Daniel 7:7-14 (with Revelation 1:4-8)

World War One was called ‘The war to end all wars.’ The suffering and depravity of it shocked millions of people around the globe. Despair filled Europe. One Christian leader thought he could change the atmosphere.

That leader was Pope Pius XI. He believed people needed reminding of who was truly in charge, namely Jesus Christ. And so he proclaimed a new feast, the Feast of Christ the King. He said (and you’ll have to excuse the exclusive language of his day),

If men recognise the royal power of Christ privately and publicly, incredible benefits must spread through the civil community, such as a just liberty, discipline, tranquillity, agreement, and peace.

He directed that the feast be observed on the Last Sunday Before Advent, and that made excellent sense. It is the last day of the Christian Year. What begins in Advent with looking forward to the coming of Christ, continues with his birth, life, and ministry in Lent, marks his death and resurrection at Easter, then his Ascension, followed by the pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, reaches a climax with Christ reigning over all things.

There was just one problem. Not everyone heeded the teaching. Governments in places such as Berlin and Moscow ensured that the rest of the twentieth century was filled up with even more unimaginable and reprehensible evil as they rejected the rule of Christ.

To explore the reign of Christ now and in the future, and the tension with the presence of evil in the world, I’m going to take the final two verses of the Daniel reading as my foundation:

¹³ “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. ¹⁴ He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

I’m going to interpret this, as the New Testament does, with the ‘son of man’ (NIV) or ‘human being’ (NRSV) being fulfilled by Jesus. There is much more nuance than that involved, but that will do us for our purposes today.

Firstly, let’s consider the reign of Christ now:

You may remember that Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record a conversation the disciples have with Jesus where they are in Jerusalem in ‘Holy Week’ and they point to the beauty of the Temple. Jesus replies by telling them that not a stone of it will be left standing, because Rome will come and destroy it. The disciples then ask him when this will happen, and Jesus launches into some prophetic words about the harrowing events that will come.

In that context, he quotes Daniel 7:13, about the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven, and many Christians have jumped on these words to think he is now talking about the Second Coming. If Jesus is the Son of Man and he is ‘coming’ then surely this must be his return? People who believe this then get into all sorts of knots about what Jesus says regarding people alive then who will witness this.

But they forget one important detail. When the Son of Man comes on the clouds of heaven, where does he come to? In Daniel, he doesn’t come to earth: he comes to the Ancient of Days, that is, Almighty God. It is about him returning to heaven. In other words, Jesus is talking about the Ascension. Jesus is reigning at the Father’s right hand from the Ascension onwards.

However, we live in a world where not everyone accepts this. We would rather have others in charge, or perhaps run our own lives. How does that work out? The writer James Cary puts it like this:

We say things like ‘The Prime Minister is running the country’. Could this ever possibly have been true? This is not a comment on Keir Starmer, or his predecessors or successors. I seek only to point out the insanity of the notion that any one single person can run an extremely complex and diverse society of 65 million people – all of whom seek to be their own king or queen. Premiership after premiership has ended in failure with ever increasing rapidity. Keir Starmer, impressively, has saved time by starting with failure. That’s rare but, at least, efficient.

So what’s required of us? As God’s people, we are a colony of his coming kingdom. One classic definition of the church is to say that we are a sign and foretaste of God’s kingdom. It is our calling to live under that reign and seek to bring people and all of creation under that reign, too. We see the vision of that in verse 14:

He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

We are junior partners in God’s project to usher in the day when ‘all nations and peoples of every language’ will worship Jesus Christ.

That means first of all bringing our own lives in order under his Lordship. The very fact that we have seen safeguarding scandals where church leaders were more concerned to protect the reputation of the church than the welfare of victims and survivors has had a devastating effect on the church’s witness. In the light of the John Smyth scandal, the radio broadcaster Nicky Campbell said on air that there was no way he would now ever consider the Christian faith. Campbell is on record as saying he was abused as a youngster.

