Daniel 6:10-12,16-23
10 Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before. 11 Then these men went as a group and found Daniel praying and asking God for help. 12 So they went to the king and spoke to him about his royal decree: “Did you not publish a decree that during the next thirty days anyone who prays to any god or human being except to you, Your Majesty, would be thrown into the lions’ den?”
The king answered, “The decree stands—in accordance with the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed.”
16 So the king gave the order, and they brought Daniel and threw him into the lions’ den. The king said to Daniel, “May your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you!”
17 A stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the rings of his nobles, so that Daniel’s situation might not be changed. 18 Then the king returned to his palace and spent the night without eating and without any entertainment being brought to him. And he could not sleep.
19 At the first light of dawn, the king got up and hurried to the lions’ den. 20 When he came near the den, he called to Daniel in an anguished voice, “Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to rescue you from the lions?”
21 Daniel answered, “May the king live forever! 22 My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions. They have not hurt me, because I was found innocent in his sight. Nor have I ever done any wrong before you, Your Majesty.”
23 The king was overjoyed and gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den. And when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him, because he had trusted in his God.
Lion-Proof Faith
As many of you know, we had a movie night here at church on Friday. We watched Luther, the 2003 biopic of the great reformer of Christianity and the namesake of our denomination. Just for kicks, I went back and watched the original theatrical trailer. I wasn’t disappointed. Along with dramatic closeups and quick hitting action sequences there were a couple phrases that flashed up on the screen that I couldn’t help but hear in the classic movie announcer voice:
500 years ago one man changed the world.
He dared speak his mind.
He would not be silenced.
Watching the trailer, you can tell it’s a 20-year-old movie. It’s kind of cringy. Honestly, if I hadn’t already seen it, I would have guessed it was another Hollywood hack job, romanticizing a historical figure and changing the whole story so that it would sell tickets at the box office. One man changing the world, escaped nuns, outraged emperors, book burning – it all seems a little fantastical.
Having watched it, though, I have to say that it was remarkably accurate, and one of the rare instances in which reality was probably even more dramatic than the Hollywood version. There really was a man named Martin Luther, and the things he did 500 years ago did change the world – and not just religiously, but politically and socially and linguistically too.
It’s a really amazing story, and worth your time. But even though it is Reformation Sunday, I don’t really want to talk about Luther; I’m going to talk about what Luther stood for – giving everyday people access to God’s Holy Word, where we hear even more fantastical stories that are just as true as Luther’s was.
In our first reading for today, we read a story about corruption and political intrigue and royal delusions of grandeur, inhuman forms of execution and equally incredible forms of divine intervention. Daniel would make a great Hollywood blockbuster, but the best part is that it’s all true. There really was a guy named Daniel and these things really did happen.
We picked up kind of in the middle of the story earlier. Let me give you some background. About 50 years before the events of Daniel 6, the Babylonian empire invaded what was left of the formerly United Kingdom of Israel and carried off its best and brightest people back to Babylon, including a very special teenaged boy named Daniel.
Daniel was quickly identified as an intelligent young man who could be a great asset in government. He rose through the ranks quickly and even as the kingship changed hands, Daniel was perennially chosen as one of the king’s – whichever one it was – most trusted advisors.
This didn’t sit well with the locals. They were jealous and wanted to get rid of Daniel. They tried to find some skeletons in his closet. They spied on him, but couldn’t find anything wrong. He was squeaky clean. So, that’s where they thought to attack. Daniel was well known as a believer in God. So his enemies convinced the king to sign into law a ban forbidding the worship of any other god or man in all the land except for King Darius.
If you were in Daniel’s shoes, what would you have done? Remember, Daniel was 60+ years old at the time. He had already witnessed the downfall and destruction of his homeland. He had been taken as a prisoner of war to a foreign land and forced to work for an immoral king. He was under constant threat and opposition by his rivals. And now the king outlawed him from worshiping his God. If you were in his shoes, what would you have done?
Maybe it’s not all that difficult to imagine having lived through a global pandemic where it sometimes felt like we were being prohibited from worshiping God. What did you do when you heard those mandates coming down? Did you grumble? Did you complain? Were you afraid? Were you so discouraged that you kind of gave up for a while? Maybe you still haven’t worked your way back to the full joy and trust and participation in God and in worship you had before.
