Daniel 7:9-14
Christ the King
November 24, 2024
9As I watched, thrones were set in place,
and an Ancient One took his throne, his clothing was white as snow, and the
hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames, and its wheels
were burning fire. 10A stream of fire issued and flowed out
from his presence. A thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten
thousand stood attending him. The court sat in judgment, and the books were
opened. 11I watched then because of the noise of the arrogant
words that the horn was speaking. And as I watched, the beast was put to death,
and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire. 12As
for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were
prolonged for a season and a time. 13As I watched in the night
visions, I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven. And he
came to the Ancient One and was presented before him. 14To him
was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and
languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall
not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.
Before I became a pastor, I had a career in musical theater. Yes, that’s true. You probably didn’t know that because I performed in only one musical. It was a high school production. It ran for two nights, Friday and Saturday. And it was a thrill to be on stage for Meredith Willson’s Tony-award-winning show, “The Music Man.”
I didn’t sing “Seventy-Six Trombones” or “Marian the Librarian,” but I did have a shining moment. It was in my role as, “Crowd Member #12.” For that offered me a feature as “Fourth Man on the Train.” In a Pullman car full of traveling salesmen, a piece called “Rock Island” starts moving with the train. On cue from the director, I lowered a newspaper to say, “Look, what do ya talk…?” I got to do it three times.
Now, my acting was forgettable. So was most of the play. What I’ll never forget was the production. Not the production on stage but the production that happened backstage. It was dazzling. The acting was so-so; we were high school kids. But the stage crew audience was meticulous. They were well-rehearsed. The lights went up and down at just the right time. The sound effects were spot on. The cardboard backdrops changed flawlessly. Nobody in front of the curtain saw it, but I did. It was a revelation. Literally, a revelation!
No wonder the Bible uses similar language. It’s there in that word “apocalypse.” Ever heard that word? It’s usually reserved for horrible movies about wars, natural disasters, and end-of-the world crises. Yet the term “apocalypse” comes from the world of theater. It’s when you get to see what’s behind the curtain. The true operations are disclosed – and for the moment, everybody can see what’s going on behind the scenes. The Bible word for this is “apocalypse” – a revelation.
What we have from scripture today is a moment like that. There aren’t many such moments in the Bible. Of course, there’s the Book of Revelation (the Greek title is “The Apocalypse of John”). It’s like a science fiction script. And then there’s this section from the book of Daniel. It’s a rare moment in the Hebrew Bible.
Up until now, Daniel has offered stories about the Babylonian Exile. That was the critical breakdown in Jewish history, and it prompted a lot of composition of the Old Testament. In 587 BC, a foreign empire swooped down in Israel and Judah like locusts. The Babylonians destroyed the Jerusalem Temple. The brightest and the best were stolen as slaves. It was a crisis unlike anything the Jews had experienced.
Warnings had come for years but went unheeded. When the invaders came. Society collapsed. The people had to figure out how to be Jews when they had no temple, no homeland, and the wind was blowing against them. How would they live a faithful life?
That’s what the first six chapters of the book of Daniel are about. We hear heroic stories of how the Jewish heroes remained Jewish. Stolen away to a foreign land, they still ate the kosher foods. Surrounded by counterfeit gods of a foreign empire, they prayed to the God who they believed is greater, they spoke up, acted up, and stayed faithful – even when they were cast into a fiery furnace. Even when they found themselves locked in a lions’ den.
Here in chapter seven, the book makes a dramatic shift. According to the storyteller, Daniel lies down on his bed one night. While he’s lying there, he has an overwhelming dream. He dreams with his eyes wide open. Call it a nightmare, call it a vision. The Bible would call it an apocalypse. Daniel sees a revelation of the truth. He is allowed to see what is normally hidden behind the curtain. Some of it isn’t pretty.
