Count it all joy…

 November 29 2020

Daniel 6

         Well, Thanksgiving is over so now we can legitimately get out the Christmas decorations and play incessantly the Johnny Mathis and Mariah Carey Christmas music until our ears bleed. At least that is the general consensus of the general public everyone that is except the die hard church goers who have not forgotten that we have to go through the season of Advent to at last get to the season of Christmas. The thing is that most people don’t know what to do with Advent. I mean it isn’t like we can put on our favorite Advent album and listen to our favorite Advent music while we make plans about what we are going to do this year during Advent. All most people know is that the church is kind of a kill joy when it insists on telling us to pump the brakes on Christmas because we first must have this season whose name means “Coming”. Now some think that we are to prepare for Christ’s first coming and some believe that we are to prepare ourselves for Christs second coming but either way what this season forces us to do is to keep Christmas about Christ and to remember just why it was that he came and why it is that he will come again. Once we define Advent like this it isn’t so hard to see why it is so important that we have this season before Christmas because its kind of obvious that Jesus starts to get lost in all that the world has made out of Christmas. I mean you have Jesus who is born in poverty in very humble circumstances being the cause of one of the most hedonistic and indulgent times of the year and it becomes kind of obvious that somewhere along the line there has been a serious disconnect.

         So, with that we begin this season of Advent to reconnect the coming of Jesus with how we celebrate and live into what his birth is really all about. Now, as I have said before, I follow what is called a narrative lectionary which is just a big name for a list of scriptures that week after week give us the big overarching story found in the Bible. This is a story first and foremost about God and secondly, the Bible is about us. The reason I try and follow the scriptures that they have for each given week is that it forces me to speak about parts of the Bible I would just as soon not preach about. Yet to be honest, it isn’t healthy to just pick and choose which Bible verses that we want to hear and ignore those that we would rather not delve into. Besides that, it is a challenge to be given a given scripture and to meditate on it to discover just what does this scripture has to say to us at this time, in this season and especially now, in this year that we are living in. I say all this so you join with me in wondering just what does the story of Daniel in the lion’s den have to do with this first Sunday in Advent? When I say that using this set of scriptures is a challenge you can begin to see what I mean. There are a few things that help to make sense of this scripture story and how it relates to Jesus and the first is, that the problem Jesus came into the world to address is a problem that has existed from chapter three of Genesis and it runs the whole entire length of scripture especially in the Old Testament. The second important thing that helps to make sense of scripture is to use scripture to interpret scripture especially to use New Testament scriptures to shine light upon Old Testament scriptures. With that being said, I want to let the second through the eighth verses of the first chapter of the letter of James to help us connect the story of Daniel in the lion’s den with the coming of Jesus. Sounds interesting doesn’t it?

         So, here is what we read in the letter of James: “Count it all joy my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds.” Right off the bat we are confronted with two ideas that just do not seem like they should go together, namely these ideas of joy and trials. We all, I imagine, desire joy, I mean this is what we sing that Jesus has brought joy to the world. But for most of us, this joy we are looking for we want in the absence of trials not in the midst of them. What most of us are looking for is a little happiness in a world doing its best to make us hurt. Yet it is here that we are reminded as to why Jesus came and that is that we live in a world that tests our faith. Ours is a broken world; this goes it out saying. It is hard to hang on to this idea that the goodness of God is going to prevail when we see the overwhelming presence of evil in our world. What is important is just how do we react to life in this broken and evil world? One way that people deal with life in a fallen world is to just deny as much as possible the hurt that they experience and to do everything possible to make themselves as comfortable as they can.

         This leads us to the back story of of Daniel’s trial of faith. To understand the importance of Daniel trusting God even as he is thrown into the lion’s den we first have to remover just why it was that the people of Israel found themselves living as exiles in Babylon. Why was it that God had allowed the Babylonian army to sweep down upon Judaea and Jerusalem and carry his people thousands of miles away? As you begin to study just what it was that they did wrong what you discover is that their problem is a universal one, the problem as to what do we do with the hurt we experience from living in a broken world. The people of Israel did what people still do today they tried to make themselves as comfortable as possible. They were living the, eat, drink and be merry, kind of life. Yet what happens when people begin with satisfying their base desires is that this life destroys the relationships we have with others as they become mere means to our ends of being comfortable. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have enough just as long as I have all I want. In the same way when we are solely focused on having a comfortable life now then we expect God to be the ultimate power to be the fulfillment of our desires. You see when we think that life is about all about the satisfaction of our base desires so that we can be as comfortable in a world where the brokenness is always out to bring us pain then life is going to become all about us. Life is going to be one where God and others will be used instead of enjoyed. This is what happened to the people of Israel and God brought his judgment against living such a life. What God did was to place his people in a situation where they were not able  to pursue their own comfort at the expense of everybody else, to place them in a strange land where they ended up being the ones who were used to bring comfort to others. God placed them in this situation so that once again they would seek him first, to put life in its proper order. When we make God and his kingdom our first desire what we discover is that we will have contentment not comfort. In God we find the one unbroken one in a world of brokenness, the one who is trustworthy in a world where very little can be trusted. What the people of Israel discovered while in exile is that in the midst of their pain, confusion and sorrow this is where they found God. They also discovered that when their relationship of God was right then their relationships with the other people in their life became the way God expected them to be. This is why it was said of Daniel became distinguished above all the other presidents and satraps because he had an excellent spirit in him. Daniel had first established his relationship with God, and then because he found contentment trusting God, Daniel dealt with people in a different manner, one where he could treat them with respect. So, of course the other presidents and satraps who were living the life which looks out for number one, Daniel was making them uncomfortable and when life is all about comfort, being uncomfortable was not a good thing. So they started looking for a way to eliminate Daniel which wasn’t so easy because his life lived with a faithful God made him a faithful man. So, what to do? Well, they decided that they would get the king to sign an ordinance that anyone who prayed to prayed to anyone else but the king would be thrown into the lion’s den. They did this because they knew that Daniel was a man of God who prayed faithfully to his God three times a day. So, they thought, problem solved.

