They grew old and died trusting God’s promise.
Many of Adam’s and Eve’s children also trusted God’s promise, but sadly many others did not.
Those who did not trust the promise began to change the Old Story.
They wrote a new story in which there was no Prince to come, because there was no Dragon and no evil spell, and there was no God, and no fair maids or brave princes.
Such things only lived in fairy tales, which were for children and weren’t true.
The authors of the new story did find it odd, however, that there should be so many fairy tales concerning non-existent things, and odder still that so many people should love to hear such silly stories.
There must have once been a survival advantage to telling such stories.
Making matter worse, those who believed in the new story saw no reason why they shouldn’t live however they pleased, and they often mistreated those who believed the Old Story.
Those who believed the Old Story, on the other hand, believed that they should live by it.
Even though they were sorely affected by the Dragon’s evil spell, they knew every girl should try to live like a fair maid, and every boy should try to live like a brave prince.
They couldn’t do it perfectly, of course, but they knew they should try, and when they fell short, they prayed to God for forgiveness.
Generation after generation of those who believed the Old Story lived and died without seeing the coming Prince.
To give them hope, God from time to time gave them sons who foreshadowed the promised Prince.
A foreshadow is when you see someone’s shadow before you see them.
When you see their shadow, you know that the person is coming.
These special sons foreshadowed the coming Prince by living in a way that revealed something of what the Prince would be like and what he would do.
If you are waiting for someone, you are always happy to see their shadow, but what you really want to see is them.
So, for hundreds and hundreds of years, Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve waited for the Prince.
Just when it seemed that the promised Prince would never come, God sent an angel from heaven to visit a most unlikely couple – a simple carpenter named Joseph and his betrothed, a young maiden name Mary.
The angel announced that before they came together as husband and wife, the Spirit of the Most High would overshadow Mary, and she would give birth to the promised Prince, who would be the Son of God.
True to the angel’s word, Mary gave birth to a baby boy before she ever came together with her husband, Joseph.  And they named the baby Jesus, which means “God is our Salvation.”
Jesus grew up just like all the other children.
He loved to laugh and play.
But there was something different about him.
The other children, no matter how good they were, always showed signs of the Dragon’s evil spell.
But Jesus never did.
Jesus grew to be thirty years old, which is a good age to fight dragons.
But Jesus acted strangley for a dragon fighter.
Everyone knew how dragons ought to be fought, or so they thought.
And Jesus wasn’t fighting the right way.
Indeed, he didn’t seem to be fighting at all.
How could he be the promised Prince?
People’s puzzlement grew into disappointment, and disappointment into anger.
Before you knew it, everyone seemed to be against Jesus, and many were calling for his death.
The Dragon, you see, was working his evil spell to manipulate the people to kill Jesus, for the Dragon knew that Jesus was the Prince.
(This is how the Dragon does most of his fighting.
He uses others to do his dirty work.
So, fighting the Dragon usually means dealing with people –
matching wits against evil men,
helping those who are oppressed by the Dragon’s  spell,
and telling the Old Story so people might escape the Dragon’s clever lies and follow the Prince.)
Jesus had a saying he used to tell his followers: “Be as innocent as doves and as clever as dragons” (Mat 10.16).
And that is just was Jesus was doing.
Dragons are greedy, and they love to steal treasure and take it to their lair, which is usually a deep, dark cave.
The great Dragon’s favorite treasure was Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve.
When his evil spell killed them, which it always did eventually, the Dragon would take them to his lair in the deepest, darkest cave of all – the underworld.
To free the myriads of souls held captive in the Dragon’s lair, Jesus had to get to the lair and break the Dragon’s power, which was death.
To do that, Jesus knew he had to die.
So while it appeared to all, including the Dragon, that Jesus was being defeated in death, he was really outsmarting the Dragon.
Imagine the Dragon’s shock when he learned that his death power had no hold on Jesus.
Jesus struck the Dragon a mighty blow on its head and seized the Dragon’s keys to death and the underworld.
Jesus burst out of the underworld and out of the grave, and he brought with him Adam and Eve and all their sons and daughters who had died trusting God’s promise.
But Jesus’ fight with the Dragon wasn’t over.
The fight continued in heaven, where the Dragon often came to taunt God and accuse the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve.But Jesus had outsmarted the Dragon again.
When the Dragon had killed him, Jesus had taken upon himself the punishment for the sin of the world going back to the first sin of Adam and Eve.
So, the Dragon could no longer accuse those who trusted in the Prince.
And with no accusations to bring, the Dragon had no right to come into heaven anymore.
The Dragon was furious, and war broke out in heaven between the Dragon and his evil demons and the Prince and his holy angels.
As powerful as the Dragon and his legions were, they were no match for the Prince and his angels, and the Prince threw the Dragon and his demons out of heaven forever.
You may think this is a good spot for a happy ending.
But the story didn’t end here, because God wasn’t content with a happy ending – he wanted the perfect ending.
What could be better than a happy ending?
A happing ending you don’t just read about but get to participate in.
A happy ending where you get to fight the Dragon and share in the Prince’s victory.
So, when the Prince threw the Dragon out of heaven, he threw him down to earth, where the Dragon  flew into a rage and began to fight the followers of the Prince who were on the earth.
That fight is still ongoing today, and so is the Story.
But we know how the Story will end.
The followers of the Prince will overcome the Dragon and deliver the world from his clever lies.
All the nations of people will see that the Old Story is really true, and they will follow the Prince.
When the Prince’s people have thus shared in his victory, the Prince will cast the Dragon and his legions and his  power of death and his lair into the Lake of Fire forever.
And the Prince will transform all his people and the whole earth so that they are completely free from the Dragon’s spell.
And the people and all the earth will share in the Prince’s glory and happiness.
What does this mean for you, children?
It means you are in the Story.
It means you get to fight the Dragon.
But you must beware, because the fight is fierce and dangerous, and the Dragon will devour whomever he can.
A wounded Dragon is the most dangerous dragon of all, for he knows his time is running out.
So, you must learn to fight like Jesus fought.
How do you do that?  You do what Jesus did.
First, honor and obey your parents like Jesus did (Luke 2.51-52).
Second, love the Bible and learn it like Jesus did (Luke 2.46-47).
Third, don’t give in to temptation – that’s the Dragon’s spell luring you.
Resist the Dragon.
Trust in God and his Word with all your heart like Jesus did (Luke 4.3-14; Prov 3.5-7).
If you do these things, you are becoming fair maids and brave princes, and you are preparing to fight the Dragon.