Psalm 18:1-20; Dan. 2:31-49; 1 John 2:18-29; Luke 3:1-14
Daniel is able, by God’s revelation, to know the king’s dream and its interpretation. It is a dream about the present and the future. It speaks of Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom as great, superior to all that will come after it, a kingdom he has received from Daniel’s God, yet a kingdom that will not endure, and in the end, whenever that may be, God will bring all kingdoms to naught and establish His own everlasting kingdom. Nebuchadnezzar is humbled and offers worship to Daniel’s God, recognizing Him to be greater than all gods for His ability to reveal this to Daniel. The reward is that Daniel is in charge of everything in the kingdom. Sounds a bit like Joseph in Egypt doesn’t it? The king, however, doesn’t turn to Daniel’s God as his own, however great he may be. This will be his downfall.
John is the herald of that kingdom of which Daniel prophesied. John sees the King coming to throw that stone not made by human hands against the kingdoms of man and to establish the kingdom that will be a mighty mountain over the entire earth. He preaches a message of preparation for the coming King. Preparation consists of knowing that King in advance and knowing what He requires of citizens in His kingdom. No one could have anticipated the Caesars, Hitler, Stalin, or any of the despots in history but this King has made Himself known, announced His intentions for setting up a kingdom and told us what it means to be a good citizen of His kingdom. The King is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the covenant God of Israel. Jesus inaugurated that kingdom and we are now those who proclaim it and build it wherever we are, we continue to preach the message of John for preparation but we have a simple, concrete message, accept Jesus, crucified, resurrected and ascended and coming again as the only preparation.
Apparently some have gone out from the fellowship of believers to whom John writes and are teaching something other than the simple Gospel message. It does seem too simple to believe, it requires only belief and that isn’t enough for us, we want to be able to do something, to be clever enough to deserve eternal life, to be good enough and the Gospel says that I am not clever and I am not good. Grace is the offer and it is the only way we can have eternal life, accepting God’s gift to us and recognizing it as mercy for those who wouldn’t recognize righteousness if we saw it and can never do anything without His Spirit that is not tainted by sin in some way. In older versions of the Book of Common Prayer the confession in Morning Prayer included a few simple words that are no longer in the liturgy, “We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us…” Until we humble ourselves to recognize this truth, we will never receive the gift properly. We remain at some level like Nebuchadnezzar, willing to recognize God’s greatness but not our abject situation before Him. We will fail to fully appreciate Him or His graciousness towards us.
He sits at God’s right hand till all His foes submit,
And bow to His command, and fall beneath His feet:
Lift up your heart, lift up your voice;
Rejoice, again I say, rejoice!
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