Sermon: “Hope for the Helpless” Daniel 2:26-45, September 14, 2025

Title: “Hope for the Helpless”

Scripture: Daniel 2:26-45

Preacher: Rev. Ryan Slifka

Today we’re continuing with our sermon series “Faith in Exile” on the book of Daniel, one of the prophets of the Old Testament.

Last week, we heard all about how Babylon—the world’s largest superpower—invaded and conquered the kingdom of Judah. And when they did, they hauled the intellectual elite—all of the best and brightest among God’s people—back to Babylon. This is what is known in the bible as the Babylonian Exile. Daniel was one of them, but Daniel resisted assimilation.

Last week we talked about the danger of assimilation when you’re in exile. This week, we’re going to keep on exile, but we’re going to shift the theme. The theme this week is helplessness. How exile brings with it a sense of great helplessness. Helplessness.

Think about it. Daniel and his friends were torn from their families, their land, their culture, their faith. At the mercy of their captors, they were virtual slaves. Babylon’s power rivaled the Nazis—unmatched and merciless. Resistance was impossible.

But the worst part was spiritual. Babylon’s victory was seen as proof that their gods were stronger than Israel’s. To be a Jew in Babylon meant political, military, and even spiritual helplessness. Imagine the fear, the demoralization. There’s nothing you can do at all to change any thing. It reminds you of the inscription above the gateway to hell in Dante’s Inferno: “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here.” With exile comes helplessness.

Last week I said that the church in the west has entered a kind of exile. Not a literal exile, but a cultural exile. Once upon a time our culture was nominally Christian, but now it’s not. We feel helpless against the cultural tide.

But, you know, this isn’t unique to the church, though. There’s a real vibe of helplessness spread all over our culture.

A friend of mine once told me she never looks forward to turning on CBC or checking social media in the morning for fear of “what fresh hell awaits.” I mean, the truth is that we do live in one of the best times to be alive in human history. But we’re also bombarded with crisis after crisis. Rising oceans, forest fires. Real estate insanity, zero rental vacancy. There are so many problems, so many things to do. Politics, technology, everything can seem like it’s just out of control.

Many of us own homes, have good paying jobs, financial security. We may feel some control over our own lives and families, but beyond our four walls? Wars on the other side of the world. Political assassinations, rising crime. Countless men young men slumped over grocery carts. Living on the street.

And those are just the problems we have out there. It has nothing to say of our own problems from addiction to fear, to loneliness, purposelessness, bad parenting and marital failure. Things we just can’t seem to overcome in our personal lives. Never before have we had more power on paper, never before have we had so many techniques to try and money to throw around, but to little seeming effect.

Like, by no means, are we at Babylonian exile levels, but we know at least something of this kind of helplessness. This kind of powerlessness that leads to hopelessness. I’m reminded of Neil Young’s song “Helpless”: it can feel like “The chains are locked and tied across the door.”[i]

As helpless as life can be in exile, the book of Daniel is a response to this feeling, this reality. One written to encourage exiles, to give hope to the powerless.

The camera focusses in on the palace bedroom of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. If anyone isn’t helpless it’s this guy. But he’s been tossing all night long.

He has this dream about a statue. It’s a bit of a mish-mash: the head’s made out of gold and its chest and arms are silver. Middle and thighs are bronze, and its legs are iron. All metal, except for the feet, which are a little iron, but mostly clay. Suddenly, a stone is sliced out of the mountainside “not by human hands.” There’s no burly guy with a saw or pickaxe. But it just flies right into the clay feet of the statue, smashing them into dust. The rest of the statue collapses in on itself like a condemned building slated for demolition, and the rubble blows away in the wind. Then, suddenly the very mountain that the flying rock was cut out of swells in size. Growing and growing and growing. Until it fills the entire earth.

It’s rather distressing. So the king calls in his royal magicians for help. Now, unfortunately none of these magicians can say what the dream was, let alone what it means. So Daniel’s back in the mix.

You’ll remember from last week that Daniel’s been given the gifts of wisdom and insight directly from the Spirit of the Lord, along with the ability to interpret dreams. So Daniel prays for insight, and he gets it. He knows the content and interpretation of the dream. So he offers his services to Nebuchazzar. Free of charge.

And you know what? He’s the bearer of bad news. “The gold in the statue,” says Daniel. “That’s you. The silver chest and arms are the next empire that’s gonna take you down. Then the bronze is the one that’ll take them down. Then the iron is the one that’ll take them down. And finally, the feet of iron mixed with clay. That’s yet another kingdom that’ll be divided, some strong, some brittle. But when that kingdom comes along, God himself, the rock not made of human hands, is gonna crush it all permanently. And his kingdom–the mountain–will fill the earth–pushing out all the rest for good.

And you know, in the history of the church most interpreters say it ends up coming true: Babylon (gold) was overthrown by Persia (silver). Persia overthrown by Greece (bronze). And then Greece overthrown by the Romans (who are often thought to be iron). With the clay feet being another kingdom. One yet to come. The text doesn’t say for certain. But it could be.

