Daniel 6:6-27 on December 1st, 2024
Above is audio of the sermon pulled from the video and amplified.
Below is transcript pulled from the video and formatted by artificial intelligence. There may be inconsistencies or errors.
I think it's fun to note that while I was writing this sermon over the Thanksgiving holiday, my family was at the zoo looking at actual lions. This story of Daniel and the Lions' Den is familiar to most of us due to its high rate of inclusion in children's Bibles and Sunday school classes. So in research, I read Daniel and the scary sleepover as part of my preparing for the sermon.
So let's hit some highlights as we retell the story:
Daniel loved God. Daniel knew that no matter what God was always with him. And bad men got very jealous of Daniel and decided to get him in trouble. Yeah, they thought, we'll get Daniel yet. They smiled to themselves. Let's get the king to make a new law. No one is allowed to pray to anyone except to the king. Anyone who breaks this law will be placed into a den full of lions. Yikes!
Daniel knew it was wrong to pray to anyone except God. So Daniel went to his room, closed the door, and prayed to God. That's just what those bad men knew Daniel would do. They skipped straight off to tell the king. Oh, magisterial brightness. It would seem that Daniel has been praying to God, not to you.
The king didn't want to hurt Daniel, but he couldn't change his law. So he let the soldiers throw Daniel to the lions. The king stayed up all night worrying about Daniel. At the first glimmer of dawn, he leaped out of bed and ran straight to the den. And there, resting his head on Daniel's lap was the biggest of the lions, purring like a little kitten. God rescued Daniel. King Darius was overjoyed to see his friend. And that day on, King Darius believed in God.
It's a cute story, isn't it? It's a compelling narrative of how Daniel's faith in God not only protects him in a situation of certain death, but also influences a foreign king. So much so that the king eventually confesses faith in Daniel's God. But like many Bible stories, there is so much more to it. Adam and Eve is about so much more than eating an apple. Noah is about so much more than a flood and a rainbow. And Daniel and the lions, then, is about so much more than cuddly felines.
Daniel worked in the court of a foreign king, surrounded by a culture that worshipped other gods and held values deeply at odds with his own of faith. And yet Daniel thrived. And he didn't do this by blending in completely idolizing their ways or their rulers, but rather by knowing what was fringe and what was core. He held fast to non-negotiable convictions about worship, faithfulness, and loyalty to God. And the decree to pray only to the king was a direct assault on Daniel's faith. And yet he didn't compromise. He prayed to God just as he always did, knowing the cost if he were caught.
I would like to think that we do the same. Because this tension of living faithfully in a world that often pulls us in a different direction isn't just Daniel's story. It's our story, too. While we don't face lions, we do face a world that often demands our compromising. And this story touches on those things that we don't like being touched, namely where our personal lives and our faith meet.
We may not have a decree to worship some king, but our culture, our world, our politics, our spurs in our ear and sometimes shouts from the rooftops, all sorts of things that run counter to what God calls us to do and be. Where do we compromise ourselves, our value, our faith? What end are we trying to justify by backtracking on our faith? Do we trade integrity for convenience or popularity? Do we turn a blind eye to injustice just because it's uncomfortable to confront? Do we place more trust in human institutions than in God's promises? Sacrifice time with God in pursuit of this endless busyness.
We all know the call of Christ. We know what God asks of us to love God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, all our strength and love our neighbors as ourselves. We know this, and yet the world makes it hard, doesn't it? We're tempted to bow down to cultural decrees rather than follow God's way. And answering the question of what faithfulness means and looks like can be complicated. It is rarely simple, but it is our calling to pursue it.
And things that I think help us with our faithful pursuit is again to be clear on the core of who our God is and what our relationship with that God looks like. And that's some of why we recite one of the creeds each and every week. It's a straightforward summary of our faith. What's more than narrative statements, what we know is that God is gracious. God's grace means that we don't have to live in fear of failure or condemnation. We are free to live boldly, faithfully and graciously ourselves knowing that God's love is unearned and unshakable.
God is both law and gospel, forgiving and righteous, loving and showing us our need, fulfilling for the law for us and yet still calling us to live in a certain way to reflect to the world who God is. God is present in bread and wine and water and word. We can taste and see the sacramental goodness of God in our midst. God is faithful. God keeps promises. God upholds covenants. God promises a Savior and God's promised a Savior will come again and we live in hope of that day.
God rescues God's people. God rescues Daniel, not just from those big kitty cats, but from the schemes of those who wanted him gone. And the whole of Scripture points just to how God just keeps showing up to save us and rescues us from slavery and Egypt to our enemies to sin and death itself. And of course, that rescue takes its most decisive form in the gracious, ever-present faithfulness of Jesus Christ.
And Jesus too faced some opposition to living out God's ways, but Jesus remained uncompromisingly faithful, whatever it cost him, even if it meant that he was going to be killed. And while Daniel was spared the lions, Jesus went to the cross to die. And yet death isn't the end of the story, that the rescue continued to life, life for Jesus, life for the world, life for you and life for me.
That is ultimately the core of who God is, a sacrificial love that is so strong that nothing can stop it. Not death, not rulers, not things present or things to come, not height or depth or anything else in all the creation. Nothing can separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus our Lord. That is the heart of our God. And that is where our hearts best reflect Christ whom we follow.
And so as we prepare our hearts in this Advent season, Daniel's story reminds us of a God who will keep on rescuing. And one day, our faith will not be a struggle. Christ will return and all things will be right and God's reign of peace, love and justice will be complete. But until that day, we live in hope. We live faithfully, trusting in the God who is gracious, who is present, who is faithful, and the God who rescues. The God who came to us in Jesus, who is with us now in sacrament and community, who will come again to make all things new.
That is the heart of God, unshakable love and unstoppable rescue. So this is our calling to trust in that love and live it boldly, reflecting God's grace and faithfulness throughout the world. Amen.