crushing one another with colossal expectations

dependent, undisciplined, sleeping late

A sermon on Daniel in the lions' den for the first Sunday of Advent:

Today we begin Advent.
And know this: we won’t be finished with this season until its last day, like it or not. Sorry, but you’re stuck. Christmas won’t be coming early this year…

In fact, when the hymn committee met; I straightened my tie, put on my most serious face, and laid it out: Absolutely NO Christmas hymns until after this season.

You can’t ’get out of it. This Advent, you’re stuck. You won’t be freed of this season’s expectations until the Eve of Christmas. At the earliest. 

Well, okay. It wasn’t exactly like that. 

In fact, one of the things I most love about you all, is you don’t clamor for the Christmas songs until due time. You seem to be a people who feel at home in this season. A people who find comfort in this season.

Which is just as well, today. Today it’ll help you relate to Daniel. To hear this scripture as more than a cute Sunday School story…

Because Daniel, too knows what it’s like to be bound by strange religious rituals. Poor Daniel; three times a day, every day, he has to go out and pray. 

He, too, is stuck. 

Which is exactly what his conspirators had counted on…

You see, and our passage didn’t include this, but Daniel’s conspirators were jealous of him. For one thing, Daniel’s different. He has odd habits. For another, the king, despite Daniel’s strange practices, has taken a liking to him. Finally, and worst of all, the king likes Daniel for a reason: Daniel does good work. 

Before Daniel’s conspirators went after his religious practices, they tried to find fault with his work. But there wasn’t any. That’s why they exploited the practices that made Daniel weird. 

They have no qualms with the muzak that blares from the superstore’s loudspeakers. Not bound like Daniel, they hatch a place to work that to their advantage.

Toadying up to the king, they gush, “O King, live forever. We’ve been thinking… You should write one of those amendments. You know, the kind that can’t be changed. *AHEM.* How about something reasonable, like a prohibition on prayer. Prayers can only be made to you, O King.”

And the proposal sounds reasonable enough, so the king signs it into law. 

And with that, Daniel is trapped. 

Which his conspirators knew perfectly well. They don’t have too wait long, either. Like clockwork, Daniel goes out to pray. His conspirators collect the evidence, and rush back to the king. They can’t waste any time!

“O King, live forever,” they say pant. “Remember that amendment you made? Well, wouldn’t you know it, but Daniel… You know Daniel. He’s that odd fellow. The one who goes to church on days other than Christmas Eve or Easter. Well, we saw him praying. And wouldn’t you know it, but he wasn’t praying to you, O King.”
Daniel’s tune is all wrong. It’s out of season…

It doesn’t take the king long to realize the consequences of his action. Quick as he realizes it, though, it’s not fast enough. By now, there’s nothing the king can do. In fact, the king tries all day to rescue Daniel, but he’s helpless before his hastily made amendment.

Right at the end of the day too, the conspirators come slinking up. “Gosh, O king, we wish there was something you could do. You know how these laws work, though. If we don’t enforce this case, no one will take you seriously. Sorry, but you’re bound, O King; you’ve got to enforce this.”

And the king thinks it to be true. Reluctantly he makes the command. Daniel is seized, and thrown to the lions. The king goes and seals Daniel’s fate with his own signet. That way, no one; not even the king; can deliver Daniel. 

Daniel is trapped. And all he had tried to do was be faithful; for all the good it did him…

That night, no one slept.
Not the king. Scripture tells us sleep fled from the man. 

Not the conspirators, either. They were probably, out. Celebrating their victory. 

And, it’s hard to picture Daniel sleeping that night. Although, who knows. Scripture doesn’t have a lot to say about how Daniel acts as he’s seized and givens over to the lions…

Right at daybreak, about the time Daniel’s conspirators were stumbling home, the king rushes out to Daniel’s inevitable grave.

