Reading Between the Lions

Scripture: Daniel 6

Several years ago, Lisa and I visited South Africa and toured some of its largest game reserves. Twice a day our group would venture out into the field in giant Land Rovers that had no doors, windows, or roofs. Following the twisty dirt roads through the forest, we encountered lions, leopards, elephants, rhinos, water buffalo, and cobras – with nothing between us and them but our camera lenses.

On the first day, our guide explained how this worked. These animals were wild and unrestrained; they were free to roam and, therefore, also free to eat us if the mood struck them. But they wouldn’t do so, he promised, because they had grown up around the vehicles in which we were riding. They had grown accustomed to their profile. Further, no one ever fed or threatened an animal from one of these Land Rovers, so they didn’t view them as a source of food or danger. The animals therefore largely ignored these things, apparently considering them some sort of moving, clicking, diesel-smelling curiosity. During our trip this generally held true, a notable exception occurring one evening when an ornery rhino decided to ram one of the vehiclesjust for fun or spite ... we didn't stop to ask.

Having offered us some reassurance, the guide also provided a warning. We would endanger everyone in the vehicle if we changed its profile – for example, by standing up to take a picture. And, of course, if we stepped out of the truck it seemed extraordinarily unlikely that we’d ever step back in. The moral of the story was simple enough: stay in your seat and stay safe; get out of your seat and get eaten. And these instructions echoed in our ears when we literally found ourselves in the lion’s den – in the middle of a dense forest, surrounded by a collection of lion cubs under the watchful eyes of their very large parents. In my entire life, I’ve never seen people sit with such conviction.

In a sense, the story of Daniel in the lion’s den appears to have a moral of similar clarity and simplicity. We might summarize it this way: Daniel was a good and faithful man, and God therefore spared him from the punishment the king had imposed upon him. Certainly, the text supports this interpretation of the story. Indeed, the text seems to make this point over and over again: the king calls out to Daniel to ask if he was spared by the God he has “faithfully served”; Daniel responds that God saved him “because I was found blameless”; and the narrator of the story notes that “no kind of harm was found on [Daniel], because he had trusted in his God.” Some commentators have compared the story to a folktale or Aesopian fable with the kind of uncomplicated and unmistakable message they usually offer.

Well, if that’s what you want to take away from the story then I won’t quarrel with you. And I agree that the story does indeed tell us that God spared Daniel because he was a good and faithful man. But I want to suggest that serious theological and practical problems follow if we conclude that this is the only thing the story has to tell us. I want to propose that there is something else – indeed, something more important – going on here. And I want – if you’ll indulge me in a terrible pun – to discover the other message implicit in this story by “reading between the lions.”

Now, if you think about it, the simple message we usually take away from this story – that God spared Daniel because he was a good and faithful man – raises a number of profound difficulties.

Some of those difficulties are practical. After all, this message does not comport with our real-life experience. We all know good and faithful people who endure unspeakable losses, tragedies, and sufferings. To borrow a phrase from Harold Kushner, it is a fact of life that bad things happen to good people. So if we take this story as a sort of promise – an assurance that God will protect us from bad things if we will live well and faithfully – then we’re likely to conclude it has little application to the world as we find it.

And there’s another practical problem as well. God did not just find Daniel to be good and faithful; he found him to be blameless. Now, perhaps you’re working toward blamelessness or perhaps you’ve already achieved it. If so, then please accept my hearty congratulations.

Unfortunately, the rest of us poor slobs don’t hold out much hope on this front. We have a deep sense of our blameworthiness and, I suppose, a correspondingly deep gratitude for the grace of Jesus Christ that saves us anyway. But if the point of this story is to encourage the blameless to stay the course then I fear it is directed toward a very small audience, and one that certainly does not include me.