Regardless of how things might match or not match historically, though, the meaning of the dream is clear. It’s significant because it prophesies Nebuchadnezzar’s downfall, and the downfall of every other empire after it. Not just because it’s the natural cycle of life. But on account of divine intervention.

Daniel, God’s people, those who are the most powerless in the face of Babylonian might. They need not feel discouraged, not hopeless, nor helpless. Because this statue made of steel has clay feet, vulnerable to divine assault, one not made by human hand. Even the most powerful person in the world, the most mighty empire in the world is helpless, powerless, in the face of the power of the living God.

Of course, this message is very good news not only for Daniel’s people in exile, but also for all people living under oppressive powers in any era. The great social critic George Orwell once said that the future was a boot stamping a human face forever–clearly he needed to read Daniel! Martin Luther King Jr. was closer when he said “the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Oppressed Jews and Christians have turned to Daniel throughout history for this reason. It’s good news because it means that no matter how powerful, entrenched, immovable any human power may be, they all have feet of clay. Babylon is just exhibit A.

But it’s also more than that.

Christians believe that this scripture points ahead to the New Testament. That the promise embedded in this scripture has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The image of Jesus as a “rock” is all over the New Testament. But the clearest reference is in Luke 20:9, where Jesus, using the language of the 118th Psalm refers to himself as “the stone the builders rejected.” The rejection being the cross. And invokes the image of the stone that crushes the statue’s feet: “Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces,” he says, “but he on whom it falls will be crushed.”

But there’s a difference with Jesus. He’s not talking about this or that empire. After all, after his resurrection he doesn’t return to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, and say “payback time.” First John chapter three says it like this: “The Son of God came for this: to destroy the devil's work.”

Now, this is a United Church. This sort of talk can make us nervous—often for good reason. Some Christians can—in the words of the great C.S. Lewis—“feel an unhealthy and excessive interest in them.”[ii] Some of us—Christian or non Christian—come to identify our enemies or opponents on earth with evil itself, which is one of our greatest problems today. And it’s the doorway to atrocity. And yet, the Christian conviction is that there is more to our world, our lives, and our hearts, than we can see.

The human problem isn’t just this or that empire, this or that person in charge. That if we stoned them all to death all will be well—no. There is a spiritual root to all that ails us. A spiritual root to all our addictions, to our greed, to our carelessness, to our violence, to everything that profanes God’s good creation. The New Testament has many names. The Enemy. The power of Sin—capital S, and its counterpart, Death—capital D. Like Daniel in Babylon, all human beings are exiles. Not from the kingdom of Judah, but the peaceable kingdom God intends for all creation. And our oppressor isn’t just the Nebachuzzars of this world.

“Our struggle,” says the Apostle Paul, “our struggle is not against blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”[iii] And, like Israel in Babylon, we are helpless against them.

So that helplessness you and I feel? Bad news it’s not only real, it’s a deeper,

But there is good news! As helpless as we may be, like Israel in Babylon, our help cometh from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. We helpless people have been given the ultimate help in Jesus Christ. Jesus, who is the rock not hewed with human hands, but the only begotten Son of the Father. Jesus, who did not merely crush the world’s empires, but who—in his death on the cross broke the back of evil entirely. Jesus, who in his resurrection from the dead has detonated death itself, rolling the stone of the tomb of this world away, leaving our future open-wide. Which will, one day give way to the everlasting kingdom of our God. The great mountain of the Lord. That will one day fill every inch of creation.

What does that mean?

It means this:

Whether it’s our helplessness in the face of our own struggles. Your inability to do right, be good. Your faults, failures and screwup. Or our powerlessness in the face of a world out of control, your inability to make a dent in this or that injustice.

 Or the simple inevitability of suffering and death. As helpless as you and I may be, Daniel teaches us that our helplessness need not be hopelessness.

Like Daniel, we can stand tall in the shadow of every seemingly invincible evil, even the evil that infects our own hearts. Because the rock of salvation beats the paper tiger of our sin any day.  Like Daniel, we can be fearless in the face of even the bleakest future. Because on account of the gospel we know that the Creator of the universe is not only with us, but is for us. Like Daniel, we can bear witness to a beauty and a grace in a world that can be so ugly and unforgiving. Because we know that on Christ we’re standing on eternally solid ground.

“No storm can shake my inmost calm, while to that Rock I'm clinging:
since Love commands both heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?”[iv]

So when you feel helpless, friends, whenever you feel powerless—don’t abandon hope. Instead, look to the rock of our salvation, and remember: the future doesn’t belong to Babylon, but it belongs to God. And, in Christ, it belongs to us, too.

And for that, thank God.

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

[i] Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, “Helpless,” written by Neil Young, on Déjà vu. (Atlantic Records, 1970).

[ii] C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters: Letters from a Senior to a Junior Devil (London: Harpercollins, 2012), ix.

[iii] Ephesians 6:12.

[iv] Robert S. Lowry, alt. “My Life Flows On,” Voices United, #716.