33rd Sunday, 11/16/03

SEEING (GREAT) THINGS WITH DANIEL . . . Daniel (12.1-3) has a vision of the end (of world) time. He sees Michael, "the great prince," rising to guard his people during this worst of times. Daniel's people, all who are "written in the book," will escape. The dead will awake, some to live forever, others to languish in "everlasting horror and disgrace."

"The wise," however, "shall shine brightly . . . and those who lead the many to justice ['have instructed many in virtue,' says Jerusalem Bible] shall be like the stars forever."

The notion was growing in this second century before Christ, or the Christian Era, as some say, that the Jews had Michael (the archangel) for their special protector. He was their guardian angel, as other nations (Persians, Greeks) had their guardians.

This is comparatively last-minute visioning, to use the business-planning phrase, in the Christian view, coming less than 200 years before Jesus laid claim to be the anointed one, the Christ, long awaited by Jews. The ages-old drama (of salvation) is coming to a head. It began with Abraham and is leading to Jesus.

JEWISH CHRISTIANS, HEAR THIS . . . So the letter to Hebrews (10.11-14,18) is in order. It is a learned Jewish Christian's argument to his brethren who are in danger of buckling under persecution or yearning for their old-time religion, namely Temple worship, or at least slipping back to Judaizing tendencies, which he argues are replaced by Jesus (the) Christ.

This day he cites the (Jewish) priest in his work, "offering . . . those same sacrifices that can never take away sins." Not quite, says Interpreters' Bible commentary, alleging a "taste for hyperbole" in Jewish writing: Jewish sacrifices did promise forgiveness of sins. Nonetheless, focus is on "this one [who] offered one sacrifice for sins, and took his seat forever at the right hand of God." His "one offering" made people "perfect."

DANIEL REVISITED . . . The gospel passage (Mark 13.24-32) picks up on the apocalypse of Daniel: "The sun will be darkened . . . the stars will be falling from the sky . . . " And then "the Son of Man" will come in clouds. He quotes Daniel: "With great power and glory." We readers of Romantic poetry think of Wordsworth's "trailing clouds of glory" in his "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood." Trailing clouds of glory, "do we come from God, who is our home," the phrase says, completed. W. had his own vision, to be sure.

We are meant to be lifted up by this. Not as by a keen, clear-sighted argument, which also lifts up, but by a vision that seems to supersede argument. Worship requires room for both. In worship we do not apologize for a romantic view. Buoyed by our faith, we give way to the cherishing of unreasonable expectations. We feel that none but the fool has said in his heart, There is no God. "The wise" in our (good) book do not go all ironic but "shine brightly," as Daniel has it, "like the splendor of the firmament." Trailing clouds of glory indeed.

HERE IT COMES . . . The Mark passage also tells us to get ready. We will know the end is coming when these things happen -- darkened sun, etc. And it will happen before the death of people now living!

It didn't, as we know. The Age of Reason not unreasonably had a problem with that. Yes, there is the safety-valve reference to knowing not the day nor the hour when it will happen. But . . .

But, nothing. This is visionary, even idealistic stuff. If we have a problem with that, we have a problem. Time here for the preacher to speak his piece about figurative, inspirational writing aimed at pre-Age of Reason readers, often as instructional material for converts, and this when most Christians were converts. (Imagine that!) Does it have something for Reason-tainted readers? We think so.