But then a Christian woman came on his show and told her own story of abuse. And she told him how the church and her faith had helped her come through the experience. With great integrity, Campbell softened his position on Christianity as a result of her testimony.

We need then both to live our lives under the reign of Christ, which includes using power when we have it in a godly way, and taking the side of the last and the least in our world, as Jesus did. We also need to be inviting others to do the same.

And this links secondly with the reign of Christ to come:

I said that the Gospels use Daniel 7:13 about the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven to mean the Ascension. But Revelation 1 doesn’t. John chops off the bit about coming to the Ancient of Days and puts it with some words from Zechariah 12:

⁷ ‘Look, he is coming with the clouds,’
    and ‘every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him’;
    and all peoples on earth ‘will mourn because of him.’
So shall it be! Amen.

Now we do have the appearing of Christ again in view. This is the time when all nations and peoples of every language will worship him. It is the time Paul spoke of in Philippians 2 when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

We may long for that day when all will be good and true, when society will be just, when darkness in all its forms will be banished. This is our great hope. Just as God remade Jesus’ body in the Resurrection, so he will remake all things. It gives us that longing to say, ‘Come, Lord Jesus.’ And when we come to Holy Communion, our sharing in a small piece of bread and a sip of wine makes us ache for the heavenly banquet, the marriage feast of the Lamb.

Our critics would say this is classic ‘pie in the sky when you die.’ But it isn’t, if we understand it properly. Because this vision makes us restless with hope now. This hope drives us to action.

On Tuesday, one of the greatest preachers of our generation, the American Baptist minister and sociologist Tony Campolo, died at the age of 89. I heard him preach a few times when I was in my twenties and his emphasis on true discipleship involving not just belief but also committed action on behalf of the poor influenced many thousands of Christians.

On Wednesday, I watched a video of an old sermon of his from Spring Harvest.

In it, he tells contrasting stories of two students he knew from the university where he taught. One went on a mission trip to a developing country and came back saying, I am going to train as a doctor and then go and serve these people. He did train as a doctor, but instead of keeping his promise he became a cosmetic surgeon. He didn’t practise the kind of cosmetic surgery that helps people who have suffered life-changing accidents: he practised the sort that only the wealthy and vain pay for. Yes, he was a lay leader at his church, and yes, he tithed his income. But in Campolo’s eyes he blew it, because he was seduced by wealth and didn’t serve the poor.

The other student went from Campolo’s university in Philadelphia to Harvard Law School, and qualified to practise law. He was offered a lucrative job with a $500,000 annual salary, but he turned it down. He moved to Alabama to defend prisoners on death row. Many of them were on death row, because they couldn’t afford good lawyers, so he didn’t charge the fees he could have earned elsewhere. For him, it was an outworking of Jesus’ Beatitude, ‘Blessèd are the merciful.’

Which one followed Jesus? Which one anticipated the everlasting dominion of Christ? I think you know.

Apart from the obvious teaching of Jesus, what motivated Tony Campolo to make this emphasis his life’s defining characteristic? He used to tell a story of how people would ask him why he was so relentlessly cheerful in a world so full of pain and injustice. His reply?

‘I believe the Bible, and I’ve peeked at the final chapter. And Jesus wins.’

In other words, his commitment to the poor of the world was driven by his vision of Christ the King. He is reigning now, but currently not everyone acknowledges it. While waiting for the glorious day, Campolo called all who call themselves Christians not to be mere believers: after all, he said, the devil believes all the right doctrines about God. Jesus didn’t say go into all the world and make believers: he said go into all the world and make disciples. And that will involve us doing Jesus-like things, such as caring and advocating for the downtrodden.

You or I may not be a lawyer or a doctor. We may not hold some socially prestigious position. But all of us have opportunities to serve the disadvantaged in some way. We do it, because on the great day when Christ rules as King without any more resistance, there will be no more downtrodden, no more disadvantaged, no more poor, no more suffering of injustice. So we prepare for it now.

Remember: Jesus wins. Let’s get ready for that day.