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S. Last Sunday.24 Evening Prayer Dan. 7:9-14

And this is the takeaway for the last week of the Church Year when we contemplate the Zombie Apocalypse, er, I mean the End of the Word. There is only one Kingdom, that of the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, given him by the Father, the Ancient of Days (with whom Jesus is One)—one Kingdom that’s real, that… lasts.

The lectionary wants me to cut out two crucial middle verses from this reading, 11-12, the ones about the great horn, the beast and how it was killed and the dominion of the rest of the beasts taken away though they’re mercifully allowed to live… for a while. I read them because they are key. The “great horn” is, apparently, the last of 10 Empires that seems to match up with the post-Enlightenment West of which America is the leading power right now.

In Daniel’s picture, we are the last and, in many ways, the least of the Empires that came out of Julius and all the other Caesars of Roman Antiquity—basically 1st century BC through the 5th century AD. That was the golden age of which we are but a pale echo, though we have a strength in numbers and technology they did not, we are seriously lacking Rome’s class and style.

Anyway, the point of this reading is that the Western Empire descended from the Roman Caesars usually seems all that really matters. The Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the genuine Xn Church seems like a sideshow for outcasts, rebels, and misfits like Luther, C.S. Lewis, or Tolkien—three of the best known exceptions that prove the rule that no one really knows who we are or pays us much attention.

We get so wrapped up in who is President of the US, with immigration, inflation, abortion, LGBTQ, and free speech—trifles I think, not matters of deep concern for Xns. We get excited when someone gets into power who might throw the church a tiny little bone, now and again (I confess that I do this, sometimes) but it’s silly. None of the rulers of this present darkness really give a fig for us. If they think about the genuine Xn church, it’s only how to manipulate her for their advantage, or how to simply crush her.

That’s the reality. Jesus said last week that genuine Xns (who, as we read in our daily lectionary today from the Sermon on the Mount, are always few and walk a hard-pressed path) that we will be hated by all for his Name’s sake, hounded, harassed, persecuted; and those who kill us will think they’re doing a good work.

It’s been tough times for real Xns, especially these last few years. The pandemic precautions of shutting down Xn worship for “public health and safety” has hollowed out the institutional church. To the world, we look on the mat, down and out, irrelevant, out of touch, believing pie in the sky. But we’ve been here before…

See, what Daniel saw is… Reality, how it is, and how it will be. While God lets us be sifted and sorted (like the sorting hat in Harry Potter 😉 beat-up and beat-down, to sort the wheat from the chaff, the true believers and lovers of Jesus from those who are just in it for the Bud Light, these last days (which have been going on since April 6, 30 AD and surely can’t have that much longer to go 😉 are fast and fleeting. But eternity is… forever!

And as God the Father has given the Son all dominion, glory—the Kingdom that has no end, the only real world, destined for autocracy, so all will find their due place within this frame, will be subordinated to it. This, Daniel is given to see; and, through his eyes, so do we…

What do we see? In the midst of suffering and hardship—difficult days as Jesus said the last ones would be—we see Jesus, once crowned with thorns, crucified and rejected by all the powers that be. We see him coming on the clouds at the Last with glory, with healing on his wings, with love and mercy for those who won’t reject him, who love the Lord’s appearing.

He’s coming! For me. For you. Luther once said “I think if we could see the compensation we will have in heaven for one, single tear that we shed on earth we would say: ‘Oh, that I had cried a river’!”

Even so, come Lord Jesus. Amen.