– Today our Old Testament lesson is taken from the Book of Daniel and it’s interesting because if you’ve paid attention (and if you’re in the Bible study group, you’ve definitely paid attention!) since September we have been reading from the books of wisdom every Sunday morning. In Advent (starting next week) we will dive into the prophecies. It’s interesting because Daniel is sort of an “in between” book of wisdom / book of prophecy. The book of Daniel relates many visions, and yet the Jewish tradition does not acknowledge Daniel as a prophet per se because Daniel never had a direct conversation with God. On the other side, Christians like to think of Daniel as a prophet because he had these visions of a “Son of Man” and we know that’s the way Jesus used to refer to himself – so we like to think that Daniel anticipated the coming of Christ! But what Jewish and Christian traditions agree on though is that Daniel is also a book of wisdom.
Before we come to all the visions, the first part of the book of Daniel (Chap 1-6) relates the story of the man who, as many others, had been exiled from Jerusalem and came to live in Babylon, in the court of King Nebuchadnezzar. The story of Daniel is not unlike Joseph’s story in Egypt. In the mist of paganism and debauchery, Daniel, like Joseph, remains a faithful, trustworthy, god-fearing man whom people notice because of his excellent character and many gifts – not the least of them being the gift of interpreting dreams. Daniel, like Joseph, is not a magician though – it’s only for his piety that he is made able to understand what God says to men and women. Daniel deciphers the visions of others and later on he’ll receive his own visions.
And so that’s the first connection between wisdom and prophecy. In our modern understanding, we often see prophets as mildly eccentric, strange people saying strange things, but in the Bible, prophets are wise, godly, holy men. You don’t become a prophet because you’re an eccentric, you become a prophet because your heart and mind are close to the heart and the mind of God
Second connection between wisdom and prophecy is that prophets receive visions to help the people cope with difficult times – and we talked about that two weeks ago on All Saints’ Day. We mentioned that the Book of Revelation was written at a terrible time for Christian people, but the vision of the final victory of Christ is given to them so they can find hope and overcome adversity. This vision of Daniel, is, if you will, the ancestor of the Book of Revelation, the origin of what we call apocalyptic literature: A vision of the final victory of God against the forces of evil as we come to know them in History, through the violence and oppression of the nations. Apocalyptic writings are meant to show us that, in spite of all appearances, God has the ultimate power and is in control. An important thing apocalyptic literature is meant to teach us is to learn endurance and hope.
This should help us understand a little bit better the images we have today. The vision Daniel describes “one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven” certainly clicks immediately in our minds as referring to Jesus. It is good though to put back the vision in context and realize that Daniel sees this one “like a human” after he had the vision of four beasts: Lion, bear, leopard and one so scary that he does not even know what it is. And so that’s interesting because you see, the first idea is that we see God bringing a kingdom with a human figure versus a beastly one. For reasons too long to develop here, the four beats refer respectively to the Empire of Babylon, the Persian Empire, the Greek Empire and the Roman Empire. But the kingdom of God looks like a man. And you know I like it if we just take time to think about it before jumping to Jesus: When Daniel describes God, God looks like a human being for the simple reason that God does not look like a beast and does not behave like a beast. The kingdom of God brings humanity.
And so that’s the second thing we come to learn in this passage of Daniel: true power is to treat people with humanity, decency. Humanity is at the center of this power from heavens: not conquest, display of splendors and riches – the power displayed by God looks like people, is for people. And isn’t it what we want from the powers and nations and all those in authority? That they would act like human beings and that they treat everybody like human beings? That is the vision of peace God brings and this is not just a vision, it’s also a promise for what is too come. And this is also the question that is given to us: Do we want to foster this vision of the kingdom of God or we will side with the Empire? What is our understanding of power?
Which of course leads us to the question our Gospel asks today.
Pilate against Jesus in John’s Gospel is really about the Empire of the Beast against the Kingdom of God. Jesus describes his own power and he is very clear. Jesus says: “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.” The essence of Jesus’s power is non violence. To me, it’s really important we notice that because so often we think that these apocalyptic visions, the coming of the kingdom of God happens with violence. Yet we see with Jesus that there is no violence – only a Son of man, humble and vulnerable.
It’s important to notice that so we don’t have false ideas about God. Some Christians say: “God is violent but that’s okay because God is God” or “because God is good”, but we see in John’s Gospel that God’s power is completely different in nature from the powers of this world. It’s also important we notice that so we don’t have false ideas about ourselves too. Because some Christians believe a good God can be violent they say: “As long as the violence is in the hands of the good guys it’s okay” (and of course they understand themselves as the good guys). Well maybe at some point violence in certain circumstances is a lesser evil but it is certainly not the type of power Jesus embodies and invites us to imitate.
How is this power different from what we know and practice? Well, a certain theologian opposes what we call the “redemptive suffering of the Gospel” against the “myth of redemptive violence of the world”. The myth of redemptive violence – you know what it is – it’s everywhere in fiction and in facts: It’s the belief that if the good guy(s) kills the bad guy(s) the world will be saved. In fact, it’s a myth because violence just repeats itself, violence never ceases and that’s the wars between nations apocalyptic visions describe so often. To that, the Gospel presents an alternative vision, reverses the cycle: Bad guy kills the good guy and the world is saved – What we call “Redemptive suffering”.
Now we have to be very careful with that. Thinking about suffering as redemptive is dangerous. Redemptive suffering is not not about letting our enemies crush us or just endure everything that comes our way. It’s not the suffering in itself that is redemptive but the refusal to act with violence, to respond to violence with violence, to use violence as a solution. What is redemptive is Jesus standing in front of Pilate, standing against worldly powers and speaking the truth to this power whatever the cost. We see in John’s Gospel that Jesus did not see himself as coming to suffer and die but first of all, to testify to the truth. That’s also the story of Joseph, the story of Daniel and that’s the story we are invited to tell / to embody as well.
Now what does it mean for us to “speak truth to the powers”? Well – that’s what prophecy is all about. Prophecy is much more about speaking the truth in dangerous circumstances rather than having visions, dreams or being able to predict the future. And that’s what we’ll talk about throughout Advent.