Did you notice what Daniel did, though?
When Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.[1]
It’s like he wasn’t even fazed! Daniel didn’t stop praying to his God. He didn’t let his opponents disrupt his personal, spiritual life. He didn’t let this – rather significant, life-threatening – setback rob him of a single reason to thank his God in prayer.
Think about that. When Daniel found out about the decree, he hit his knees and thanked God. Daniel wasn’t ruled by fear. He wasn’t cowed into a form of obedience that would have gone against his conscience. He wasn’t swayed, even emotionally, by the evil actions of his enemies. He could still in that moment – after 60 years of disappointment – find plenty of reasons to thank and praise his God.
I wish I could be more like Daniel. Don’t you? To let go of that sinful, selfish sense of self-entitlement that is so quick to voice our complaints to God as if we don’t deserve to go through whatever it is it might be in the moment, as if we deserve better treatment from God for all the favours we’ve done for God. Don’t you wish you could be free of fear and worry about what other people might think of you or what the consequences could be? To be so strong in my faith that I’d willing face a den full of hungry lions rather than give up an inch of my love or life for my God.
Daniel is a hero of faith. And you’d almost be tempted to believe that the ending of this story is exactly how a hero of faith should be treated. After King Darius spent a sleepless night worrying over Daniels wellbeing, he ran to the den and called to Daniel, and beyond all hope, Daniel answered:
“May the king live forever! My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions. They have not hurt me, because I was found innocent in his sight. Nor have I ever done any wrong before you, Your Majesty.”[2]
Daniel is a hero of faith and the way his story ends is exactly what we would hope for. But I want you to consider this: the same God who shut the lions’ mouths in their lair, is the same one who opened Daniel’s mouth in prayer.
Daniel is absolutely a hero of faith, but not because he possessed an inner conviction that you and I do not, not because he reached a potential that you and I should. Daniel is a hero of faith because he trusted in a God who was able to rescue him from the lions… and the liars… and the king’s corrupt commands. Daniel is a hero of faith because his faith was founded in the right object. He trusted in the right person. And the fact is that whether those lions had feasted on his flesh or not, Daniel faith would have still been properly placed in a God who is able to rescue us from so much more.
In his final encouragements in his first letter, Peter wrote this to Christians like us:
Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.[3]
We may not be facing literal lions on a daily basis, but we are facing constant pressure to give up our faith, to give up on God, to give up on each other. And that doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from the very real and very dangerous spiritual forces of evil in this world. The devil is hard at work among us, especially among believers, trying to drag us away from our God.
But we have a God who is able to rescue us from this lion too. Peter goes on to say:
And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.[4]
Our God is a God of grace. He forgives you for when you slip into sins of self-entitlement and fear and despair and discouragement. He is a God of grace who sent his Son to shut the lying lion’s mouth once and for all – to silence the devil’s accusations that you are unworthy of God’s love and to demonstrate that love by being willing to give up his life for you on a cross, to pay for all of your sins, to call you to his eternal glory, i.e. to open the doors of heaven to sinners like you and me, who cannot claim the title of hero of faith like Daniel, but whose faith is nevertheless placed in the same God who is able – and who has – rescued us from sin and death and that roaring lion, the devil.
Your God of grace is the one who restores you when you fall, and who will make you strong, firm and steadfast – not because of the strength of your faith, but because of the strength of the one in whom you put that faith.
Your life story may never make it to the silver screen, like Luther’s did. You may not go down in history as a hero of faith, like Daniel did. But their God is your God. The same God who shut the mouths of the lions and – maybe even more miraculously – gave Daniel daily reasons to give thanks despite all the downturns and hardships of his life – that same God is the one who still has the power and the love to be with you, to give you reason to give thanks every day no matter what’s going on in your life, to spare you from every evil that threatens you and to promise you eternal life in heaven where you will have even more reason to do what Daniel did, i.e. to say your prayers of thanks and praise to your God, who loved you and set you free, who restores you and makes you strong, firm and steadfast, through faith in Christ Jesus your Lord. Amen.
[1] Daniel 3:10
[2] Daniel 3:21,22
[3] 1 Peter 5:8,9
[4] 1 Peter 5:10