11/7/21 Prophets – Daniel; Afterlife Daniel 12

11/7/21           Prophets – Daniel; Afterlife                Daniel 12

         

Our bulletins for All Saints Sunday use the same cover art that we use for funeral bulletins.  It is a piece of art that is both simple and yet grand.  It is the risen Christ with his arms outstretched.  In his garments and around him you see the sun, moon, and stars; there are suggestions of water, wine, and wheat – showing the sacraments; there are the four seasons depicted - showing that time itself is embraced in Christ.  It is all-encompassing, that in Christ are all things, and the fullness of all things.  I’m not sure of the artist’s inspiration but our second reading from Colossians 1 comes to mind.  Those verses are a grand vision of Jesus’ role in the cosmos.

Underneath that piece of art we put what seems like a sweet saying.  But it is actually a defiant and absolutely audacious claim, “Yet even at the grave we make our song:  Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.”

Perhaps we are total fools.  Many a skeptic would say such a thing, although it appears as if most people in the world today believe in some sort of existence after death.  Or perhaps we are proclaiming a universal truth, as Ephesians 3:18-19 says, “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

It is important for us to realize that such claims as I read from Colossians and Ephesians have not come out of a vacuum.  There is a long and complex history behind such statements.  We see an important step in that history in our reading from Daniel today.

When studying Daniel it is very helpful to understand its background.  The book of Daniel pretends to be written during the 6^th century B.C.E., which is the Babylon captivity of the Jews, and sometime shortly thereafter, but that is not when it was actually written.

The writing date of Daniel is remarkably easy to determine, especially for a writing of its age.  I’m not going to get into the details of the evidence, but it was written sometime between 167 and 164 B.C.E.  Thus it is among the youngest, if not the youngest writing in the Old Testament.  Understanding life for Jews in that time period gives us incredible insight into not only Daniel but the development of the Jews understanding of God.

As we’ve been studying the prophets we realize the earliest of them (Hosea and Amos) were dealing with the Assyrian threat to the northern kingdom of Israel.  They proclaimed that if they didn’t repent they would be destroyed.  Indeed they were in 722.  That left the smaller, weaker southern kingdom of Judah.  Most of the Old Testament prophets deliver a similar message to them: change from your sinful ways or you will be punished.  The southern kingdom stumbled along as a semi-independent nation for a couple centuries.  It was buffeted and bullied by the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians.  Existence was always tenuous, but it did exist…

Until the Babylonians wiped it off the face of the earth in 587 B.C.E.  I’ve said many times over the last few months that that was Judaism’s deepest crisis.  How could then endure?  Would they endure?  Had God given up on them, or maybe was God a lie?

Bolstered by prophets like Jeremiah and Ezekiel they endured until the Persians conquered the Babylonians in 539 B.C.E.  The Persians then allowed the Jews to return to the Promised Land and rebuild.

From the Bible’s narrative you get the feeling that the Persians were God’s savior to the Jews and now life and faith could get back to normal.  Historical books like Ezra and Nehemiah, as well as prophets like Zechariah and Malachi, write of hope for a restored nation; but wiser now because they had learned their lessons from God. 

The truth is that life for the Jews was not at all good.  While the Bible describes the Persians as benevolent people who allow the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem, from the Persian perspective the Jews were serving the needs of their growing empire.  Allowing the Jews to return and rebuild was the Persians way of shoring up the western flank of their empire.  There the Greeks were emerging as a power and they were becoming a troublesome presence in the Mediterranean. 

If the empires of the late bronze age that threatened the Jews seemed powerful (think Egypt and Assyrian) they were nothing to the power of the empires that followed: the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, and eventually the Romans.  These were powerhouses who ran over the Jews like they were a worn-out speed bump.  Empires grew stronger.  Armies grew stronger.

Biblical scholar Daniel Smith-Christopher writes of his namesake Daniel in the New Interpreter’s Bible.  He calls the historical background of Daniel, “the context of empire.”  He notes that life for the Jews under the rule of these empires was not good.  While yes, the Jews were allowed to live in their homeland, they were treated harshly and saddled with heavy burdens.  If you look at other Jewish writings of the time period, writings that didn’t make it into the Bible, you realize that the hope that God will bring about a swift restoration of the nation is waning.  It is as if they are resigned to the fact that national independence will be far off at best.

At the same time as this their language about God takes on a more empire like tone.  Instead of God being seen as king God is now described as emperor.  The idea of angels begins to develop.  In earlier Jewish writings angels would show up once in a while and they were always messengers from God.  In these later writings angels show up more and more.  What we could call angelology begins to form.  Angels are depicted in more detail, and more as warriors in the divine army.  Just as the imperial forces had various ranks of military leaders so also ranks of angels begin to form.  The angel Michael, who we met in our reading from Daniel, comes to be seen as the head of God’s vast army of angels.

And perhaps most significantly, the idea of eternal life begins to form.  Daniel 12 is one of only a couple places in the Old Testament where there is any concept of resurrection or eternal life at all. 

If you look at the whole situation as an atheist sceptic you could conclude that since the Jews have now lost hope in an earthly restoration of their nation, especially not coming about any time soon, they’ve developed this escapist idea where God still sees them and knows them.  And God will eventually reward them with eternal life.  But God also sees the actions of the bad guys – the evil empires around them – and God will give them eternal punishment.  So, the message is suffer through a completely miserable life now but be rewarded for all eternity.  Indeed many skeptics say the current understanding of eternal life found in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is all rooted in this escapist thinking of the ancient Jews.

Perhaps that is a troublesome thought for many.  I, however, see it as an expression of the development of faithful people as they wrestled with the struggles of their reality yet felt God’s sure and abiding presence.  And those who say the Christian understanding of eternal life is nothing more than an extension of the escapist thinking of Jews in the second century B.C.E. are overlooking one very big thing.

The trajectory of Jewish thought comes to a crashing halt with the life and ministry of Jesus.  Remember how I said God was increasingly being depicted as an emperor of higher and higher power?  Also angels were taking on the role as a parallel to the armies of the empires?  What are the core teachings of Christianity?  God is no longer emperor - so high and aloof as to be unreachable.  God is now human, one with us, entirely relatable.  And instead of God coming to crush the empires with armies of angels, God dies at the hands of imperial might.

And as for eternal life, Jesus reverses that trend too.  While Jesus references eternal life several times, his main thrust is God’s kingdom here on earth.  Jesus never taught the escapist thinking that we should suffer now to be rewarded later.  Jesus never taught that life is a test to see if you are worthy enough to go to heaven.  No, Jesus taught that God’s reign was breaking into the present and that, not angels, but you and I are the messengers who bring God’s message to the world.

As Christians we want to see the contrast between the ministry of Jesus and the writings of Daniel.  Yes, the time of Daniel awakened people’s understandings of eternal life.  Jesus continued that.  But Jesus mostly returned people’s attention to the world of today and the goodness of life.

As we celebrate All Saints Sunday we remember those whom we love who have died not as those who have escaped the burden of this life, but as witnesses and inspirers for our own faith.  They have fought the good fight.  They have run the race.  We are thankful for what they have given to us, and for how they have shaped us, and then, along with God who is beside us, we continue on in the work of God’s kingdom here and now.