Richard Davenport
November 17, 2024 – Proper 28
Daniel 12:1-3
The book of Daniel is a fun book to read, but at the same time a little strange. Daniel has a lot of popular stories you learn as a kid. There’s King Nebuchadnezzar and the fiery furnace. There’s Daniel in the lions’ den. There’s Daniel and the writing on the wall. Perhaps even how Daniel and his friends are taken to Babylon to begin with. Daniel certainly lived an interesting life. In between all of these big events, though, there are strange dreams and confusing visions. Many of which sound just like what you’d find in the book of Revelation. King Nebuchadnezzar is given dreams of his reign in Babylon, as well as events that will come much later. He even learns a bit about the coming of Christ. Daniel sees all sorts of visions about the future, not just about God’s people, but about the whole Middle East over the next couple of centuries.
The early years of Daniel’s life can’t have been fun. He and his friends are rounded up by Nebuchadnezzar and brought to Babylon. Though the king is grooming them to be advisors, they are still essentially slaves. There’s one point where Nebuchadnezzar is given a confusing dream and when none of his immediate advisors can interpret it for him, he starts killing them all off, Daniel and his friends included. It’s only when Daniel is told what is going on that he is able to speak to the king and interpret the dream for him. He has no freedom to go anywhere or do anything on his own until later, when he is given a position of authority in the empire.
The author and speaker, Steven Covey, describes one of the seven habits he believes essential to being a highly successful person is to have the end goal in mind before you begin. I have to admit, as much as I try to do this, I don’t always manage to do it. I agree it’s very helpful to know what you are trying to accomplish before you start to work on it. If your work is starting to lead a different direction, you have to remember again what you’re trying to do and refocus your work to lead you back toward your goal. It can save you a lot of wasted effort if you start wandering off course.
But it doesn’t always happen. Sometimes you start a project that sounds great, without really realizing what you’re trying to accomplish, especially when you have to think really long term. How many people enter their first real career with a clear idea where they want to end up? “I want to be the head of the department. I want to be the top salesman in the company. I want to be good enough the company sends me to live overseas. I want to go from helping out on a farm to owning one of my own,” or whatever your goal is. If you did have this goal in mind and were dedicated at achieving it, you might be surprised how well you’re able to accomplish what you’re after. At the very least, you avoid a lot of detours that aren’t going to help you get there.
Not everyone does that. I bet most people don’t. It’s hard enough just focusing on the day in front of you and dealing with the challenges it brings to be thinking that far down the line. It would be nice to have a goal and know you’re heading toward it, but it’s something you have to take the time to think through.
It’s also true that you don’t always have the option. Many a freshman college student has gone off with only a vague idea what they want to do with themselves. They’d love to know where they should be applying themselves, but they just don’t know. At some point you just have to take a stab at something and hope it’s something you’re suited for. I can say from experience that that isn’t always the case. The future ends up looking pretty murky. It would be nice if you could just sit think about it for a while and everything would become clear, but it doesn’t work like that. No matter how much you might want to know where you’re headed, there’s no guarantee you’ll ever see the end before you get there.
When you start to think about it, there are probably a lot of different projects and undertakings you begin without ever knowing the goal before you start. How about marriage? A huge, life-changing commitment, one that warrants at least a little caution before entering into. Whether you were cautious or impulsive when it came time to get married, did you and your spouse sit down to consider where you wanted to end up? Did you at least think about your life 10 or 20 years down the line? You may not even know what that looks like. I’m not sure I can even answer those questions for myself.
The same could be said for many other things. The end of things is hard to know. If you know what the end should be, it doesn’t mean you know how to get there and it doesn’t mean that goal will ever get any closer. You can work yourself to death, but it doesn’t mean you’ll get the promotion you wanted. The opportunity may simply never arise.
Daniel was certainly in this boat. Early on in his life he may have had some idea what he was going to do. We don’t know a lot about Daniel prior to being hauled off by the Babylonians, but we do know Nebuchadnezzar wanted young men from the Israelite nobility to groom for his court. Daniel was likely going to take over his father’s position as an elder of his clan, as well as the estate his father held.
