Remaining Faithful: When Danger Looms - Daniel 6:1-10
We
followed her story for much of the first part of this year. She was charged
with adultery and apostasy. Her name is
Mariam Yehya Ibrahim. Born in Sudan, and
raised as a Christian by her mother who was an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian,
Mariam had met and married Daniel Wadi, an American citizen. Accusations of apostasy were brought by
Mariam’s father’s side of the family who accused her of being a Muslim who converted
to Christianity—an illegal act in Sudan.
Accusations of apostasy were followed by charges of adultery, with the
Sudanese government failing to recognize her Christianity, she could therefore
not be legally married to a Christian, and therefore the fact that she already
had one child and was pregnant with another, indicated at least two instances
of sex out of a legal recognized marriage.
She was arrested and imprisoned.
Pregnant and in prison, she was sentenced to 100 lashes before being
hung to death following the delivery of her expected child. Reports were that she was shackled while
waiting to deliver, with her two year old son by her side. Reports were also that the 27 year old doctor
was given the opportunity to renounce her Christian faith, reclaim the Muslim
faith, and be freed. She refused,
maintained that she was never a Muslim and would remain a Christian as she had
always been—thus putting her own life on the line, as well as the welfare of
her two children (who if she had been put to death would have most likely have
been given over to Ibrahim’s father’s Muslim family, or have become wards of
the country.)
We
heard last week of how Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah took a
stand. Having been selected by the King
Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, the four men determined that while they would
participate in the learning that would take place in the king’s palace,
training that would prepare them to serve as the connection between the
Babylonian ruler and the Hebrew exiles, they would not defile themselves with
the rich food of the palace—dining that would most certainly conflict with the
Hebrew dietary laws. They may walk up on
the bridge with everyone else, but they would not jump off. We considered that importance to us: how to
remain faithful in a culture that is not.
We saw in Daniel and his friends their determination and the example and
call for us to remain faithful to God and His Word, when everyone else is doing
what they want to do. The keys to
success: 1) Determination – not being wishy-washy in whether we are going to
hold true to God or not; 2) Companionship – having like-minded disciples around
us to offer support and hold us accountable; and 3) Prayer – realizing that we
cannot do any of this on our own, but need God’s presence and Spirit within us
to give us the courage to be different that the world around us.
Daniel
and his friends proved that their vegan-style diet suited them much better than
the food of the palace, as they grew in strength and wisdom. Daniel, with his gifts of having visions and
interpreting dreams truly excelled in the king’s court. Before too long, under the reign of
Nebuchadnezzar’s son, Darius, Daniel was found to be greater than all off King
Darius’ top counsel and sub-rulers. All
of the others who governed on behalf of Darius soon became green with envy and
jealousy with regard to Darius’ favoritism with regards to Daniel. They deiced to move in and bring Daniel
down. How? They knew that the only way to trip Daniel up
was with regard to Daniel’s faith. So
they went to King Darius and began to just swell his head, “O great King
Darius,” they said, “Let a law be established that if anyone bows down to or
prays to anyone other than you for the next thirty days, they will be thrown
into a den of lions. Furthermore, King,
let this be a law that can never be revoked.”
They didn’t want the king to overturn this law when he learned that the
king’s favorite would be the only one caught and convicted.
Now
for the past forty-five years, I have always pictured the story playing out one
way. Daniel learns about the law and is
determined to continue to pray to God and not pray to Darius. He goes home to have his regular devotion
time in the quiet of his own home. He
kneels down to pray, facing Jerusalem of course, and suddenly those plotting
against him jump out from behind his curtains and say, “gotchya now…you’re
going down Daniel. You’ve violated the King’s edict and he may love you, but he
won’t be able to stop this…you’re lions’ lunchmeat.” Well, maybe that is modernizing the language
a little bit. The idea I always had was
that Daniel’s antagonists secretly lay in wait, ready to spring the trap on an
unsuspecting faithful man of God.
However, after closely reading the text and some commentaries alongside
it, there is no reason to think that Daniel was praying in secret and his
“enemies” jumped out in surprise. Daniel
knew about the law. He went to his
house, went to the upper room where there were windows open toward Jerusalem,
and three times a day he would go to those windows and pray. It wasn’t that Daniel was caught in
secret…Daniel knew about the law and flagrantly disobeyed the law. He knew what he was doing and knew the
consequences. It was a pure act of civil
disobedience. It was a
sitting-down-at-the-lunch-counter, refusing-to-move-to-the-back-of-the-bus kind
of act. It was Daniel refusing to recant
his faith in order to escape imprisonment and a den of lions.
Daniel
set the precedent, others followed…especially centuries later with those who
would follow Christ. Jesus knew his
actions would bring the cross…yet from the cleansing of the temple[i] to
calling the religious leaders whitewashed tombs and children of Satan[ii]…He
never backed down from confronting the wrong.
Some may want to argue, well that was Jesus, we’re not Jesus. Well, despite the fact that we are the Body
of Christ…the living presence of Jesus in the world today, there are
others…those among the disciples who lived out their faith with bold
determination, despite what they knew it would bring…we see it time and again through
the Acts of the Apostles where Stephen, Peter, John, Paul, and Barabbas, all
directly threatened by those in authority refused to let their faith and the
proclamation of the Gospel be bullied into silence, openly defied those in
authority to remain faithful, even though imprisonment and death loomed before
them. Some of them would escape death,
like Daniel coming out of the lion’s den…others would meet the embrace of God
with their head held high as they crossed through the shadow of death.
What
about us? We live in a time and place
where we have the freedom to come and gather for worship without fear of being punished,
arrested, imprisoned, shackled, whipped, or put to death. What if we didn’t? What if we could lose our jobs if we didn’t
hide our faith? Such as Beckie Francis
who was fired as Oakland University basketball coach for refusing to not use
Twitter to share Bible verses. What if
we could have our diplomas withheld because we openly prayed in the name of
Jesus, or mentioned Him in our graduation speech? Such as happened to Erica
Corder of Lewis-Palmer High School. What if laws were enacted that asked us to
compromise our faithful living out of the Word of God? What if it suddenly
became illegal to publically gather to worship God? What if it put our lives, or even the lives
of our families on the line to publically profess our faith?
Would
we have the faith of Mariam, of Daniel, of Stephen, of Jesus? We cannot do it on our own, but God has
placed His Spirit within us to give us the strength to remain faithful when
danger looms. The same Spirit that emboldens and strengthens the faithful folks
of Scripture and the world around us has already been placed within us, simply
waiting for us to access it, embrace it, and live faithfully knowing that God
not only can close the mouths of lions, He can and has and will roll away the
stone from a tomb…leaving us free to be faithful no matter what we may face.
In
the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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