Daniel and reality
'I don't believe my eyes!' said the father when his son washed up without being asked. 'I don't believe my eyes!' said the teacher when the student produced a very high grade. But, of course, we do believe our eyes; practical, down-to-earth, scientifically educated (sort of) people believe their eyes. What they don't expect to have to believe are visions and dreams and prophecies and the future foretold.
Daniel did a practical, down-to-earth job, serving three kings. He was intelligently faithful in his work. But he was in the wrong place: he was a member of another ruling elite, but had been conquered, stripped of all status, taken captive, shipped into exile and put to work in an alien culture. As far as he knew, God's plans had simply fizzled out in a destroyed Jerusalem. The temple was in ruins, and the temple treasures were in the museums of Babylon. He had seen them profaned at a king's drunken banquet.
But God came to Daniel in a series of visions, saying, in effect, 'Don't believe your eyes! Don't for one moment think that these tawdry kingdoms, ruled by petty tyrants, are anything more than a blip in time. Because the times are in my hands and always have been. The end will come as I have always planned. Be assured that I am the reality and the truth behind the created universe and the whole history of this world'.
So when we get bogged down in a fiercely secularised way of thinking; when statistics and focus groups are the reality, telling us 'the truth'; when closed cause-and-effect arguments totally and caustically leave out god, whatever shape he might have been, then remember Daniel.
Take his visions seriously, as well as the visions of Ezekiel and Revelation, even if Christians have argued about the times they refer to. Take seriously the things Jesus said about the future of Jerusalem - which was to be rebuilt and destroyed again by the Romans - and the end of time.
Live in this reality - intelligently faithful like Daniel - but knowing that there is a greater reality, a richer future coming, that nothing can derail.
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