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This world can be a pretty crazy
place. We wonder and worry about some of
the people with whom we share this planet, like the man who tried to rob a bank
wearing a clear plastic bag over his head as a disguise. Needless to say, he’ll have the next two
years in jail to rethink his strategy.
Other times, though, it’s just
crazy and scary all at the same time. We
read the news and we cringe as we wonder what on earth is going on. And this isn’t just the global news, where it
seems like a new country is enveloped in chaos each and every day. Locally, at home, it’s just a crazy
world. Every time you leave home, you’re
surrounded by people driving large automobiles at high speeds while primarily
paying attention to the phone in their hand.
It’s a wonder we ever survive any trip.
When the world gets really crazy,
what do you want to do? You want to run
away and hide, right? Our first instinct
is always to get away, to leave this craziness behind and find ourselves a
nice, safe place to hide. They say a man’s
home is his castle, and we all want our homes to feel like secure places where
we can retreat from everything that’s going on outside.
It’s easy to justify getting away
from all the chaos in the world, but the Bible calls us to a different
lifestyle. Rather than fleeing from the
world’s chaos, God calls us to engage in it.
In the second chapter of Daniel,
the king of the Babylonian empire, Nebuchadnezzar, has a bad dream that he
wants others to interpret for him. Now, no
one has a problem with that idea. We
know that dreams can have all sorts of meanings for us. We know that God speaks through dreams. As someone who has some very bizarre dreams,
I’d like to know what they mean. The
other night I had a dream that I was carrying Caleb while being chased by a
seal that was driving a washing-machine.
I’d love to know what that means.
Nebuchadnezzar, though, wasn’t
going about this the way you or I would.
Normal people tell people their dreams and hope they can help interpret
them. Nebuchadnezzar decided that doing
so would make the job too easy for the wise men in the kingdom, so he told them
that they needed to first tell Nebuchadnezzar what his dream was, and then tell
him what it means. Crazy, right? It gets better. Because he also told them that if they didn’t
interpret the dream correctly, they’d be torn limb from limb and their homes
would be destroyed.
Sounds completely nutty, right?
This was the guy basically ruling
the world, and he was totally off his rocker.
If you were Daniel, or anyone else sane, you’d want to get as far away
from possible from this guy, right? You’d
flee and try to save yourself.
But God doesn’t work like
this. When humanity gets crazy, when we
envelop ourselves in chaos, God doesn’t throw his hands up and run away from
us, leaving us to destroy ourselves. No,
God’s love is such that in the midst of our most tumultuous chaos, that is when
God engages with us the most deeply and expresses his love. God doesn’t abandon us in our chaos, but
rather chooses to walk with us through the midst of it, bringing order to our
chaos and hope to our despair. God could
have walked away from humanity at any moment, but instead chose to enter into
humanity and deliver it from its sin in the person of Jesus Christ.
God calls us, too, to engage with
the world’s chaos, showing God’s love in the process, rather than flee to our
own little places of serenity.
God called Daniel to do the
same. Just as the world’s chaos will
eventually envelop us, no matter how hard we try to escape it, the craziness of
Nebuchadnezzar found Daniel, too. When
the wise men told Nebuchadnezzar how impossible his request was, he went into a
rage and ordered every wise person in the entire kingdom to be destroyed. So the chaos sought out Daniel.
Daniel, rather than try and flee
from the oncoming storm like the hero in every zombie movie, decides to
engage. The only way out of the world’s
chaos is to entrust ourselves to God to deliver us, and Daniel does just that,
investing his time in prayer and inviting others into his prayer life so that
they might find an answer from God to this vexing question. The wise men had told Nebuchadnezzar that no
one on earth could answer his request, and Daniel also knew this to be true—the
difference is that Daniel knew there was a greater power who was the source of
all wisdom, and Daniel turned to him, rather than himself, in a time of chaos.
Sure enough, God reveals the
mystery to Daniel, who now has the answer to the King’s question. What’s the first thing Daniel does?
He sings praise to God. Daniel prayed, had his prayer answered, and
then remembered to thank God for doing so.
May we remember this important lesson.
Next, Daniel has a difficult task
ahead of him. He has to go and tell the
most powerful man in the world that his kingdom will be destroyed and replaced
by another kingdom, a kingdom that will have no end and will never be
replaced. Daniel has difficult news to
deliver to Nebuchadnezzar, but he knows that it is the truth of God that is
placed within him, and he refuses to let fear keep him from doing what he knows
he must do.
So Daniel goes and interprets the
dream to Nebuchadnezzar. He tells him
that all of his kingdom will be torn down and destroyed, like the ones that
came before it and the ones that will come after it. All human kingdoms will fall, Daniel is
teaching, until the Kingdom of God is established forever. For a man as nutty as Nebuchadnezzar, this is
dangerous teaching, because Nebuchadnezzar could well have him killed for
uttering such truths.
What does Daniel receive for such
daring?
Nebuchadnezzar praises God in
Daniel’s presence, saying your God is God
of gods and Lord of kings and a reaveler of mysteries.
Then Daniel was given many great
gifts and made ruler over all of Babylon.
Two things are vitally important to
this story.
First, Nebuchadnezzar has been
introduced to the power and wisdom of God.
Nebuchadnezzar, who never would have believed in or worshipped the God
of Israel, now has seen a glimpse of his power and grace because of Daniel’s
willingness to risk his life, stand before a crazy king, and do what he knew
was right.
This is our responsibility as Christians—we
are to do what is right, what is faithful, what is true, and in our faithful
living, we point others to the majesty and glory of God. We cannot bring others to faith, but we can
introduce them to the God of the ages, to the hope of our salvation. We can point others to Christ through our
acts of love, trusting the Holy Spirit will lead them to faith. We’ll see in Chapter 4 that Nebuchadnezzar
himself comes to faith through the witness of Daniel. God did the work in Daniel, but God used
Daniel’s willingness to serve as a vital cog in bringing Nebuchadnezzar to
understand God’s majesty. May we have
the same willingness and integrity.
Secondly, Daniel is richly rewarded
for his service. When we think about it,
Daniel didn’t do a whole lot. He prayed,
and then when God revealed the truth to him, he told Nebuchadnezzar. Now, it took courage to tell Nebuchadnezzar, but
God did the hard work here. Daniel’s
efforts didn’t make him worthy of a place at the head of the kingdom of
Babylon.
And that’s the amazing thing about
Christianity. When we think about it, it’s
God who has done the hard work for us.
It’s God who has solved the problem of sin through his grace and
love. It’s God who paid the price for
our sins by hanging on the cross. It’s
God who has defeated death and sin and earned for us the mantle of eternal
life. It’s God who makes it possible for
us to have hope and life and joy and peace forever. Our own sinful efforts haven’t made us worthy
of a place at Christ’s banquet table in heaven.
God did that for us and invited us to receive it.
When we follow Christ and worship
God, we receive infinitely more than we have earned. We receive far more than we deserve. It is given freely. The honor that belongs to Christ is offered
to we who believe in him as Lord and Savior.
So may we not give up hope in the
face of a crazy and chaotic world. May
we engage, trusting in God to give us what we need as the need arises, to steer
us faithfully through our lives as we witness to others of the Lordship of
Jesus Christ through our words and deeds, and may we receive with joy the rich
reward God offers to those who follow him.
Let us pray
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