Sermon 08.04.2024: Kairos and Daniel's "End of Days"

The Book of Daniel offers us resurrection hope for this current time of division, lawlessness and disinformation. If something is false, it is not of God. If something is not of God, it must not stand. Daniel tells us that we will rise—from the dust of the earth—we shall rise!



Scripture

Daniel 12:1-13 

’At that time Michael, the great prince, the protector of your people, shall arise. There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever. But you, Daniel, keep the words secret and the book sealed until the time of the end. Many shall be running back and forth, and evil shall increase.’ Then I, Daniel, looked, and two others appeared, one standing on this bank of the stream and one on the other. One of them said to the man clothed in linen, who was upstream, ‘How long shall it be until the end of these wonders? ’The man clothed in linen, who was upstream, raised his right hand and his left hand towards heaven. And I heard him swear by the one who lives for ever that it would be for a time, two times, and half a time, and that when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end, all these things would be accomplished. I heard but could not understand; so I said, ‘My lord, what shall be the outcome of these things? ’He said, ‘Go your way, Daniel, for the words are to remain secret and sealed until the time of the end. Many shall be purified, cleansed, and refined, but the wicked shall continue to act wickedly. None of the wicked shall understand, but those who are wise shall understand. From the time that the regular burnt-offering is taken away and the abomination that desolates is set up, there shall be one thousand two hundred and ninety days. Happy are those who persevere and attain the thousand three hundred and thirty-five days. But you, go your way, and rest; you shall rise for your reward at the end of the days.’ 

Sermon Text

Daniel Waving Goodbye 

Before we begin our apocalypse singalong, I’d like to point out that artificial intelligence and I created today’s bulletin cover. I entered key words from Daniel 12—et voila—a scene worthy of a dystopian movie franchise: ominous clouds, volcanic activity and words from an Old Testament vision glitching into this timeline from the multiverse. 

Daniel, as we’ve said for weeks now, is not a literal account. Daniel is not grouped with the prophets. It’s a Writing, a masterful series of stories drawing on historical figures and events, creating something new, never intended as Law, Prophecy or History. [1] Its truth comes in its power to heal us and draw us to God. This summer, we have explored Daniel’s hostile authoritarians, fallen idols, a lion’s den, and a fiery furnace and, today, Daniel’s end of days. 

Our Daniel series concludes today: 

Daniel is traveling tonight on a plane 

I can see the red tail lights heading for Spain 

And I can see Daniel waving goodbye 

Oh it looks like Daniel, must be the clouds in my eyes [2] 

Clouds. Falling stars. Every song we will sing today is about the end of days. Do you remember: 

It’s the end of the world as we know it 

It’s the end of the world as we know it 

It’s the end of the world as we know it 

And I feel fine. [3] 

And that’s the point! For people of faith, Good News music underscores all the mayhem of this world if we just let God be God. Today we will learn about kairos, aka God’s time, and how to live at all times as if Jesus were on the way. In this time of disinformation, division and hate, let there be Good News! In Southern Appalachia where I grew up, there was a popular bumper sticker: In case of Rapture, this car will be empty. Tacky, tacky, tacky. But an equally tacky but theologically-sound sticker read: Come the Rapture, can I have your car? As people of faith, we enjoy the blessing of being able to uncover the Good News in every scary situation, knowing the God of love has our back, holds our future, and God is not mad at anybody. 

The Big Reveal 

In every generation, somebody capitalizes on it The end is near. It’s later than you think. Jesus is coming, and you’d better look busy. Consider this ode: 

I was dreamin' when I wrote this 

Forgive me if it goes astray 

But when I woke up this mornin' 

Could've sworn it was judgment day… 

Say, say, 2000-00, party over 

Oops, out of time 

So tonight I'm gonna party like it's 1999 [4] 

That’s from 1982. Prince prophesied the dire warnings for New Year’s Eve Y2K. We waited for that apocalypse, preparing ourselves for planes to fall from the sky, out-of-control satellites to strike down the Statue of Liberty (popular in apocalyptic cinema), but the end was not so near after all. Admit it, we enjoy misunderstanding apocalypse. Apocalypse simply means the unveiling. The coverup is over. The jig is up. Isn’t that the big reveal we all need? The truth with the varnish removed. After all, the most consequential apocalypse ever was the coming of Jesus, God revealed in flesh, defining Christian identity as the religion of embodiment, incarnation—reconciling humanity to God in body and blood.