The simple message – that God spared Daniel because he was a good and faithful man – leads us into some deep theological problems as well. After all, our faith rests upon the life and words of another blameless prophet – Jesus of Nazareth – who endured a horrifying punishment unto death. The idea that a life without blame will be a life without suffering is belied by nothing less than the Cross itself. And the proposition that bad things won’t happen to good people is belied by the sacrifices and blood of the countless martyrs of our faith.

In fact, I think the simple message – that bad things don’t happen to good people – isn’t even consistent with the story itself. That message might follow from the story if the king didn’t sentence Daniel to the lion’s den – no doubt a traumatic experience – and if Daniel hadn’t been thrown into it – no doubt an even more traumatic experience. But in the story these very bad things do indeed happen to Daniel – or, to put it differently, God did not spare Daniel from these bad things – even though he was a faithful and blameless man.

Well, if the simple message isn’t the point of the story (or, at least, isn’t the primary point of the story), then what is? I actually think the answer to that question isn’t mysterious at all. In fact, I think the text of the book of Daniel provides the answer loudly and clearly – but does so by how it is structured. In my view, if we want to understand the importance of the story of the lion’s den, then we have to look at what comes next. And what comes next are these words: “In the first year of King Belshazaar of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions as he lay in bed.”

The story of the lion’s den comes at the very end of chapter 6. Chapter 7 begins with Daniel’s first great vision and prophecy. More great visions and prophecies follow in the remaining chapters. Indeed, in these chapters God send the angel Gabriel to Daniel to help him comprehend what he is seeing and hearing. And, of course, God does this not just to increase Daniel’s wisdom and understanding; God does this so that Daniel can share that wisdom and understanding with others.

Daniel’s experience reminds me of the lyrics of Steven Curtis Chapman’s wonderful song, “I Will Not Go Quietly”:

I was born with an angel whispering in my ear
Telling me sacred secrets that God wanted me to hear
And I have lived to tell the mysteries I’ve been told
And even when they tell me it’s my time to go
I will not, no I will not, I will not go quietly

Such is the nature of prophets. They hear the whispers of angels. They tell the secrets God wants them to hear. And they do not, no they do not, they do not go quietly.

And that, I believe, is the principal reason God spared Daniel. Certainly, God spared Daniel because of who he was – a faithful and blameless man. But, more importantly, God spared Daniel because of what he was – a faithful and blameless man through whom God had things to say. And it follows that the central message of the story of Daniel in the lion’s den is not that Daniel could not be killed. It is that God will not be silenced.

God will not be silenced. We may turn away, we may ignore God’s cries to us, we may surround ourselves with noise, but God will not be silenced. We may choose hate over love, war over peace, exclusion over inclusion, and spitefulness over forgiveness, but God will not be silenced. We may worship stuff and honor celebrity, we may love objects and use people, but God will not be silenced.

There is a challenge in this, but also comfort. For in those lonely hours, when it seems as if the cacophonies of life have drowned out all that is best, we can close our eyes and remember that God will not be silenced.

God will not be silenced. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. In the beginning, God spoke to Adam and Eve. God spoke to and through the prophets. God spoke to and through Jesus Christ. God speaks to and through us still, because God loves us still. And, make no mistake about it, God will not be silenced.

There is a wonderful scene in the old film “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” It is Easter morning, and the tomb has been found empty. Messengers rush the news to the temple officials who persecuted Jesus. They are concerned, but then one shrugs his shoulders and says: “In any case, the whole thing will be forgotten in a week.” Another says: “I wonder.”

In the thousands of weeks and years that have followed, the world has conspired to forget what God – through Jesus Christ – did among us, said to us, and sacrificed for us. It was God’s boldest and strongest and loudest exclamation of love and grace. And it echoes still, now and forever, because it is not only the word in the beginning, but will be the word at the end. We are called to hear it. We are called to speak it. We are called to tell the story. We are called to share the sacred secrets and the mysteries we’ve been told. And we are called to not go quietly.

Because we are the children of the living God.

And God will not be silenced.

Amen.