Thursday, 12 September 2024 The Revd Dr ‘frin Lewis-Smith
‘At that time Michael, the great prince, the protector of your people, shall arise. There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever. But you, Daniel, keep the words secret and the book sealed until the time of the end. Many shall be running back and forth, and evil shall increase.’
Reflection
As the tension rises in what feels like a horror scene, tombs open, the dead rise up, and every secret guarded in someone’s heart since the beginning of time is revealed. This is a reckoning. Maybe even “the reckoning” in which our worth and our shame is exposed to all. Imagine the vision as though a film. In the midst of the chaotic and overwhelming scene stands the angelic figure, Michael, powerful warrior prince, ready to deliver God’s people.
Perhaps we need a jumpcut, as in a film set in multiple time periods. Dream visions play out like jump cuts!
Another scene of reckoning: Jerusalem, Passover, the time of Herod and Pilate. We focus on the earthly body of Jesus, a tortured prince of peace, apparently too frail to deliver God’s people. He looks broken. Dead. If he has divine beauty, it is hard to make out through the bloodstains and bruises of the cross. But panning out across the city, we see that as he dies the tombs of Jerusalem are also spilling open (Matthew 27), and across the city walk, or stumble, the first witnesses to God’s defeat of death.
We jump to that final reckoning, as imagined in Revelation. A montage follows, with images of Jesus in quick succession: warrior, judge in power, lamb on the throne, beautiful bridegroom, bringer of healing. This is who we will reckon with, the one who loves us and whom we love. If we are willing to reckon with ourselves now, in our own lifetime, he is the one who helps us transcend shame and leave it behind us.
We jump back to Daniel, but he is already moving on. He draws our eyes away from a secret he does not share to a moral teaching: evil is increasing. Death is weakened, evil shall be defeated, yet it continues to root and grow around us, tempting, challenging, and threatening us, until God reckons with it and us for good.
Prayer
Jesus,
We are tempted to keep secrets, however futile.
We delude ourselves and pretend we have deluded You.
But we know who You are,
Judge, Saviour, Healer.
Help us to avoid the temptation to hide parts of ourselves from You,
who sees anyway, and knows all,
but to trust ourselves to look with You,
learn from You,
and change with You,
our First Love,
who loved us first.
Amen