Sermon: Daniel 12, “Not Our Clumsy Efforts”, November 16, 2025

Scripture: Daniel 12

Preacher: Rev. Ryan Slifka

 “Not Our Clumsy Efforts”

Well here we are today. At the end of our weekly series on the Old Testament’s book of Daniel. It’s been a wild ride so far. A bit confusing at times, a slog at others, even. But here we are, the final chapter, chapter 12.

Here in final chapter we’ve hit the climax. We’ve arrived. Where have we arrived? Resurrection.

This is the tail end of the vision granted to Daniel in chapter 10. The vision says that there’ll be a time of anguish, where Michael the angel of God’s people Israel who we heard about last week will arise. But the people of God who have been oppressed by empire after empire will be delivered. Oppression will continue for a time, the wicked will act wickedly for a time, but in the end God’s people will not only be delivered from their oppressors. But some of the people who didn’t make it, some who “sleep in the dust of the earth” will be raised from the dead. To everlasting life, and shine brightly as the stars of the sky, while some it says to “shame” and “everlasting contempt.” “Go your way and rest,” says the angel that is presumably Gabriel who we’ve seen several times before. “Go your way and rest; you shall rise for your reward at the end of days.” The book of Daniel climaxes here. With resurrection.

Now, for Christians this whole resurrection thing is a no brainer. Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is the climax of all four New Testament biographies of Jesus. And there are numerous allusions in the gospels, letters of Paul, and the book of Revelation to a resurrection at the end of time. But Daniel, chapter twelve, is the only clear and explicit affirmation of it in the whole of the Old Testament. No getting around it, no playing it down, there will be a resurrection. Resurrection is at the heart of the message of the book of Daniel.

Of course, Christians generally think of resurrection at the end of time in one of two ways: One being the afterlife. That there is hope for the future beyond death. The other is in terms of moral judgment. As in reward for lives well lived, punishment for lives not so well lived. Afterlife, and moral judgment.

These themes are there in Daniel, of course. But there’s an aspect of resurrection that Daniel emphasizes that we sometimes miss. And that aspect is justice. Justice and the correction of injustice.

You’ll remember that the book of Daniel takes place in exile in the land of Babylon, and later Persia. Part of Daniel, of course is wondering and hoping for the end of this exile and a restoration of the kingdom of Judah, of God’s people. Same thing with other books of the Bible like Isaiah and Jeremiah. That the invaders would finally be repulsed, and that the kingdom would return to glory. A hope that was finally realized in 167BCE with the Maccabean revolt that re-established the independent Jewish state. At least for a time.

But there’s a question left hanging in the air. The Babylonian empire had invaded, razed the Jerusalem temple to the ground, killed countless civilians and hauled many away from home to the heartland of the empire, and continued to commit countless atrocities along the way. Same thing with the next couple empires that took over, too, Persia and Greece. A return from exile and restoration of the kingdom is great, of course, for the people alive to see it. But what about the ones who didn’t live long enough to see it? The ones who were murdered? The ones who were tortured? The ones who lost their children? The ones who stood up for the Lord, but were crushed under the boot?

You could of course say that they died in service of the cause, for the freedom of future generations. But that does nothing to change the loss, the indignity, the injustice that was inflicted on so many. Plus, the kingdom was only around for about a century before it fell to the Romans.

 I attended this year’s Remembrance Day service. Which was solemn and meaningful, but the language was exclusively about how people sacrificed themselves for Canada. I understand why the military has decided to have completely prayer-free and faith-free secular services, but I had similar thoughts. No appeal to transcendent meaning or purpose. There was nothing to say about the injustice, the loss. Not to mention atrocities like Auschwitz, or tragedies like Hiroshima. Cold comfort for those who would never again see the light of day. Or their children again.

Or expand it… the child taken too soon by cancer? What about the beloved child of God who was, by their dealer, poisoned with fentanyl? Or the baby who never has a chance to take more than one of two breaths?

As noble as our sacrifices may be, they can not fix our losses, repair our heartaches, or reverse life’s injustices.

It’s questions like these that are hanging over the air for Daniel and his compatriots. And resurrection is an answer.

Though human wickedness would continue, Daniel’s sacrifices, and those who made the ultimate sacrifice would, in the end, be vindicated. In the end their faithfulness would matter, no matter how fruitless it would have seemed at the time. Because their losses would be restored, and injustices ultimately reversed, and those who had done the deed, or failed to stand up when it mattered would finally be held to account. They could persevere through evil without giving up or giving in. They could “go their way and rest,” in the words of the angel. Because they would rise at the end of days. Assured of their reward.

According to Daniel, Resurrection is a matter of justice. The justice that was not done in this life, would be ensured in the end. By the power of the living God.

Now, I know what you might be saying to yourself at this point—it’s beautiful, inspiring, a wonderful idea. But it’s only a vision given to a bronze age Jew a few millennia ago, written down in an old book. It’s a lovely thought, but a vision is probably all it is. Which, fair enough. Why believe this vision, and not something else? As wonderful as it might be.

