Friday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 507

The court was convened, and the books were opened.
I watched, then, from the first of the arrogant words
which the horn spoke, until the beast was slain
and its body thrown into the fire to be burnt up.
The other beasts, which also lost their dominion,
were granted a prolongation of life for a time and a season.

Many passages in the Book of Daniel are written with a new kind of language, unfamiliar to much of Old Testament writing, and incomprehensible to modern readers. 

For one thing, the Jews in the last centuries before Christ, had stopped speaking and using the name of God, which we call the Tetragrammaton. (four Hebrew letters written in English as YHWH.) In today's passage we hear the euphemism, "the Ancient One." Devout Jews like Jesus and his disciples would have used many euphemisms to refer to God. They sometimes preferred to imply God's activity without saying who does these marvelous works, as in "Blessed are the poor."  The Beatitudes suggest the watchful care of God without naming who gives the blessings. 

Daniel also speaks of evil powers who govern the world in defiance of God. Scholars with a close knowledge of ancient near-eastern history, can helpfully identify some of the symbols in the Book. That precise knowledge might not be necessary or even helpful as we face the Powers that Be in today's world. 

But, at the same time, some of them do sound familiar. A monster with great iron teeth that devours, crushes, and tramples underfoot could be any army on earth. They have only grown more cruel, voracious, and beastly in the centuries since they appeared in Daniel. 

And God's people still appeal to heaven for deliverance from the beasts who govern this world, be they military juntas, political parties, self-serving bureaucrats, or celebrated capitalists. In recent centuries, terrorists (once known as anarchists) have displaced some horns to raise their own. There will never be an end of troubles in our world. Upheavals follow one after another. 

On this last Friday of the liturgical year, as Advent rushes toward us, Jesus points to the signs of spring and the promise of summer: 

Consider the fig tree and all the other trees.

When their buds burst open,

you see for yourselves and know that summer is now near;

in the same way, when you see these things happening,

know that the Kingdom of God is near.

Rather than feeling distress about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the renewed conflict between Israel and Gaza, the ascendance of ideologies in America, and so forth, Jesus teaches us to understand these events as signs of the Kingdom of God. He already governs you and me, the willing despite our sins. When we undergo that kind of conversion we become both helpful and useful for God's purposes. 

We live by God's word, which is a promise. It arouses hope in our hearts, which becomes courage,  creativity, energy, and willingness. The promise has become flesh and lived among us; we feel his presence. For us it's undeniable. And so we allow ourselves to hope...

...and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us. (Romans 5:5)