Until

 Friends, it’s Ascension Sunday! I know, I’ll try not to keep you too long, so you can get to your Ascension Sunday parties after this. Yeah, we have this very bad habit in Christianity of making a very big deal out of just two of our holidays–Christmas and Easter–and generally ignoring the rest of them, to the extent that some of our beloveds only come to church twice a year. By now, y’all have learned that Pastor Natalie doesn’t ignore our other holidays, the ones we hardly talk about are my favorites! And Easter is a whole season, not one day, and today is the conclusion of that Easter season. The season began with Jesus’ resurrection, and Mary Magdalene proclaiming the Good News of the Risen Christ, and it ends here, with Jesus summoning his eleven surviving disciples together one last time, to give them some parting wisdom before going on to heaven.

Luke tells us that, in those final moments that Jesus was with his disciples in person, he finally gave them everything they’ve always wanted. It’s kind of like Glinda the Good Witch not telling Dorothy until the end of the movie that all she had to do to go home was click her heels and say the words. She could have done that earlier, but she had some growing up to do along the journey. She wasn’t ready before. The disciples weren’t ready before. They had some major growing up to do in their relationships with Jesus and their neighbors. But now, they have it all–open minds to understand scripture, and very clear instructions to preach, forgive, and help others repent of their sins.

And just like that, Jesus was gone, like a mother bird that teaches her babies to fly by throwing them out of the nest so they’ll instinctively start flapping their wings while they’re falling. Jesus is ascending, and the disciples are falling, but learning how to fly. And, despite having a commission and clear instructions, they’re still in liminal space. Jesus has left, he told them about the Holy Spirit but they haven’t met her yet (stay tuned for next week!), the opportunities to go to work will come, but what should they do next?

They go to the Temple. And they pray. They’re keeping the faith until. Until what? They don’t know. Just, “until”. When Jesus rose up to heaven he didn’t give a long speech, he didn’t write goodbye letters to every disciple, he didn’t even say good bye. More like the First Century Aramaic equivalent of this very casual German way to end a phone call: “bis dann.” “Until then.” When’s “then?” They don’t get that information right now. They have to wait until.

While the disciples sit in that liminal space, waiting, we also hear from Daniel, my favorite apocalyptic prophet, and not just because I named my kid after him. Daniel is a funny book. We call Daniel a major prophet, and, in protestant Bibles, we put his story after the other four major prophetic texts: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Lamentations. But…we’re actually not sure there ever was a prophet named Daniel. We’re even less sure, if there was a prophet named Daniel, that he wrote this book. We see two different kinds of story telling in this book–the first six chapters are a narrative about a Jewish man named Daniel, from the Southern Kingdom of Israel, taken as a prisoner of war into Babylon after the Babylonian Empire conquers Jerusalem. The second half of Daniel is doomsday stories with the most intense visual descriptions you’ll read anywhere in the Old Testament. The Hebrew ordering of the Bible puts Daniel in the “writings” section, right between Esther and Ezra. We get Daniel here, as a prophet, and absorb his wisdom, the words he heard from God and then shared with his neighbors, whether they wanted to hear those words or not. Regardless of where in the Old Testament this book should go, biblical scholars believe it was compiled together by many different people over a relatively long period of time. 

Now, me introducing Daniel that way can feel a bit disappointing. This higher biblical criticism stuff has that effect sometimes. It can make us feel like we’re sucking what was special out of this story. I’m arguing the opposite is true. Rather than Daniel being a book that one man by that exact name sat down and wrote himself, it’s a work that many people added words to, under a name that everyone felt power coming from, a name linked to an old legend about a very wise, devout man. The people who put this book together were suffering under the leadership of a number of unjust rulers, tyrants who made their lives miserable. We’re pretty sure that chief among those tyrants was Emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanes, a foreign ruler who persecuted Jewish folks in his kingdom. Folks living under the harsh rule of Antiochus were exhausted, impoverished, starving, and very scared. But, rather than giving up hope for better days, those folks brought together their stories under the name of Daniel, the Wise, Brave, and Faithful. In those stories, Daniel stands up to evil without losing his integrity, and he prophesies that, someday, the evil rulers will be gone, and only God will reign. The book of Daniel comes from the same unnerving liminal space the disciples found themselves in the Gospel passage–folks who believed that someday, things would change for the better. And they trusted God and one another until.

This morning’s OT reading is from the second half of Daniel, the apocalyptic half. The less familiar half. Daniel doesn’t pop up in the Revised Common Lectionary very often, and because of that a lot of us aren’t super familiar with this book. But, my guess is that if we know one story about Daniel, it’s from Daniel chapter 6, the story of Daniel in the lion’s den. We’re told that Daniel is taken in exile to Babylon, but quickly Daniel finds favor in Babylon because he interprets dreams for King Nebuchadnezzar. He proves himself invaluable, and he becomes a trusted advisor to the King. So, despite being a prisoner, he’s treated very well. This is wonderful for Daniel’s friends, other devout Jews from Israel who are trying to survive a terrible time in exile. They have an ally that the king has grown fond of. But it’s bad news for Babylonians in the royal court, Daniel’s competitors. They want to move up in power, and they decide the best way to do that is to get rid of Daniel. They try to catch Daniel doing something bad, but that doesn’t work because Daniel is a step below Mr. Rogers on the morality scale and he never does anything bad. So they need to make it personal, and go after the only thing Daniel does all day and all night long–pray. 

Daniel’s competitors approach King Nebuchadnezzar and encourage him to pass a new law: the King should be a god to all the kingdom, and it should be illegal to worship or pray to any deity other than King Nebuchadnezzar. King N sees no issue with this, it strokes his ego, and, as fond as he is of Daniel, he doesn’t know anything about Daniel’s religious practices. So he signs the law. By the end of the day, Daniel unwittingly incriminates himself by praying to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Daniel’s competitors catch him “in the act”, and report him to King N right away. King N, you must do something about this. It’s your law, and if you let Daniel get away with breaking it, no one will respect you. Feeling like his hands are tried, King N reluctantly hands Daniel over to spend the night in a den full of hungry lions. But, before Daniel goes in there, King N tells him, Pray to your God. Daniel does just that. The lions are as tame as house cats all night long. In the morning the den is opened, and Daniel is sitting there unharmed petting the big kitties. And King N immediately converts.

Heroic Daniel had no idea how his story would end. He had no control over the circumstances. His only power was over his own choices, and his own character. In a moment when he must have felt powerless and terrified, he decided to pray until.

And he made it through.

Some of us are in a liminal space of our own. As graduation season approaches, we’re in a liminal space between schools. Maybe we’re in a liminal space between one home and another, or between one job and another. Maybe we’re between a scary diagnosis and what comes after. Or we’re between a fight with a friend and an apology and forgiveness. We’re between breaking ground on a new project and any tangible results. Or, like Daniel himself, and the folks who compiled his stories, we’re between an intimidating world with oppressive rulers, unjust laws, and suffering…and a better tomorrow.

Like the disciples, we may not have a ton in those liminal spaces, and we certainly don’t have all the answers. But we have each other. And, like Daniel, we may be facing a harrowing night, but we still have our faith, our integrity, and our commitment to doing the right things even when others around us are making bad choices. No matter what kind of liminal, nerve-wrecking space you may find yourself in, today or any other day, the big cats won’t harm you, and the bad guys may have a temporary win, but their evil will catch up with them. Until then, we can tell each other stories about a God of victory who always gets the last word.

Amen.