Seeing the Mark of the Beast

“(The Beast) forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads”  Revelation 13:16

In my Lutheran tradition, it is rare to spend a great deal of time in the book of Revelation.  Few of its mysterious and misunderstood readings fall in the lectionary sequence.  Most Lutherans do not read Revelation as a literal interpretation of the exact ways in which the world will come to an end.  Instead, we understand it as God’s WORD spoken to an oppressed people under Roman occupation with the message “At the end of time, God wins” being the central theme.  Those familiar with Revelation have heard of the term “The mark of the beast.”

In Revelation 13, we read of a dragon like creature which emerges, speaking blasphemes against God.  The beast creates a mark upon the hand or forehead of people (666) claiming them and co-opting them for evil.  The take away from this passage is the fact that evil forces will leave their mark upon this earth.

“Do you renounce the forces of evil, the devil and all his empty promises?”

I renounce them.

I have seen the literal mark of the beast in Tijuana.  It is real.  More real than any terrifying image that could be conjured in our minds. It confirms beyond any doubt that the forces of evil are truly present in our world. 

Every year, thousands of undocumented migrants,  braving bandits, extreme heat and hunger, cling to the wagons of "the Beast," a freight train that runs from southern Mexico to the US-Mexican border.  Traveling upwards of 700 miles on the tops of train cars or clinging to metal bars inches from the roaring wheels, migrants travel in search of jobs in Mexico and the US.  Along the journey, the Mark of the Beast and all the forces of evil assault the dehydrated, starving migrants with brutal gang rapes, murders and robberies.

“Do you renounce the forces of evil, the devil and all his empty promises?”

I renounce them.

After breakfast on our fourth day in Tijuana, a Guatemalan man walking with the aid of crutches, his leg missing from the knee down, offered me a warm and friendly smile.  Greeting him with my broken Spanish, we sat on a wooden bench near the courtyard of the mission where my group was staying.  He pointed to a map to show me his homeland—“Aztec,” he told me.  Slowly circling a small dot on the map with his finger,  “Mi casa, aqui.”  As I attempted to politely ignore his missing limb, assuming in my mind he had been born without part of his leg, the man shifted the conversation. 

“The Beast,” he told me, “I was robbed.  I was pushed.  The train. My leg is gone,” making a slicing action with his hand toward his knee.  I gazed upon the Mark of the Beast, remembering our Lutheran Baptismal vows:

“Do you renounce the forces of evil, the devil and all his empty promises?”

I renounced them.

I later learned this Child of God lost his leg the first time he rode.  His body beaten, robbed, tossed from a height of 2 stories off the train by the forces of evil,  before being marked by The Beast.  The second time he rode The Beast, his prosthetic leg, for which he worked over a year to afford, was ripped from his body as he was beaten in his sleep.

“Do you renounce the forces of evil, the devil and all his empty promises?”

I renounce them.

The Mark of the Beast is real. I have seen it.  But I know, and the Child of God I met knows, Revelation doesn’t end in chapter 13.  For then we see a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.  God’s dwelling place will be among God’s people…and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.  And there will be no more death, no more mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will pass away.

But until that day, I shall name the Mark of the Beast, and all the forces of evil.  And I shall I renounce them.