Last week, Joann told us how, in many instances, biblical apocalypses have come and gone as T.S. Eliot imagined, “not with a bang but a whimper.” [5] Several weeks ago, I had a Y2K flashback when MicroSoft Windows and Delta Airlines got CrowdStruck. [6] The system went kaput. It’s my theory that every human system is vulnerable and fragile. (Believing something we create will survive “in perpetuity” is theological hubris, but hat’s another sermon.) 

Resurrection 

Daniel 12, verse 2, “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake…” Those words mark the first biblical occurrence of the resurrection of God's people. Daniel 12 is our resurrection’s origin story! [7] Now, some Christians suppose the archangel Michael, formerly know as prince (aka “Michael, the great prince”) is a stand-in for Jesus. That is probably misappropriation of the Jewish tradition—Christians imposes Jesus into the Hebrew Bible—but if it helps you relate to this story, go for it, for now. To abet this collective transgression, let me add that the Book of Daniel was written half in Hebrew and half in Aramaic. Why is that important? It’s the language of Jesus. My little Christian heart grew three sizes when I learned that. 

Hell? No. 

But what about the people that Daniel says will go to hell? First off, Daniel doesn’t say hell. One more time for those in the back: our hell superstitions have got to go. In the Hebrew bible, before TV Christians could hijack it for profit, a hellish afterlife (hell-ish) is mentioned only twice: 1) Daniel 12 says the unwise shall suffer shame and eternal contempt. 2) Isaiah 30 says tyrants shall be condemned to ‘a burning place’. 

Can we please stop putting ourselves through the hell of fearing hell? Fear is its own torment. God is love. God is not mad at you. Let there be no fear in Christian love.8 The church is not fire insurance. God is Love. Historically, fear didn’t work during the Inquisition, or the Reformation or the Salem Witch Trails, or for the Moral Majority, and, praise God, it never will. With God’s help, we can make decisions not based in fear but in faith, hope and love. Many a fundamentalist Christian has tried to dangle the likes of me over the (metaphorical?) fiery furnace, yet here I stand un-singed, spreading the Good News. If God can use me, God can use you. 

Kronos 

The Book of Daniel is draws on ancient Hellenism. For example, the ancient Greeks had two ways to regard time. First, there was kronos—linear time, calendar time. Macbeth time: “To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day.” 

Kairos 

The ancient Greeks also described time as kairos. We often call kairos God’s time. In the Hebrew Bible, kairos shows up in Daniel and Ecclesiastes. [9] 

To everything turn, turn, turn 

There is a season turn, turn, turn 

And a time to every purpose under Heaven [10]

Kairos is when we can find greater purpose. Kairos is the supreme moment, the window of opportunity. In Into the Woods, Cinderella’s mother warns, “Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor.” When God’s kairos presents the opportune moment, it’s time for the Body of Christ to activate and rise to the occasion. Why do we hesitate? Are we afraid of doing it wrong/ Are we sleeping? Are we prisoners of kronos? 

Story: Anasazi Culture, a Kairos Moment? 

My husband Lou and I visited Chaco Canyon [11] in northwestern New Mexico. Miles away from modern civilization, we camped under the stars. For the ancient Pueblo, the metropolis of Chaco Culture was the Dubai of their time, flourishing around the year 1000, way before Columbus. Their multi-storied brick buildings still stand—some four, five stories tall!—unlike anything before or since. Sunken religious chambers called kivas, somehow preserved in perfect circles, once bustled with political and religious gatherings—miles of structures aligned with the stars. 

During a morning tour, our guide told us no one knows what happened to the ancestors, the Anasazi who were once great and powerful. I remembered the poet Carl Sandburg’s words, civilizations are mere “playthings of the wind.” [12] The guide shared the Anasazi oral tradition, the story. One day, the Sky Spirit sent to the ancestors otherworldly messengers—like Michael in Daniel 12. These messengers instructed the people to must build a great city. The ancestors obeyed, and for many centuries they thrived, engaging in trade through road systems, great houses and kivas. They learned the stars. But like Adam and Eve and every other human in history, they got fearful. Is this it? What do we do now? They asked the Sky Spirit for more, and the messengers told them no. “Go about your business, and await further instructions.” Nobody can tell us why, but the Anasazi culture suddenly vanishes from history around 1250. Archaeologists still search for clues but tell us it’s anyone’s guess. 