         Well, when the king signed the decree that for the next thirty days everyone should exclusively pray to him, what do you think Daniel did? He went home and did what he had always done, he prayed. He prayed not in secret which may have made his life so much easier. No, instead he knelt down besides an open window in full view of a watching world and he prayed three times every day just as he had always done. What we are not told is just what exactly were the words spoken by Daniel as he prayed with the certainty that as he did so he was breaking the law which was punishable by death. There in his room, Daniel’s faith was on trial, it was being tested to see if it was for real. Would Daniel demand that God save him from the certain death that awaited him or would Daniel yield his very life to God to be used by God for his glory? This is the very essence behind what is meant when we read in Deuteronomy chapter six, that we are to love God with our very life. To love God with our life means that we realize that when we come before God we, being created by God, we cannot demand anything of the God who created us. All we can do is to give back to God the life God first gave to us. This is the what lies behind the teaching of James about the trials that we face, the testing of our faith. The trial, the test we are ultimately are going to have to face is are we willing to give our life back to the God who first gave this life to us? The end result of having our faith tested and tried as Daniel did is that we might develop endurance. The word translated as “endurance” here in James is a compound word which means to live under, as in to live under the hurt and suffering that are just part of the deal of living in a broken world. This means we don’t fight against the pain and suffering nor do we try to run away from the hurt and pain of this world through a life of denial. No, we live under this suffering and pain and hurt of this world because through our faith in God we have found a place of refuge. When we entrust our life to God we know that despite the afflictions that are inevitable in this life, our life remains secure because our life is grounded upon the unmovable God. This is what Daniel understood as he prayed and waited the inevitable outcome of his faith, the being thrown into the lion’s den at the hands of his enemies. What is interesting is that the faith of Daniel was a powerful witness to the king who told Daniel that he hoped that the God that Daniel served might deliver from certain death. 

         The king was troubled all night knowing that it was by his hands that Daniel had been given a sentence of death. The king unlike Daniel had no certainty of what the one true living God was able to do. Thus we can hear the anguish in the kings voice when the next morning upon reaching the lion’s den, the king cried out, “Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?” What joy the king must have experienced when from out of the lion’s den came the voice of Daniel who exclaimed, “O king live forever. My God sent his angel and shut the lion’s mouths and they have not harmed me because I have been found blameless before him…” Daniel speaks of being found blameless before God which is what James teaches us is supposed to be the outcome of our endurance, our remaining under the suffering that we have when we live in this broken world. What our willingness to trust in God is supposed to create in us, despite the pain and hurt that this world produces, is a life God has always expected when he first created us. James uses the words “perfect” and “complete” but they have the same meaning of the word blameless that Daniel used. When are faith remains strong despite of the trials of this world this is when we become the people God created us to be, people who truly lack nothing. The way Daniel knew that he had it all was because there in the lion’s den, in the midst of the most fear-inducing trial he would ever face, Daniel keep the faith and it was there in the most unlikely place, a lion’s den, there Daniel experienced the closeness of heaven. Daniel reports how an angel had come and closed the mouths of the lions. Daniel experienced salvation in a real and powerful way which was the result of his faith. What Daniel had received was the very real presence of God with him through the one sent by God. Now, through looking at this experience of Daniel we can begin to understand how these two seemingly opposing ideas, the idea of joy and the idea of trial, how these two make sense together. You see, when our faith is tested and found to be strong, unwavering without doubt this is when God becomes more real than ever. There in those times that test our faith we receive a certain blessed assurance of the presence of God when our faith is found to be as unmovable as the God we believe in. Here is where we discover the difference between joy and happiness. We might put it like this: Happiness is achieved; joy is received. Happiness is something we must pursue, to seek out and make happen with our own effort. But joy is a given, a gift we did not expect, the gift of the presence of God, touching our lives. God gives himself to us, not in those times where hurt, suffering and pain are absent but right there in the worst that this world has to offer. It is there, when we choose to to continue to believe in the light in spite of the darkness, this is when God gives us the present of his presence. What joy it is to be given the fullness of God abiding with us, to know with him we truly lack nothing. This is the contentment that Paul wrote of in the fourth chapter of Philippians, “I have learned that in whatever situation, I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” You see, life in a broken world is not about denying the hurt and doing your best at making yourself comfortable. No, life in a broken world is all about loving God first, finding by faith in him a strength that empowers us to have peace and contentment right in the midst of the hurt and pain we might experience. 

         This peace and contentment we can have by faith which we can experience whether we find ourselves in the lion’s den or our living room comes to us as a gift, the gift of God’s presence. This is why we were given the gift of Jesus so that through him we might know the forgiveness and acceptance of God, and know that in the name of Jesus we can experience the power of new life, a life of joy. Yet, like every other gift, the gift of new life Jesus gives, this life of joy, this can only be ours if we have a faith which pasts the tests we face. As James teaches us, the person who doubts should not suppose that they will receive anything from the Lord. So, this time of Advent is our time to strengthen our faith. As a man who once encountered Jesus begged him, “Lord I believe; help my unbelief.” You see if our unbelief is evident then we must come to Jesus and plead for faith.  The whole reason Daniel could face the lion’s den is that his was a life marked by prayer. Continuously crying out to a God who is faithful results in a stronger faith in us. This then is where we must begin in our preparation for the coming of Jesus, in prayer, in faith counting it all joy these things in life that test our faith for by faith we receive the greatest gift, the very presence of God. Amen!