Anxiously the king cries out. “Daniel! Was that God you insist on praying to, able to do a rotten thing?”
Then, the king doesn’t hear the growling of the lions like he expected. Instead, he hear the voice of a deadman; Daniel!

From the other side of his fate, Daniel shouts to the king. Someone was able to deliver Daniel; God. The lions mouths have been shut! The God Daniel waited on, delivered him! From the lions. From the king’s law. From his conspirator’s jealousy. From the fate everyone thought he was assigned to!

The all thought Daniel was trapped. Not just by the law or in the den, but by his strange religious habits. As Daniel is lifted from his tomb unscathed, though, it turns out it’s not Daniel who’s stuck. But everyone else.

The king, by his hastily made law. 

The conspirators, who now suffer the very fate they tried to inflict on Daniel, by their jealousy.

Not that this great reversal comes as any shock to you…

Not just because you already know the end, though. But because you know what it’s like, don’t you? To stand in Daniel’s adversaries' shoes, or in the king’s predicament. 

We, too, know what it’s like to be trapped by our own jealousy. Or b something we said, something we can’t bring ourselves to take back. 

And that’s what this book of Daniel is about.
This isn’t some little morality play. Telling you to make sure you say your prayers every day. No, this book is about God. And what God does. 

As the king puts it in his proclamation, “(God) delivers and rescues!”

God comes to deliver. And that begins by freeing us from the tyranny of the self; all those desires run rampant. 

The conspirators, trapped by their own jealousy, think Daniel is stuck with his odd religious practices. And the king, trapped by his own power, thinks Daniel is left to that grisly fate. 

But, as it turns out, Daniel is the freest of them all. 

And all along, too! Daniel had been delivered earlier. You can see it in the prayers he made daily. You can see it that day he goes and prays, regardless of the king’s decree. 

Us, though, we’re still waiting for that, aren’t we? We stand between Daniel and the king. Between Daniel and the conspirators, don’t we?

And that is why this season of Advent is welcome. Why it isn’t hard for us to wait to sing the hymns of God’s deliverance until The long, dark night. The night God must deliver us. 

Because we are still waiting, aren’t we?

We’re waiting to have the freedom to worship God as selflessly as Daniel. To be freed from our jealousy, or pride. Or whatever else, because the list just goes on, doesn’t it?

In Advent, we can gather and just admit it; we’re waiting. 

Yes, we’ve caught glimpses of, gotten a taste of the fulfillment. For now, though. In the meantime, we’re still waiting. 

We, like Daniel, need to be delivered. From the lions that assault us. Be they our own desires run amok. The fate we worry we’re bound to. Or, the machinations others have made for us. 

But we’re still waiting…

And here, we can gather to wait together. To know we’re not alone. To hear we don’t wait in vain. That we wait like Daniel, on the same God as Daniel. 

And that’s the thing.
You wait. But you’re not stuck. 

You wait for the God who can rescue and deliver. Your waiting, it is a waiting in hope. A waiting like Daniel’s that night in the den. 

Which is no easy thing. But know two things.
First, look around. Go ahead and actually do it. All of us here, we will wait with you. Support you. Sing the songs of waiting right along with you.

Second, you’re no different from Daniel. 

Surrounded by all that would threaten your faith, God delivers you. God stops the mouth of your doubt, as decisively as God stopped the lions’. Because, despite all that would threaten your faith, here you are. Your faith persisting. 

And that’s no small feat.

That’s why we love this season of Advent. This season of the clear-eyed confession, that we still wait on these promises. This season punch-drunk on God’s promises, that God can deliver us. 

That’s what it means to be an Advent people.

So hear a promise for tide you over for another week: 

May you abundant prosper! For the king makes a decree, that in all this royal dominion, people should tremble and fear before the God of Daniel; for this God is the living God, enduring forever. This God’s kingdom shall never be destroyed, and it’s dominion have no end. This God delivers and rescues, working signs and wonders in heaven and on earth; for this God saved Daniel from the power of the lions. And this God, this God has also saved you.”