I love history. All types. From geo-political to familial to sports. I enjoy looking back on the past to give some perspective to the present and insight into the future. No I am not a history nerd where I spend a lot of time studying all aspects and details of past events. And I had no desire to be a history teacher. I just get hooked when I come across historical pieces.
I recall when I was in grammar school (Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Jersey City, NJ) we had a small library but it had a great collection of easy reading biographical books on figures in American History. Betsy Ross, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, etc. I whipped through the collection within a very short period.
One of the things of note when you look at historical world powers is you get a sense of the place in history each of the large empires the world has occupied. When you are living inside the borders of these ruling kingdoms I am sure there is a sense that you are living within a system that always was and always will be. Either from the standpoint that this is a good thing, if you are in the ruling class, or that this is a very bad thing if you are at the bottom of the ladder of the social classes. But the reality is that these seemingly endless power monopolies are not timeless. All had a beginning and an end in history.
I am sure that all living under the rule of the Ottoman Empire felt there would be no end to a regime that lasted almost 5 centuries. And the British Empire encompassed almost 1/4 of the world’s area and population. Genghis Khan was one of the leaders of the Mongolian Empire that lasted for over 200 years. And there are many other examples of dominant societies that ruled large swaths of land and populations throughout the millennia after Christ as well as the times before Jesus’ ministry. And these are what today’s first reading from Daniel concentrates on.
The book of Daniel focuses on Daniel as the hero of the story. The book was written during the time of the Greek domination which affected Judea during the first and second centuries B.C. Daniel lived during the time of the Babylon exile. During the earlier chapters we see Daniel and his friends as displaying virtue in remaining true to the laws of the Jewish people in spite of the threat of the Babylonian conquerors and their kings. But in Chapter 7 we are introduced to Daniel’s visions that have haunted him. He cannot understand the meaning of the dreams. Until a heavenly being explains the dreams to him.
In his visions he sees four beasts with each one being more hideous and powerful than the last. Scholars mostly have determined that the four beasts represent the kingdoms of Babylon, Median (the kingdom first associated with Cyrus I), Persia (Cyrus II) and Greece (first ruled by Alexander the Great then by a series of regional kings, most notably the Seleucids and the Ptolemies).
In each case these “indestructible” kingdoms were supplanted by the next…and the next…and the next. Now I understand that when you are living under the rule of an oppressive government, this long range view of the historical fall of ancient monarchies does not give one much comfort. But as I wrote about in the past, and we saw in earlier sections of Daniel, we can exist under tyranny and still remain true to our faith. We saw this as well in the stories of Judah and his brothers in Maccabees. But in the context of today’s reading, when taking the long view of history, we see that all of man’s constructed systems eventually come crashing down and become long forgotten.
Then we look at the last lines of today’s reading from Daniel:
“But when the court is convened,
and his power is taken away
by final and absolute destruction,
Then the kingship and dominion and majesty
of all the kingdoms under the heavens
shall be given to the holy people of the Most High,
Whose Kingdom shall be everlasting:
all dominions shall serve and obey him.”
We see the final outcome. The coming of the true kingdom…the everlasting kingdom. The Kingdom of the Most High ushered in by the Son of Man. Jesus Christ. And when will that Kingdom be here? How long do we have to wait? I think there are at least two answers to that question. The first is that we never know when we will be called. As Luke says in today’s Gospel:
“Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy
from carousing and drunkenness
and the anxieties of daily life,
and that day catch you by surprise like a trap.”
The second answer to the question of when will the Kingdom of God arrive, is that God’s Kingdom is already here. “…Thy Kingdom come, they will be done on earth as it is in heaven” Sound familiar. God’s Kingdom is already here and we know that and experience that through the Spirit that God sends to us. We see it in our relationships, in love for our friends, family and strangers. When we visit someone who is ill. When we forgive or are forgiven. When we help anyone in need. These things can happen even under the rule of a tyrant. This IS God’s Kingdom here on earth. It was here when Nebuchadnezzar ruled, when Cyrus ruled, when Antiochus ruled, Caesar, the saintly and benevolent kings of Europe and with every administration from Washington to Biden. So we need not forget that we spend our lives shaping ourselves to match the life of Jesus Christ as closely as possible so that when we face Him, finally, He will have very little difficulty recognizing us.
