Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
Psalm 93
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33b-37
What an image is presented to us in the book of Daniel:
“…and an Ancient One took his throne…and to him was given dominion and glory
and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him….His
dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and…that shall
never be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:9, 14)
Certainly it is a vision firmly within the apocalyptic tradition, a vision
of God’s complete and eventual sovereignty over all things and into all
times. Like most apocalyptic literature,
the book of Daniel is written in the midst and context of crisis. Recall from last week that the apocalyptic
vision is borne of crisis and imagines God stepping in and taking control,
redeeming and vindicating the Chosen People; revealing in its practical fullness
the kingship of God. While the story in
Daniel is set during the time of the Babylonian Captivity – somewhere in the 6th
century BC, it was most probably written during the Maccabean period, that is, in
the 2nd century BC. However, both
were times when the Jewish people were ruled by foreign kings and princes. Both were times when the Jewish people were
living through crises of identity as they managed the reality of exile in the
one case, and occupation in the other.
The time in which Jesus ministered was no less a period
of crisis, when the Jewish people lived – in this case – under Roman
occupation. At the time of the Gospels’
writing this sense of crisis was only heightened by their now living in the
shadow of a failed revolt and the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in AD
70. It should hardly surprise us that apocalyptic
interpretations of the times were prevalent among many. Certainly, the earliest Christians had their
own versions of it, most notably the Revelation of John included as the final
book in the New Testament canon. Like
all apocalyptic writings, it
envisions the final triumph of the elect and the fullest revelation of the
God’s kingship. Apocalyptic themes
appear also in the gospels with figures like John the Baptist, and “the little
apocalypse” of Mark, parts of which we heard last week’s gospel.
However, the gospels present us also with a completely
and radically different response to crisis, with a completely and radically different image of sovereignty – divine
or otherwise. Ultimately, they present to us a king who reigns from a
cross, and who does not vanquish the occupying forces of authority, but instead
appears to be vanquished by them. He certainly
seems to be today in the gospel of John – captured, arrested and on trial; a
king whose “kingdom is not from here.” (John 18:36) And yet so much of Jesus’ teaching was about a kingdom, the Kingdom of God
and about the nature of power in that kingdom: “The kings of the Gentiles lord
it over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather the greatest
among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves.”
(Luke 22:25-26) In this respect, the
witness of the Gospels presents us with a challenge to discern the difference
perhaps between kingship and kingdom, even the kingship of God and the kingdom
God.
What the apocalyptic perspective wants to do – and does –
is pattern God’s kingship on conventional, contemporary models; models of enforced
power and subjugated enemies. It presents
a vision of kingship expressed in images of dominion and fiery authority: “a
stream of fire issued and flowed from his presence,” (Daniel 7:10a) while
making the vindicated redeemed merely passive subjects: “a thousand thousand
served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood attending him”. (Daniel
7:10b) The only difference is that power
now is on “our side”, as it were. In the
apolyptic tradition, the eventual kingship of God is completely the work of God
– it will come instantly and happen definitively, seemingly by divine fiat. It is hardly subtle. How unlike the kingdom of God: “The kingdom
of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and [it grows], he
does not know how. The earth produces of
itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes
in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.” (Mark 4:26-29) It is
subtle, it is gentle, and always requiring something of us; it cannot be
accomplished without our participation, and sometimes a costly participation. It is not something that happens all at once. Indeed, often the one who sows the seed is
not the one who waters and tends the growth, and neither are the ones who reap
the harvest. This kingdom resolves
itself in serving, not in being served, in mercy not in judgement, in
fellowship, not brute force or authority; and so when Jesus in John’s Gospel
says to Pilate, “My kingdom is not from his world” (John 18:36), we can see
that he may mean exactly that; for the kingdom which Jesus preached, lived and
for which he died is so radically
different those of this world as to seem not from this world at all. And yet, it appears the only kind of kingdom
with power to effect real transformation in the world, not least of which because
it calls for our transformation first: “Do not judge, and you will not be
judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and
it will be given to you…for the measure you give will be the measure you get
back.” (Luke 6:37-38) And its response
in the midst of crisis is never subjugating-authority, but is always patience, forbearance,
charity – even to the point of suffering if needs must. Its authority comes from its willingness to serve
the needs of others, its willingness to effect change by example, rather than
naked power.
Jesus comes to Pilate as a king, but without the
conventional and recognizable trappings of kingship, without the conventional
language of authority. His “kingdom is
not from here.” (John 18:36) From Pilate’s
perspective, he can not see Jesus as anything but a failure, his vision of
authority cannot extend beyond that of power; that of winners and losers, ruler
and ruled, victor and subjugated. Pilate could see in Jesus nothing of the
king, and therefore, not surprisingly, sought to release him, believing he
posed no threat. Still, Jesus is a king
who ushers in a kingom not by fiat but by example. He ushers in a kingdom not by power, but by
service and even by suffering. He ushers
in a kingdom not by drawing or making distnctions between ruler and ruled, friend
or foe, victor and vanquished, but by welcoming all into fellowship and into
the very life of God.
Jesus did not preach the kingship of God, so much as he taught and lived the kingdom of God. The kingdom
of God is a movement of people who by their lives and communal efforts, gently,
subtly – supported by God’s grace and power – give themselves over to the
transformation of the world, their lives for the transformation of its
conventional structures of power. The
apocalyptic perspective, the simple kingship
of God perspective, wants to play the same perennial game of power, but resulting
simply in an alternative winner. While
the kingdom of God perspective opts
out of the power game altogether, by redefining its rules and categories, and
invites all people into its work and vision in order that ultimately, the
kingdom of the world can well and truly – in a radically new and striking way –
become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah (cf. Revelation 11:15),
“and [be] brought together under his most gracious rule.” Amen.
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