Like so much in scripture there’s no airtight argument. But when it comes to resurrection and the kind of justice Daniel’s vision is getting at we’ve been given what the great theologian Rowan Williams calls a “token of trust.”[i] We’ve been given something to help us believe, help us to trust, help us to bet our lives on.

And that “token of trust” is the resurrection of Jesus.

Of course, the New Testament, like Daniel talks a lot about a future resurrection. Jesus, does, too. He himself quotes Daniel in Matthew 13, that at the resurrection “the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”[ii] The difference, though, is that unlike Daniel Jesus doesn’t just predict a resurrection. Jesus himself is resurrected. Good Friday on a cross he’s struck down, Saturday in the tomb he lay, and Sunday he is raised.

Now, one of my kids once asked me if this means Jesus is a zombie. After all, in all the movies they are dead people who come alive again. But this is a misunderstanding of what the resurrection is. It’s not a miracle like other miracles. It’s not merely the resuscitation of a lifeless body. It’s something real, but something far grander and more mysterious.

The late German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg put it like this: “In the resurrection of Jesus the end of history has already taken place proleptically.”[iii]

Of course, all of us being English literature majors or experts on ancient Greek tragedy all of us here know exactly what “proleptically” means. It basically means an event in the story where the end of the story is revealed. The analogy I like is that of a movie trailer. The full movie hasn’t been released, but we’re given a snippet, a preview of the movie to come.

That’s what Jesus’ resurrection is. “Christ has been raised from the dead,” says the Apostle Paul, “the first fruits of those who have died.”[iv] The first fruits being the beginning of the future harvest. And from First Thessalonians: “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.”[v]

Jesus’ resurrection isn’t just another miraculous event, but a prolepsis, the first fruits, the short trailer for the final film release, our resurrection. Unlike Daniel, though, who was only given a vision, we’ve been given a person as down-payment on the full amount. So we don’t have to live like others who have no hope but we can live in the trust that on account of his resurrection, our own resurrection is also assured. Jesus is God’s promise to you and to me that this is not the end.

And here’s where we return to the point I was making before. Because if the resurrection Daniel pointed to is assured on account of Jesus, then the undoing of injustice, Daniel points to is just as assured, too.

And what does that mean? What does that look like?

Debie Thomas is an Indian-American writer and ministry student who describes herself as both “evangelical, and feminist.” Not something you hear every day! While she very much identifies as a political progressive, a couple of years ago, she wrote a piece for the Christian Century magazine responding to criticism from some fellow progressives. Their argument was that an afterlife, heaven, resurrection, detracts from addressing issues here and now. Because if you get all the good stuff one day why change anything now?

Her argument, though, echoes Daniel’s vision. That the resurrection, God’s future, is for all the heartaches, all the injustices, we can’t undo. “I need to know,” she says.

“I need to know that a better world is not just possible, but assured. Assured not only for those of us privileged enough to enjoy a fairly comfortable life here on earth, despite its many challenges, but also for those who, despite their fondest hopes and most earnest efforts, will not experience the salvific love, vindication, healing, and justice of God in this life…The young people who live under the shadow of mental illnesses that modern medicine can’t yet alleviate. Civilian casualties of war. People in chronic pain. People who, for whatever reason, experience life on this earth as burdensome, lonely, terrifying, or hopeless.

For all of these people, I need to know that love, hope, and justice are secured by the Christ who died for them, too. That while we have every obligation to alleviate suffering in this world, the salvation of God’s precious children does not finally depend upon our clumsy efforts. That the pain of human life matters infinitely to God—so much so that God’s working out of healing, equity, reconciliation, and justice will not end when a human being draws her final breath on this planet. That somehow, somewhere, someday, God will wipe every tear from every eye.”[vi]

That last line, of course, lifted from the Book of Revelation, which is Daniel’s vision on steroids.[vii] That in the end, God will wipe every tear from every eye. And will make all things new. That is the gift God has given us in Daniel’s vision. And it’s the hope we been given concretely in Jesus Christ.

That all the hurt and the death and the sadness and the loss. That all the suffering, the sickness, the pain and brutality will not only be no more but totally healed. Take a moment and just think about your deepest wound, your greatest lost, deepest failure, your most profound heartache.

In the words of the great Sam Gamgee from the Lord of the Rings that “everything sad is becoming untrue.” Even that. That that the injustice you and I can’t undo will one day be undone forever and for good. By the grace of God.

What a way to end a book of the Bible! What a way to end a sermon series! But it ends here because this is how it all ends. Not with our “clumsy efforts,” but the life-giving promise of a gracious God.

So “go your way,” dear friends, “and rest; you shall rise for your reward at the end of the days.”

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

[i] Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Louisville: Westminster John Knox), 2007.

[ii] Matthew 13:43.

[iii] Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus, God and Man, 2nd ed. (Lousville: Westminster John Knox, 1977), 66.

[iv] 1 Corinthians 15:20.

[v] 1 Thessalonians 4:14.

[vi] Debie Thomas, “A Theology of Heaven for Our Time,” in The Christian Century, August 10, 2022. https://www.christiancentury.org/article/faith-matters/theology-heaven-our-time

[vii] Revelation 21:4