The force awakens
Every day we're reading or listening to part of the Bible together and sharing thoughts with you. Today Mal Calladine gets into our first daily chunk of ‘daring Daniel’, an epic story of the force awakening…
What did I like about today’s passage?
Happy Star Wars Day! May the fourth be with you! (Who else has the knee-jerk response from their church heritage of: “And also with you…”?!)
We start on a real blockbuster movie of a book today. It’s extraordinary – Daniel’s adventures in exile, after the empire strikes back, but still with a heart connection to a world far, far away. Crazy challenges of life in peril from many a phantom menace; but the force awakens in the return of the Jedi and their new hope.
Daniel is often treated with trepidation as an apocalyptic allegory (it was by me!). But I look at it differently now. Its main messages are based in a captivatingly engaging story, with each chapter bringing something new as the scene shifts.
It helps me understand prophets better, and prophecy as being like a telescope, where you look through two lenses. One lens is close by and the other is further away, but we need to view through both to get clarity on what is on the horizon. If we only look through one lens we miss a lot of what we are actually looking at! The first lens is the context Daniel finds himself in, the court drama of the Babylonian royal palace; the second lens is one of symbolic visions that point to a much bigger picture, that have application both concerning the political empires of Daniel’s lifetime, and the bigger story of all humanity’s time horizon. But they get best focus when viewed together.
The first three chapters are all set the in Babylonian court - and what a court drama! What I liked most of the stories of the first three chapters was thinking about how applicable they are for today. Friends taken into an imposing and opposing world of different values, but still wanting to stay sacrificially committed to their beliefs and their people. A tale of two cities – the one they are in and the one they wish they were in!
When an invading force wanted to subjugate another nation, they would take their wealth and their talent, their gold and their brains, back home to then steep them in their captor’s culture (1:3-4), so they would be assimilated. Boney M’s ‘By The Rivers of Babylon’ (one of the Top 10 selling UK singles of all time!) is actually Psalm 137:1-6 written as a lament of the people of Daniel and his friends. That is their heart in Chapter 1 – ‘how can we honour the Lord in a strange land?’ Throughout this book they continue to answer that question with integrity.
In their three years of training before qualifying in court service, the culture is trying to take their identity, even re-naming them, and getting them to comply. But they asked permission to be different (defined by self-denial), received favour and sympathy; asked to be scrutinised, tested and compared; and it all increased their spiritual sensitivity (1:17) where they were healthier (1:15) and had 10x more wisdom and understanding than anyone else! (1:20)
This discipline led to them being strong enough to face some major spiritual challenges in chapters 2 and 3. Firstly being able to interpret the king’s dream, when the king’s challenge to them had been “interpret or I’ll kill you” (2:5-6). I wonder if it would improve and motivate our training to respond to the spiritual searching of others, if they said, “explain our spiritual longings and dreams, or we’ll kill you! Get it right, and we’ll reward you!” But is that what still happens in the emotional and spiritual realm in our interactions?
They continue to point to God as the source of all wisdom (2:20-23) and interpret where there is spiritual revelation and angst; and received more favour, staying loyal to each other (2:44-49).
Then the opposition becomes more strategic… being forced to bow down to the gods the culture has made. Daniel’s friends (known in our house as Rack, Shack and Benny; or Your Shack, My Shack and a Bungalow!) are thrown into the furnace for not bowing down to those self-made gods. And in that place, a defining story of history occurs, where the God they serve is both tangibly present with them in the fire and protects them from all harm in an impossibly difficult situation.
What did it show me about Father God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?
That God IS faithful, in a world of fear and hardship, where people show integrity. I think it’s often our biggest worry – is He really with me? And in that fear, we don't step out of comfort. In these three stories of taking a stand, God is incredibly faithful. Jesus is described by the Angel Gabriel as the one who will be called “Immanuel – God with us”. Here we see stories of that favour fantastically fulfilled.
Also, as I try to step out for him and he draws close to me, strengthens me, and affirms my identity – not just in Him but in the people and culture to which I have a heart connection. He honours and gives favour to that commitment.
And that investing in understanding the prophetic more is really important! And crazily it seems these extraordinary flashpoints have huge consequences - leading to the salvation of the king of the culture they are in, as we will read tomorrow. (2:47, 3:28-28).
What am I going to do differently as a result?
I want to think about the places I need to make more of a stand and stick out. To not worry if God is faithful, until I put myself in the situation where he can show if he is or not!
I want to think more about “Who are ‘my people’ I need to show commitment to and make a stand for, at this stretching time?”, and how do I need to do that?
Who am I going to share this with?
My wife Chriscelle, family, and some old friends I’ve got long relationship with, who I admire for living radically. I’m going to contact those trusted old friends who stretch me and give them permission to challenge me in the question I asked in the last section.