Daniel and the Lions

Unchanging:Prayer:Mouths:Jesus - Daniel 6

Unchanging
Daniel's enemies thought that they knew what couldn't be changed. They thought that they knew what was permanent. They thought that rules and regulations and laws couldn't be changed.

They wanted to destroy Daniel, so they watched him. They couldn't find anything wrong with the way he went about his business or how he did his work. There were no brown envelopes stuffed with cash, no dodgy expenses claims, no shoddy materials used in the buildings he managed, no hidden affairs, he was as clean as a whistle.

But they did see something. They saw him go three times a day and kneel down at a window and pray. They saw this, but they did not understand it. They thought that this must be some kind of law of Daniel's God, some kind of religious rule that Daniel had to keep.

So, they came up with a plan. They would set up a new law, an unchangeable law, a law of the Medes and Persians. They would persuade the King to make a law that would outlaw Daniel.

Their misunderstanding came back to bite them. Daniel did not pray three times a day because it was part of God's law, there is no commandment in the Jewish Bible governing an individual's prayer life. Daniel prayed three times a day because of grace. Daniel prayed three times a day because God gave him the strength and self discipline to do so in a hostile place. Daniel prayed three times a day because he knew that he needed to keep in touch with God through the day, to allow him to do his work.

This new decree did not reduce Daniel's need for God's strength and support, it increased it, so he kept praying, as his enemies had thought that he would. And they revel in it, they are sure that their strong law will crush this upstart.

To begin with, it doesn't look too hopeful for Daniel. It looks like the law is going to win. It is so strong that even the King can't defeat it. The King is bound by his own law, and Daniel has to go into the pit. Ironically, as Daniel is thrown into the den, the king says, “May your God, whom you so faithfully serve, deliver you”. Sounds a lot like a prayer to me. The King cannot stop the working of the law, but he does break it.

In the morning we see the King rushing to the pit, having had no sleep, and we see that God has rescued Daniel. The one who lived in the grace of God has been rescued from the penalty of the law. The law lies, defeated, the grace of God has won the day.

What is it that can't be changed in our world? Twenty years ago, on the international stage, we might have answered: South Africa, Northern Ireland, The Berlin Wall. Now we look around the world and we see other situations where we can see no way out. Closer to home we might have things in our own lives, where we can see no way out, things that look unchangeable.

With God there is always a way out. God's grace and provision for us will always, in the end, win over those things that are set up against us. We should not believe those who tell us that human decisions, human minds, human hearts can't be changed. The thing that can't be changed is God's love for us.

Prayer

When we meet Daniel, he is an old man. He has been in exile since he was a teenager, carted off from Jerusalem to Babylon. Through his time there he has served in the courts of various kings, the heads of state of the superpowers of the day. He has seen them come and go, and throughout his time he has kept on with his life of prayer. Faithful, hopeful, seeking, and disciplined.

Discipline isn't a very popular word at the moment. We joke about the fact that we sign up for the gym in the New Year, but we only ever go twice. Bridget Jones is one of the heroes of our age. We are tempted by this in our church life, in our walk with God. We might be afraid that being disciplined about our prayer life will rob us of spontaneity. We might say that we don't have to have a set time to sit down and talk with our partner, or best friends, so why should we with God? The weird thing is that the best relationship advice out there at the moment says that that is exactly what we need to do.

The thing is, that it is the disciplined habits that we develop in the easier times that will keep us going in the hard times.

Seeking is a much more popular word. Everybody's looking for something. In this case Daniel was seeking God and God's mercy. I find it reassuring that Daniel, this hero of faith, this man who had served God for many years and knew God intimately, he was still having to seek God. I know that when I pray, it doesn't always feel like God is right here, sometimes it feels like God's nowhere. So, part of prayer is to seek. Not that God hides from us, but sometimes there is so much crowding into my head when I pray that it's like hacking my way through a jungle until I find that clearing where there is space and light to sit and be with God.

Hopeful is a great word, but it's not found in the reading, so where have I got it from? It's all to do with the direction we face when we pray. Daniel faced Jerusalem. He could not see it, it was hundreds of miles away, but he faced the city that was the symbol of the promises of God to the people. Daniel hoped for the return of God's people to the promised land. He had been in exile for decades, yet still he prayed, facing in the direction of his hope.

When I pray, what direction am I facing? My hope is in the Kingdom of God, in heaven, secure in Jesus and his death and resurrection. What does it mean to pray in the direction of my hope? As the people of God, we are exiles in the world. We are the royalty of another Kingdom, a Kingdom we face in hope as we pray, “your Kingdom come, your will be done”.

Mouths

A crocodile can shut its mouth with immense pressure. Once a crocodile's mouth is shut on something it is almost impossible to open it. On the other hand, keeping a crocodile's mouth closed is really easy, you can do it with your bare hands. Most of the muscles in its head are arranged to close the mouth on things, very few to open it.

So, for a crocodile it's easier for someone to shut it's mouth than to open it's mouth.

Why am I telling you this? Well it struck me that in this account we have two works of God involving mouths, and I think that we sometimes focus on one and forget the other.

The one we tend to focus on is the shutting of the mouths of the lions. It's big and dramatic, and we can visualise it, and it's exciting, and Daniel is saved because of it.

The other work of God is the opening of the mouth of the King in praise of God. Here is the head of a secular superpower, who has taken over power in a coup, who has no hesitation in putting people he disagrees with to death, who has 24 hours before hand decided that everybody in the known world should worship him for a month. This man is now praising God. This is like Stalin declaring that God is supreme.

Our God is a God that can open mouths in praise. We might look around and see mouths clamped shut in defiance of God. We might see mouths tight shut in hurt and anger. We might see jaws holding on to people, dragging them down. But, we have a God who opens mouths in praise.

Jesus

When I was preparing for this evening, I was looking at the reading and I thought that it looked a bit long for one person to read it all out. So, I decided that it would be a good idea for us to read it as a narrative, with different people taking different parts, as we did. As I went through to work out who would have to say what, I noticed something. I noticed that Daniel doesn't say anything until he comes out of the pit. He was silent before his accusers.

And I thought, I've heard something like that in a story somewhere before. As I looked the similarities to that other story came thick and fast. In this other story there was another man who was faithful to God, another man of prayer. Another man who upset those in authority so much that they plotted to have him killed. Another man who was condemned to death by a judge who tried to avoid passing the verdict. Another man who was put in a hole in the ground. But there the similarities stopped, because the other man was dead when he was put into the ground.

And here we hit one of the problems with the story of Daniel in the lion's den. It has a lot to teach us about prayer, about the power of God, and about God's unchanging grace but it can be misunderstood.

It will be misunderstood if we take the end of this story and assume that all stories end like this. If we look at Daniel, coming out of the den unhurt and alive, and believe that this should be the end of our stories, then we are going to end up disappointed and confused when we are hurt by the lions in our lives.

It is much more important to look at the other story for the ending that God promises to all the people of God. In the other story the man went into the pit dead, but he came out of it alive. This is a more glorious story, this is the story of the resurrection, this is the story that shows that death need not be the end.

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