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This book is named for the prophet Daniel, who was taken into exile in Babylon when King Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem. Stress was high for Daniel and his fellow Israelites, and many wondered what it meant to stay true to the God of Israel in a place so far from home. “By the rivers of Babylon,” they lamented in Psalm 137, “there we sat down and there we wept …. How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137:1, 4). Daniel was promoted in the king’s court for interpreting dreams, but was later thrown into a lion’s den for persisting in prayer. Then he had “a dream and visions of his head as he lay in bed” (Dan 7:1). His vision was of four great beasts representing kingdoms of the world, along with an “Ancient One” (Dan 7:9, 13).
Daniel found hope for a difficult time by focusing on the end of God’s story. In his vision, God is the “Ancient One” who sits on a throne blazing with fiery flames. God’s clothing is white as snow, his hair is like pure wool, and a stream of fire flows out from his presence. The court around him sits in judgment, and the divine record books are opened (Dan 7:9-10). This is an “apocalyptic vision” — an unveiling or revelation of God at the very end of time. God quickly renders judgment on the empires of the world, destroying one and leaving the other three powerless (Dan 7:11-12). Then appears “one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven” (Dan 7:13). God gives to this son of man “dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him .… and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed” (Dan 7:13-14). For Daniel, this vision was a perfect moment, one that gave him hope for the future. It revealed that God is always working to bring order out of chaos and victory out of defeat.
The same is true for us. No matter how many horrors confront us in the news, God is always working with God’s people, in every time and place and situation. The exiles in Babylon might have understood Daniel’s “one like a human” to be the angel Michael, since he does battle for Israel a little later in the book (Dan 10). But Christians see Jesus Christ as the Son of Man, the one who comes at the end of time as “King of kings and Lord of lords,” a rider on a white horse who judges in righteousness and makes war with evil (Rev 19:11-16). He is “the ruler of the kings of the earth,” according to the book of Revelation. “He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail” (Rev 1:4-7).
For Israelite exiles in Babylon, first-century Christians in Rome, and 21st-century men and women around the world, the message is the same: God is in control. The forces of chaos and cruelty may take an occasional battle, but they cannot win the war, because the Lord of heaven and earth is alive and well and having an ongoing impact on human life. God’s son Jesus has come to us once, and he will come to us again, to wipe the tears from our eyes and establish a new heaven and a new earth. He comes to show us that God desires an everlasting relationship with us, one that cannot be disrupted by mourning or crying or pain … or even death itself (Rev 21:1-4).
In the end, it’s all about relationships: Relationships with God and with one another. A man named Eugene O’Kelly sensed this, which is why he spent so much time with friends and family during the last hundred days of his life. At age 53, O’Kelly seemed to be in excellent health, traveling and working long hours. But then a visit to his doctor revealed that he had an aggressive brain cancer that would kill him in 100 days. He had focused on building and planning for the future. “Now,” he said, “I would have to learn the true value of the present.” Like the prophet Daniel, O’Kelly discovered that challenging times can be the best of times. A man of faith, he decided to “unwind” relationships with people in his life, taking the time to have final conversations with those who had meant a great deal to him. He also went searching for what he called “Perfect Moments” — times of lingering over a fine meal, enjoying a deep conversation, taking the time to soak up the beauty of nature over the course of an afternoon. Then he died, reports The New York Times, just as his doctors predicted. He leaves us with the challenge of living with the end in mind, and learning the true value of the present.
Whether we have brain cancer or not, whether we are having good days or not, we can do our best to have quality conversations with family members, friends, colleagues and neighbors. We can work on our relationship with God through regular worship and by serving others in the name of Christ. We can look to the future with confidence and anticipation, trusting that our Lord is involved in our lives in an active and ongoing way, always working for healing and restoration and peace. Like the prophet Daniel and Eugene O’Kelly, we’ll marvel at how many perfect moments we can have right now. Daniel’s vision of the Ancient One is one of the Bible’s greatest hits because it tells us that God is always working to bring order out of chaos and victory out of defeat, in every time and place and situation.
Questions:
1. How does a focus on the end of time give us
hope for today?
2. Where do you see God working to bring
order out of chaos?
3. When have you experienced “Perfect
Moments” in your life?
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