A dozen years ago or so, an investigative reporter named Matt Birkbeck wrote a book about organized crime in northeastern Pennsylvania. He named names. A lot of people recognized the names. Mr. Birkbeck moved and didn’t tell anybody where he was living.
As somebody who didn’t grow up around here, I found some of his stories shocking. Like the Roman Catholic priest who carried a handgun and always had a lot of cache; I presided at a funeral with that guy, had no idea. Or the quiet man who lived on a quiet street in Kingston. Who knew he was a crime boss? Or the nice gentleman that I once met at a wedding? It turns out he has, shall we say, a lot of influence? Birkbeck’s book opened the curtain – and it was ugly.
In fact, Mr. Birkbeck was invited by the Lackawanna library to talk about his book in Scranton. Suddenly, it was announced the event was cancelled, and he had been paid his fee by an undisclosed person and told to not show up. Hmm. Are things going on that everybody knows, and nobody talks about?
An apocalypse is an unveiling. It is truth-telling. It is calling out what many people know but nobody wants to talk about. It is revealing what’s behind the curtain. An apocalypse is a reality check.
I just finished reading an amazing book by Tim Alberta. It’s called, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory. With chapter and verse and extensive research, Alberta reveals how a lot of evangelical church leaders have sold their souls to gain political power. It is a sad book, in many ways. There is one story after another about television evangelists who have no scruples. The characters in that book will do just about anything to make more money, spread their influence, and tell the congress and the White House what to do.
By the last chapter, it is the same old sad story of human corruption. You can gain the world and lose your soul. Some of these folks could have learned a good lesson from Tony Campolo, the Baptist preacher who died this week. One time, Tony told somebody, “Putting religion and politics together is like mixing ice cream with horse manure. It doesn’t hurt the manure, but it ruins the ice cream.”[1]
What does Daniel see? What is his dream, his apocalypse? Two things, really. First, he sees the powers of the world, represented in four vicious beasts. They rise out of the chaos of the sea. There is a lion, a bear, a leopard, an unnamed monster with a lot of teeth. Through the years, scholars have perceived allusions to the empires of Babylon, Persia, and Greece, and Rome – but the specifics do not matter. What does matter is naming the evil they represent: the arrogance, the inflictions, the chaos they create, and the wreckage. One empire after another, one figurehead after another – the names change, the evil continues. It is a revelation of the broken world where we live. Daniel is given the sight or the insight to see what’s truly happening in the world. That’s the first thing he sees.
Yet then there’s a second part of the vision. He sees a throne, The Throne, and an Ancient One who takes his rightful place upon it. His presence is full of fire. And he takes a book, opens it, finds the name of the first vicious beast, and judges it. Then the same with the next three beasts. They are judged, too. Then Daniel says something we had not known: “Their dominion was taken away, although their lives continued for a season and a time.” Evil has no ultimate power, in other words, even if it sputters on.
With that, the vision gets broader, larger, brighter, bigger. Daniel sees somebody coming, one “like the Son of Man,” he says, a human being – but presented to the Ancient One as the only one worthy of true dominion, glory, and authority.
As Christians, we are quick to jump on that scene to say it’s Jesus, the exalted Christ – although Daniel does not name him, not yet. The day will come. When it does, every eye shall see him. Every voice shall praise him. Every living being shall declare he is the Only One worthy of worship and praise. It is the sort of thing we can only sing about – and in a minute we will sing the song.
Before we do, let me simply make the connection that, when the curtain is pulled back, we see the world in all its corruption for what it is. We see the One who rules over it with holy love, and the One who is worthy of all praise. And we see that the battle between good and evil will finally be won by goodness. Arrogance will not be defeated by further arrogance. Rather, God judges the world through by perfect goodness. This is the true meaning of judgment: God will win over the world by truth, glory, and goodness. Everything less than that will be taken away. One “like the Son of Man” will rule – forever and ever.
Like I said, this is truth so deep that we cannot fully describe it. But we can sing it. And let the song ring out forever.
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