Darius

The story of Daniel and the Lion's Den has came up on the weekday and Sunday lectionaries within a few days of each other - but it has given me pause for thought on the rather maligned King Darius. In the best light Darius comes across as vain and stupid and in the worst as downright evil.

But reading the account of Daniel getting in trouble after Darius is persuaded by his court to proclaim himself divine and the only possible end to the prayers of those living in his kingdom...with death as a punishment for those who failed. Death by being thrown into a pit of hungry lions, no less.

Had been a little less in love with the idea of, well, himself he might have stopped long enough to consider that Daniel was not going to be diverted from saying his prayers by something as measly death by lion. But Darius made a dreadful mistake, he took himself too seriously and did not think things through. This is something most people have done at some point but not with such a catastrophic result.

But what Darius does next is the interesting bit. First of all he spends the whole day sulking around refusing to issue the death sentence - until finally his courtiers remind him that he has no option and that even he cannot change the law. So, regretfully he hands over Daniel - but he takes him to the lions himself and then before locking Daniel in for the night, wishes him well.

Even at this point Darius is demonstrating some hope that the God of Daniel is really as big and strong as Daniel believes him to be. But Darius goes further. After a sleepless night he runs down to the lion cave and starts banging on the door and calling Daniel's name. Objective evidence would say that this was a man who clearly was not facing up to the reality of what had happened - but then objective evidence is not what this is about - this was about Darius' hope and it was a hope which was fulfilled in fact that Daniel was still alive.

I wonder how many people, like Darius, want the story of Jesus to be true, want God to be as big as we know God is. I wonder how many people are actually quite willing to set aside the rules and regulations they have made for themselves....to see that things are not gluing together quite as well as they had hoped with themselves at the centre of their universe.

I suspect there are quite a few. They do not have Daniel and the lions to prove to them that our God really is big and wonderful and true - they have us. And whilst this might seem a little overwhelming it is good to know that we can do this, we can be this for the world because it is Jesus who calls us to it and Jesus who equips us for it.

We all have moments when we are more like Darius than Daniel - that is just human nature - but most of the time we are asked to listen out for that question, which comes in so many forms, can it possibly be true?