The reading Daniel 6:6-27
So the presidents and satraps conspired and came to the king
and said to him, “O King Darius, live forever! All the presidents of the
kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the counselors and the governors are
agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an interdict,
that whoever prays to anyone, divine or human, for thirty days, except to you,
O king, shall be thrown into a den of lions. Now, O king, establish the
interdict and sign the document, so that it cannot be changed, according to the
law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be revoked.” Therefore King
Darius signed the document and interdict.
Although Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he
continued to go to his house, which had windows in its upper room open toward
Jerusalem, and to get down on his knees three times a day to pray to his God
and praise him, just as he had done previously. The conspirators came and found
Daniel praying and seeking mercy before his God. Then they approached the king
and said concerning the interdict, “O king! Did you not sign an interdict, that
anyone who prays to anyone, divine or human, within thirty days except to you,
O king, shall be thrown into a den of lions?” The king answered, “The thing
stands fast, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be
revoked.” Then they responded to the king, “Daniel, one of the exiles from
Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or to the interdict you have signed,
but he is saying his prayers three times a day.”
When the king heard the charge, he was very much distressed.
He was determined to save Daniel, and until the sun went down he made every
effort to rescue him. Then the conspirators came to the king and said to him,
“Know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no interdict or
ordinance that the king establishes can be changed.”
Then the king gave the command, and Daniel was brought and
thrown into the den of lions. The king said to Daniel, “May your God, whom you
faithfully serve, deliver you!” A stone was brought and laid on the mouth of
the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet and with the signet of his
lords, so that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel. Then the king went
to his palace and spent the night fasting; no food was brought to him, and
sleep fled from him.
Then, at break of day, the king got up and hurried to the
den of lions. When he came near the den where Daniel was, he cried out
anxiously to Daniel, “O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God whom
you faithfully serve been able to deliver you from the lions?” Daniel then said
to the king, “O king, live forever! My God sent his angel and shut the lions’
mouths so that they would not hurt me, because I was found blameless before
him; and also before you, O king, I have done no wrong.” Then the king was
exceedingly glad and commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den. So
Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of harm was found on him,
because he had trusted in his God.
The king gave a command, and those who had accused Daniel
were brought and thrown into the den of lions—they, their children, and their
wives. Before they reached the bottom of the den the lions overpowered them and
broke all their bones in pieces.
Then King Dari.us wrote to all peoples and nations of every
language throughout the whole world: “May you have abundant prosperity! I make
a decree, that in all my royal dominion people should tremble and fear before
the God of Daniel:
For he is the living God,
enduring forever.
His kingdom shall never be destroyed,
and his dominion
has no end.
He delivers and rescues,
he works signs and
wonders in heaven and on earth;
for he has saved Daniel
from the power of
the lions.”
The summary
We divided the
reading into parts and had 4 readers. This story is popular with Sunday school. (we take out the
nasty part about the king throwing Daniel’s accusers and their families in the
pit) It allows for good coloring pages and a good lesson, God is with you when
things are scary. This is however, my first
time talking to adults about Daniel and lion’s den. Like several other readings over the past few months, I have
never heard this story shared at Church during a Sunday worship
I wanted to talk about 3 things
1-How Daniel ends up in the pit: Daniel does his job well.
He is an outsider, an exile from Judah. He has remarkable abilities to
interpret dreams and to do government work.
The other authorities get jealous and annoyed at the outsider showing
them up and winning increasing favor with the king. They want to get rid of him
but that is impossible since Daniel is very good at his work and has the king’s
support. They go after him through his
religious beliefs. This law was made to get rid of him
2- Where our lions dens are today. Today, Christians around the world will be
excluded, tortured, or killed for practicing their beliefs or trying to share
them (two things we are fully free to do here, let’s do more with that
freedom). I invite you to find out about
them on your own. (There are website
like opendoors.org, and people you can talk to in the churches that share the
space with us). Instead of sharing their
stories, I wanted to talk about people who are in other lion’s dens, people
surrounded by anxiety, poverty, addiction, abuse, violence and things they
cannot overcome alone, people living in constant fear of collapse in the dens
of unemployment, poverty, and sickness.
Our work as God’s church to find, welcome and invite those who are
suffering into the joy of knowing God is with them. Often times, this work can simply mean being
open when they are ready to come in.
3- What this has to do with Advent. We are waiting for the time when God comes
down to us, to the lion’s den of sin and suffering, God is born of as one us in
a dirty stable, with no place else to go. God is in the lion’s den with us
No comments:
Post a Comment