I look at the title of this week’s sermon, about a few individuals who lived twenty-five hundred years ago, and wonder why it feels so like I am the one living in a strange land? COVID-19 has made our way of life, and the prospects of any kind of life in the near future, unrecognizable. For Daniel and his friends, the feelings of alienation stemmed from real physical alienation: they were ripped from the comfort of their homes and taken to a culture that was antithetical to the God of their people. How can they thrive in this?

Well, it looks like they can! Maybe even rise to heights never dreamed of in Israel. Their upbringing in Israel, good looks, and brains have paid dividends in this new land. They are offered a royal education and positions in government. This is a whole lot better than most of the exiles from Israel are offered. But, as we will see, this will not be the source of their thriving in this strange land. It will come not at the expense of their faith in God but through their trust in him, as they navigate the troubled waters of being in Babylon, without Babylon being in them!

So as we come to worship this week, both in our own sanctuary, where the stones speak, or in our many scattered homes, where the greatest mysteries of the gospel play out. I don’t know that we could have picked a better book of the Bible to seek and meet the living God face to face. Can we thrive in a strange land? It seems that being in a strange place (crisis) tends to reveal the heart and, if that is true, most in our fair land are not thriving.

And yet somehow Daniel and his three friends, in an environment totally hostile to the gospel, manage to not only thrive but become a blessing to the culture. I have lamented much this week the brokenness of the world, first my own and also the alienation that grows among our citizens. The toll of living in a strange land, or in strange times, is devastating and is written in the opioid overdoses, the open hostility on social media, and the ramping up of racism, anger, and abuse. May we listen to the God who, as we will see in our text, is quietly ruling and reigning. For his own glory, he planted four of his adopted children in this strange land to bring blessing.

Blessings,

Jim