Preaching Daniel 12:1-3

The homiletic possibilities for Daniel 12 are exciting. We preachers usually shy away from apocalyptic texts. Yet in an age when apocalyptic urgency is again pressing upon us in art and other spheres of contemporary culture, we can't let Daniel pass us by.

We begin, however, with a caveat. When preaching with texts treating death and resurrection, we're tempted to speak in universal terms. After all, everybody dies! Yet Daniel's treatment of death and resurrection should be read in light of a theology of vocation. Here the promise of resurrection is not for the dead qua dead people. Daniel's resurrection promise is for those who suffered while acting faithfully. Our preaching, therefore, should have something of Christian vocation in view. In other words, we're not so much interested in "why bad things happen to good people" as in "why bad things happen to people acting faithfully in covenant with God." After all, Daniel isn't reflecting on the existential angst of a universal "Jedermann," but speaking words of encouragement to the faithful.

With such rich apocalyptic material here, at least two sermon options emerge. The first might be titled God Remembers. It focuses primarily on the book of life image and the divine promise proceeding from it.

As a way of entry, the sermon could begin with symbols of human remembrance. Images of an old graveyard or one of those "tombs of the unknown" should illustrate it well. The goal is to get people focused on vivid memorial symbols.

Yet, with our first move, we ought to acknowledge that all human remembrance is fading. We may erect monuments or place flowers on a grave; but always our remembrances fail. For tombstones erode and funeral bouquets shrivel. So like sand castles before the onrushing tide, we remember only for the moment. We know, with our demise, remembrance passes with us.

But how unlike our remembrance is God's! God's remembrance doesn't require massive marble slabs or odoriferous bouquets--only God's steadfast love, whose duration is matched only by God's own eternality. No wonder Daniel speaks about God's book of life! It's a sign of God's unfailing remembrance in a time of persecution and death. Yet the promise isn't just for the dead, but for us who remember the dead. The promise? God will re-member those who were dismembered from us. What great hope for folks in troubled times!

Still, is hope enough to capture the breadth, depth and height of God's remembering steadfast love? Not quite. For in Christ's resurrection we've something more than hope--we have assurance. Like a promissory note from First Memorial Bank, Christ is our assurance that God will remember us together with the dead! It's no accident that the communion of saints and the resurrection of the body all but bump up against each other in our recitals of the Apostles' Creed. With Christ's resurrection we too confess: God's new age of remembering has begun.

So now we're strengthened, knowing God remembers. God knows we need it. Even in our relative first-world comfort we see evil pressing in from every side. Yet God's remembering reminds us: we don't struggle alone. A story from Nicaragua illustrates this well. Once a year peasants struggling under oppression fill a church for a memorial service. They gather to remember companions who died in the previous year. As part of the observance, roll is called, solemnly listing the dead. From the peasant throng a single voice sounds for each name read: "Presente,... presente,... presente." So it is for us who live in this new age of God's remembering. With Christs resurrection we know we don't resist evil alone. For around us gather re-membered ones, present with us in the struggle; before us, Christ whom God raised from the dead. Together we move forward to struggle with confidence. Why? `Cause God remembers.

Another sermon with a more anthropological bent also seems possible here. It focuses with even greater emphasis on the saints around us. The key images from the text are the shining stars which are the righteous, the resurrection promise, and the angel Michael fighting on our behalf (read through the symbol of Christ crucified and raised).

This more "anthropological" sermon has an hourglass shape. It begins at the hourglass base with a wide-view remembrance of saints who struggled to be faithful. We see them like some great panorama of the faithful: there's Stephen testifying before a stone-throwing mob; there's apocryphal Thekla, Paul's female missionary companion, thrown before lions; and there's Martin Luther King writing a letter in the Birmingham jail.

The panoramic wideness, however, narrows in the second move. For we remember: these shining lights of faith were snuffed out. While this move focuses on the death of faithful saints, preachers may be brief here. Hearers already know well: such is the way of evil in our world.

In a third move the focus narrows further to consider Christ, himself "snuffed out" at Golgotha. What started out as a life of promise and hope is nailed to the cross by religious authorities, government officials,...and crowds like us.

But here, at the narrow passage of the hourglass, the sermon reverses. For, in move four, Christ is risen. Neither religious leaders, nor imperial guards, not even the crowds could hold Christ back. Like Daniel's angel Michael, Christ leads the way from life to death to life again.

This, we realize in move five, betokens a resurrection promise that extends to all of us (notice the hourglass is again widening as we move toward the top). For what Christ, like angel Michael, has done is also for us.

So, in the final move, we can rejoice surrounded by heavenly "stars of faith." Preachers might paint a grand picture of them encouraging us together, bringing the fallen saints back imaginatively to urge us on in heavenly celebration. There they are: Stephen, Thekla and MLK, together with the people we know and love from our past. Like stars in the pitch of night, they light our way...to faithfulness.

David Schnasa Jacobsen