Now that was all gone. Maybe he had some thoughts on what he’d like to do with his life, now that he’s stuck in Babylon, but he doesn’t have much power to make it happen. It’s even a toss up whether he lives through the day sometimes. His stint in the lions’ den happens later in life when he’s one of the top dogs in the empire. He has little opportunity to do anything, aside from just try to make it through the day. It must be frustrating to know you’re stuck right where you are, a dead-end job, a dead-end life, every day only bringing more uncertainty.
It sounds a lot like getting stuck in a maze. I like mazes. I’d do big books of mazes all the time when I was a kid. Laurie picks up a tough maze book for me from time to time. I’ll see it sitting there and pick it up and run through one of the mazes for a while until I figure it out. After you’ve done a lot of mazes, you start to learn some tricks to speed things up and avoid wrong turns. You get an intuition of what path to take. Even if it takes you a couple of days to get through one, you know you’ll eventually get it. You know where you start and you know where you end and there are only so many paths in the middle to take. Process of elimination will get you there, even if nothing else will.
If only real life were so straight forward. There might be an end you see out there, a promotion, a college degree, a relationship, whatever it is. But there’s no guarantee that end is even possible, like a maze where the end can never be reached, but you can never tell. Life gives you so many different ways to go, so many different possible paths, you’ll never really know whether the goal you’re aiming for is out of reach, or if you’re going anywhere at all.
The reading from Daniel today describes the last words from God Daniel hears, at least of what he recorded. He has been getting an extended description of what is coming in the world’s future. There will be great upheavals, with empire overthrowing empire. In all of this, Daniel is just one man. He’s a prophet and a righteous man who has held on to his faith in the center of a pagan land, but he’s still just one man, living far from the land he wants to call home.
With all of this stuff rushing along, it could be easy to feel lost and get the sense that nothing you will do will get you anywhere. If you even had a thought about where you wanted to end up, all of this is going to make it pretty difficult to live and move in the direction you want to go. All of the effort you might put into trying to have the life you want may accomplish nothing at all.
The passage for today also mentions Michael, an angel, who is caring for the people of God. Though there is great upheaval, the people of God are delivered from it all. They have nothing to fear. The end of the vision is about the end of this world. Some are delivered and some are lost. Everyone is stuck in the maze, but some get out and some don’t.
Next week is the last week in the church year, when the life of Christ and the life of the Church comes full circle. Advent looks forward to the coming of Christ and the end of the church year repeats that by looking forward again to the coming of Christ. Christ sees us each struggling in our maze, trying to get out, trying to escape. He directs his angels to find us and bring us out of darkness to follow Christ as he leads us into the light of the new world. There will be those who listen and follow and those who are determined to figure it out all on their own.
The sin we face isn’t being lost, it’s thinking there’s no way out or in thinking if we can’t get where we want to go, then we aren’t going to go anywhere at all. The theme of the passage is deliverance. Just like God delivered the Israelites from the oppression of the Egyptians and led them out to their own land, he comes to lead us out. When Christ and his search party come he will take you by the hand and lead you from darkness to light.
The end of the church year reminds us the story of our life isn’t about any particular goal we might have here in our lives. Whether you get the job you want or are able to build the relationship you’ve been hoping for doesn’t matter much in the end, if you’re still stuck in the maze when all is said and done. God is telling us the end of the story here. We may not be able to see the way out, but he can and does. Your future is well in hand. You may feel lost now, but God knows right where you are. Christ returns as the triumphant deliverer. He knows all of the ins and outs of the world and our lives. He will always find us, no matter how lost we feel.
If you spend too long in the dark and suddenly the light comes on, you get that kind of stabbing pain as your eyes try to adjust. It isn’t much fun, but it means you aren’t in the dark anymore. You can find your way about with worrying about running to things or tripping. When Christ brings us out, we will shine like he does. Light everywhere dispelling the darkness of doubt, worry, and fear. We will never be in the dark again because the light of Christ will be everywhere and we will know our future is secure in him.