We've been tracing the theme of the Sea Dragon in the story of the Bible.

The Sea Dragon is an ancient symbol of disorder and chaos and death.

We've seen how when God's creatures

succumb to the sea dragon, the sea dragon consumes them, making them also

chaos creatures. Yet the Bible anticipates a coming king who will defeat the dragon once and for all.

And the gospel author is to pick Jesus as that king.

In today's episode, we look at how Jesus confronts the dragon.

And it's not in the way his followers expected.

He will allow agents of the snake to take his life and he will die because of the sins of his people and for their sins.

For the ways they partner with the snake and become agents of the snake's chaos and death

in the land, he will allow that death to overwhelm him. of the

dragon he will first surrender to it. This sounds so counterintuitive that

Peter one of Jesus disciples disciples, rebukes Jesus, and Jesus response is get behind me, Satan.

When Peter says, nah, this is not going to happen, the voice that Jesus hears speaking through Peter is the Satan because that's what he calls him.

So this is for sure another moment where the snake's taking the opportune time.

Speaking through Peter, you could crush the dragon by smashing your enemies.

And Jesus says that's the voice of the Satan, tempting him.

Evil, chaos, and death are scary things.

We want to fight back with violence. We want to

destroy chaos. We want to bring death to the dragon, but Jesus says, take up your

cross and follow him. To defeat death we have to be willing to die. And that's

because the fear of death is the only real power the dragon actually has.

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