The great Robert Alter argues for this translation of Daniel 12:13: “As for you, go [to await] the end, and you shall rest [in your grave] and [rise up] for your destiny at the end of days.” [13] In other words, await further instruction. Trust. Obey. Love. 

Kairos 

In this kronos world, it’s easy to lose the kairos plot, but we do live in kairos time. On one hand, in San Francisco, over fifty billionaires and a half-million millionaires share a city with an estimated 8,000 homeless people and thousands more who can’t afford the new high prices for food or clothing, reading glasses or dental work. A kairos opportunity writ large. Meanwhile, on the national stage, an entire political movement doubles down on racist lies and works to divide us into hating the other side so they can control us. Which way will the arc of the moral universe bend? It’s a kairos time. 

On the other hand, we may gain strength by claiming the power of past kairos moments that produced things like the United Nations, the prophecies of “I Have a Dream” and the decline of global poverty, and crises that produced prophets like Greta Thunberg and David Hogg. Kairos moments. We will never again witness a kairos moment like two Sunday mornings ago when the most powerful man on the planet chose to set aside his ambition to unite the nation. [14] And history changed course. Kairos events transcend the kronos world. 

The birth of Jesus was apocalyptic, revealing God. The ministry of Jesus taught was all about the kairos kingdom—present yet unseen, always within yet always out of reach. God’s time is now and not-yet. Rachel Held Evans writes: 

In contrast to every other kingdom that has been and ever will be, [Jesus taught] this kingdom belongs to the poor, and to the peacemakers, the merciful, and those who hunger and thirst for God. In this kingdom, the people from the margins and the bottom rungs will be lifted up to places of honor, seated at the best spots at the table. 

This kingdom knows no geographic boundaries, no political parties, no single language or culture. It advances not through power and might, but through acts of love and joy and peace, missions of mercy and kindness and humility. This kingdom has arrived [kairos is now] not with a trumpet’s sound but with a baby’s cries, not with the vanquishing of enemies but with the forgiving of them, not on the back of a warhorse but on the back of a donkey, not with triumph and a conquest but with a death and a resurrection. [15]

Do not ignore this kairos time. Don’t await further instruction. Jesus gave us instructions, examples of how we are to heal and help. We’re his resurrection people, his Matthew 25 people, his hands, his feet. Wake up for the kairos time, the great unveiling. Stand up, show up, speak out for God’s sake, and for God’s people.

Amen! 

[1] If you haven’t seen or read The Power of Myth (Joseph Campbell & Bill Moyers, 1988), by all means do so. 

[2] Elton John, 1973 < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_(Elton_John_song)> 

[3] REM’s 1987 classic has been called an ode to calamity and spontaneous combustion. < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_the_End_of_the_World_as_We_Know_It_(And_I_Feel_Fine)> 

[4] < https://singersroom.com/songs-about-the-end-of-the-world-and-the-apocalypse/> 

[5] from “The Hollow Men’ by T.S. Eliot 

[6] < https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-hires-david-boies-lawyers-crowdstrike-microsoft-pay-damages-2024-7> 

[7] There are other isolated occurrences of revivification but not a resurrection of the many. 

[8] 1 John 4:18 

[9] Ecclesiastes 3: "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal.…” KAIROS TIME. 

[10] A riff on Ecclesiastes 3 

[11] Formally called Chaco Culture National Monument, a UNESCO world heritage site 

[12] complete poem < https://poets.org/poem/four-preludes-playthings-wind> 

[13] Incorporating footnoted material, this is Robert Alter’s rendering of Dan. 12:13, found in The Hebrew Bible: A Translation With Commentary, Volume 3 The Writings, New York: Norton & Company, p. 799, available in Calvary’s library, 

[14] < https://www.npr.org/2024/07/24/g-s1-12996/biden-address-kamala-harris-2024-election> 

[15 Rachel Held Evans, Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water and Loving the Bible Again (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 20218), 253.