Whatever Happens, For Good Or Ill, Jesus Is The King Of Kings

Friday of the 34th Week Integral 2025

Our Introit psalm today is certainly something the world longs to hear: “The Lord speaks of Peace to His people and his holy ones, and to those who turn to Him.” This is especially true at this time of year, when families all over the U.S. try to get together and animosities can brew up over words or actions that may have been stewing in our memories for years, even decades.

We have been reading from the prophet Daniel all this week. We heard how Daniel and his Hebrew companions were pressed into service by the Babylonian king. Then Daniel was challenged by the king to recall for him a dream the king had suffered under, and to interpret the dream. We heard the story of King Belshazzar’s feast, and Daniel’s warning to him about the meaning of the fingers writing on the palace wall. Today we heard of the night visions of Daniel, with strange creatures and the violence they would bring. All of this was brought to conclusion with the vision of a courtroom, with the Ancient One as judge, clearly a vision of God’s own judgement and the introduction of someone called the Son of Man, who was made a great king over all the earth. Those of us who know the whole story realize that this King of Kings is Jesus Christ, whose dominion is everlasting, just like God’s love. Jesus called Himself the Son of Man--an allusion to this Scripture.

This reminds us that the Book of Daniel is a collection of stories meant to encourage a Jewish community under terrible persecution by a tyrant king, Antiochus Epiphanes. It is a revelation of what God was doing behind the scenes during the Jewish revolt against the tyrant, a not quite two-hundred years before Christ. Just as Adonai-God had brought His people through the Babylonian exile and persecution, so He would triumph over the Greek-Syrian tyranny. Early Christians who themselves were under persecution looked to these stories as well and realized that no matter what happened in the world, God and His Church would come through victoriously.

They knew that Jesus had predicted His own persecution, and that of the Church after Him. Just as the blossoming of figs and all the other fruit trees foretell the warmth and bounty of summer, so also the signs in heaven and on earth predicted by Jesus would presage the coming of the Kingdom of God.

It is true that the historical destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD predicted by Jesus thirty-five years beforehand took place before the disappearance of the generation He spoke to. The followers of Christ, heeding His warnings, escaped across the Jordan River before the siege of the city. But the Kingdom of God is here now. Jesus told us that the core of the Kingdom fruit is within each believer, and all of us together as His Church. So let’s bear that in mind whether external events seem wonderful or terrible, because Christ is King now and evermore, Amen.