Advent Midweek III

Rescue and Redemption in Daniel

Advent Midweek III: “Christ, Who Shuts the Mouths of Lions”

December 20, 2023

Text: Dan. 6; Matt. 28:1-10

            We have to give our leaders and those who govern us this benefit of the doubt at least: Often their worst decisions are the result of bad advice and deceitful counsel on the part of their cabinet members.  Darius is no fool.  He is a mighty king.  But even mighty kings fall prey to flattery.  And anyway, what is never spoken aloud, but tacitly believed by our politicians, is stated explicitly in most ancient nations: The ruler is divine.  The king is a god.  And in Darius’ case, a rather successful one.  So, why not?  Establish the injunction and sign the decree, which cannot be changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians: For the next thirty days, anyone who makes petition… anyone who prays… to any god or man, except to the god-man Darius, shall be cast into the den of lions.

            Now, when Daniel knew of the decree, he simply did what Christians do in the face of idolatry.  In his upper chamber, windows open toward Jerusalem, in full view all the people, including those conspiring for his blood, he knelt down and prayed, and gave thanks to his God, the one true God, three times a day.  He worshiped.  He confessed.  Whatever the consequences.  Daniel remained faithful.

            Now, Darius, as so often happens when rulers make impulsive and imprudent decisions, finds himself caught in his own trap.  Or, perhaps more accurately, the trap set by his advisors.  Note the tremendous irony of the situation.  Darius is supposedly a god, but he is impotent to help his favored servant, Daniel.  The law cannot be changed!  Not even by the king.  Try as he might, he cannot deliver the innocent man.  So it is commanded, and so it is done.  Daniel is cast into the den of lions.  “And a stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den” (Dan. 6:17; ESV). 

            Daniel is, for all practical purposes, dead and buried.  And as happens when we bury someone, our hearts are troubled, and often sleep eludes us, and we don’t eat, and no diversions can cheer us or hold our attention.  So it was with King Darius; really, mourning his trusted servant, Daniel. 

            But the morning light reveals what has been, until that moment, an unseen reality.  Daniel, servant of the living God, was safe in his tomb.  God sent His Angel to shut the lions’ mouths.  They could not harm Daniel, because he was found blameless before God, without sin, justified in the presence of the Angel.  And we know this is no mere angel.  It is He, who will be for us, the true God-Man, the Father’s only-begotten Son.  He is the preincarnate Christ.  God sent Him to be with Daniel, and with him all the way. 

            With him in the pit.  With him in suffering and in the face of death.  With him before the lions.  Shutting their mouths.  Bringing him through, without harm.  See how God turns everything on its head?  The law of Darius is overturned by the Law of God.  Wickedness is overturned by righteousness.  Death is overturned by life.  Daniel is brought up out of death.  No harm is found on him, because he trusted in his God (v. 23).  But those who maliciously accused him were cast into the pit.  And before they reached the bottom, the lions overpowered them, and broke all their bones. 

            It is a foreshadowing.  This would happen again, on a much grander scale.  Pilate is no fool.  But he is operating on bad advice from the chief priests and teachers of the Law.  He is caught in the trap of his own law, Roman law.  And in the name, and on behalf of an Emperor claiming to be divine, he condemns an innocent man, THE Innocent Man, to death.  He throws Jesus to the lions, to the beastly crowd.  They shred Him.  They murder Him.  They cast Him into the pit.  They lay a stone over the mouth of the tomb.  But on the Third Day, the morning light reveals the unseen reality.  God has turned everything upside down.  Jesus was, indeed, dead.  But now He is alive.  Risen from the dead.  It is the lions who have now been consumed.  Death has been swallowed up by Life.  That is why the Angel could deliver Daniel.  That is why the Angel delivers us.

            Yes, we live as Daniel in the midst of lions.  Our adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8).  The demons are hungry for human flesh.  Never mind the world; governments that see themselves, not as servants of God, but as gods in their own right, who would usurp the place of God in your life, mind, and heart.  Never mind your own sinful nature, enthralled, as it is, by the enemies’ fangs.  Never mind the yawning jaws of death even now closing in on you. 

            Life is perilous in this fallen world.  We think today of Katie Luther, Katharina von Bora, pledged to the convent while still a child, smuggled to Wittenberg with several others in herring barrels, seeking the freedom of the Gospel.  Her world was one of constant danger.  Now, she lived her life in faith, as a faithful Christian.  Married to Dr. Luther, the mother of six children, able manager of the ever-busy Luther household, and brewmistress of Wittenberg’s most famous beer.  She was the very picture of a Proverbs 31 woman.  But her husband was a marked man, under constant threat of martyrdom, and presumably, she was, too.  Eventually widowed, she suffered in poverty, lived through plagues, and the horrors of the Schmalkaldic War.  In 1552, when the Black Plague once again stole through Wittenberg, as Katie and her family fled from the city to Torgau, there was a cart accident.  Katie was thrown into a watery ditch.  Though she held on for three months, coming in and out of consciousness, she eventually succumbed to her injuries. 

            None of us makes it out of here alive, do we?  Even faithful Christian lives are hard lives, marked by suffering and death.  Again, we live as Daneil in the midst of lions.  But ever and always in the confidence of the risen Christ.  The Angel, the Lord Jesus, is with us in all suffering, trial, and temptation.  He is with us in death, and all the way into the tomb.  And He, who conquered death, will lead us out again.  The stone of death has been rolled away.  And soon enough, our own headstones will topple and crack, as the risen Lord takes us up out of the tomb.  And no harm will be found on us, because we trusted in our God.  

            On that Day, our enemies will be devoured by hell.  Like Darius’ advisors, they will have to lie in the bed they made for themselves, and be crushed by it.  But we will live, and we will see every knee bow, in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess (including Darius and his counselors) that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:10-11).  Or, as Darius himself once wrote: “he is the living God… his kingdom shall never be destroyed… his dominion shall be to the end… he who has saved Daniel,” and us, “from the power of the lions” (Dan. 6:26-27).  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.