Tuesday, August 24, 2021
As Darkness Fades at Each Sunrise
So God’s Blessings
Rescue Us Over and Over Each Day.
Daniel 7:14
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 his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.
Colossians 1:13
He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son.
Words of Grace For Today
Daniel’s vision sees God having given dominion to one human-like being, and destroying the greatest beast.
This vision is part of the book, set in the 6th century BCE, written in and about the oppression of the Jews in the 2nd century BCE. Just as God delivered Israel in the time of David, so God will deliver the people then … and now.
After Christ, the one like a human being is understood to be Jesus, for God gave him all power, as indeed Jesus is God, the Son of God, a person of the Trinity, one-Godhead, three persons.
For the people reading Daniel when it was written, the hope created in them was that the evil oppression of their time would come to an end with the rise of a ruler like David, who would throw off their oppressive foreign rulers and assert independence.
Even when Colossians was written this imagery is used to convey the promise provided in baptism, that we are made children of God: we are rescued from the power of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of Jesus. This provides solid hope, that all is accomplished, though I wonder what the people thought as they were hunted down, persecuted, and killed by the oppressive Jewish and Roman rulers.
Can we say the transfer is complete, finalized? I think that any honest person would have to admit that even baptized Christians continue to do evil things, think evil things, say evil things serving the power of darkness, or in Daniel’s imagery, the great evil beast. Is all hope lost?
For those who believe that once they are baptized, freed from bondage to evil, and sanctified as Jesus’ followers … for those who believe it is once done and complete and that then they are not still in bondage to sin at all and never sin … for those who believe that they do not ever again serve the powers of darkness at all … well for these people the realization that they do still sin, and constantly, this realization must undo their baptisms completely, as their house of cards crumbles into a dust heap of cheap, self-made faith. For this reason so many bury their heads in the sand about their own sin, or blame others for their sins. But nothing any human can do will erase their sins.
Those, including us, who believe that we are adopted, yet remain free to choose to love God … and to choose to not love God and all of God’s creation … those who embrace Luther’s statement of faith that we are God-made saints and yet simultaneously sinners … those who accept in humility that only by Grace are we saved, and we must be saved again and again … those who know that as much as we need air to breathe we need Grace to live each moment … these people do not lose hope. Indeed we rejoice knowing that in our weaknesses and sins though Evil seems to win the day, God always wins over Evil and our weaknesses and sins are God’s clear demonstration of God’s power of love, exercised by Grace alone, not by merit.
We hope in what God can do and does do and has done for us. We do not rely on our own abilities. Our hope is sure. We live blessed by God each day.
We rejoice in all that God brings from us, the Grace that we are able to exercise on God’s behalf for other people. We remain every day grateful for God’s mercy and love. Our hope is sure, for we live blessed each day by God, no matter what our enemies try to do to us, no matter what evil or disaster or illness befalls us. We live each day blessed by God.