DANIEL 5:1-9 NOT FATE, BUT GOD

Written by , Rector of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia
 

¹ King Belshazzar gave a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles and drank wine with them. ² While Belshazzar was drinking his wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. ³ So they brought in the gold goblets that had been taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them. ⁴ As they drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone.
⁵ Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote. ⁶ His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way.
⁷ The king called out for the enchanters, astrologers and diviners to be brought and said to these wise men of Babylon, “Whoever reads this writing and tells me what it means will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain placed around his neck, and he will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom.”
⁸ Then all the king’s wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or tell the king what it meant. ⁹ So King Belshazzar became even more terrified and his face grew more pale. His nobles were baffled.

A private revelation, even in the form of a warning, allows for the possibility of amendment of life. So whether it is the Prophet Nathan personally confronting King David concerning Bathsheba or the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar, the goal was reformation. But for Belshazzar the handwriting on the wall was ominous even before its message was deciphered because it was physical and public. Add to this that the hand appeared just as the king had desecrated the sacred vessels of one God by using them to toast other gods. It could not be good news for the inhabitant of the palace and it could not be undone.

When we speak of the hand of fate and the handwriting being on the wall in certain contemporary situations, we miss the central point of this story. We are not subject to the wheel of fortune or something known as the impersonal and objective fates, we exist in the presence of a personal and almighty God. We certainly cannot fathom all his actions, but we have ample evidence of his nature and involvement in the world. Things we do in this world are seen by God. He is not asleep, otherwise occupied or too good to be in contact with his creation. God has revealed himself as the God who acts and the God who acts is the God who is present. Furthermore, God cares so much about us that he will not remain idle while we wreck spiritual ruin on one another.

King Belshazzar obviously knew he was in trouble. I wonder in our sophisticated and rational culture how many of us would even recognize our peril.

Lord, you have revealed yourself as the God who is present and active in the world. Make me truly present to you and the world in all that I think and all that I do. Open my eyes to see your hand at work and strengthen my hand to join in the work you have given your servants to perform. Amen.

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