Advent: Week 2 Day 3

Daniel's Vision



Thrones were set up and the Ancient of Days took His place. ... Then I saw One like a Son of Man, coming on the clouds... He came to the Ancient of Days, and was given authority...

Note: as was explained, late Easter afternoon on the road to Emmaus, beginning with Moses and the prophets... so we are trying to use that same plan, which happens to also be the format of the Bible.

So far, we've seen Moses and the great events of the Pentateuch (though one is deferred, as will be explained in its proper place), and we've met David, at the beginning of the Kingdom of Israel.

Now we look at the various prophets and see as they predicted details about the coming Messiah. Sometimes these were phrased in what might appear to be sheer fantasy, but each added a particular detail. Here, Daniel sees something which may be still in the future, (so similar to St. John's Apocalypse = "Revelation" are some aspects!) and yet links it together with our Lord's own designation for Himself: the "Son of Man". On this term, GKC has a very moving passage:

We often hear of Jesus of Nazareth as a wandering teacher; and there is a vital truth in that view in so far as it emphasises an attitude towards luxury and convention which most respectable people would still regard as that of a vagabond. It is expressed in his own great saying about the holes of the foxes and the nests of the birds, and, like many of his great sayings, it is felt as less powerful than it is, through lack of appreciation of that great paradox by which he spoke of his own humanity as in some way collectively and representatively human; calling himself simply the Son of Man; that is, in effect, calling himself simply Man. It is fitting that the New Man or the Second Adam should repeat in so ringing a voice and with so arresting a gesture the great fact which came first in the original story: that man differs from the brutes by everything, even by deficiency; that he is in a sense less normal and even less native; a stranger upon the earth. It is well to speak of his wanderings in this sense and in the sense that he shared the drifting life of the most homeless and hopeless of the poor. [GKC, The Everlasting Man CW2:337]

And speaking of interesting things, did you ever notice that the prophecy says "thrones"??? Ever wonder about that? Who else are they for? James and John wondered about sitting on the right and the left in the kingdom (and they were reserved, as Jesus told them!) but He also promised that the Twelve (who had left everything to follow Him) would "sit on thrones and judge the Tribes of Israel". Daniel, then, saw the stage managers at work, preparing for that coming Day...

Are we getting ready?