My God sent his angel. . . . I was found innocent in his sight. (Dan. 6:22)
Expanded Passage: Daniel 6:10-23
Which nursery rhymes do you recall? These simple, silly childhood poems stick with us for a lifetime. We can even recycle them to memorize new things. For instance, we can rework the lines of “Humpty Dumpty” to summarize Daniel 6:
Daniel in Babylon stuck out as odd.
Daniel in Babylon prayed just to God.
All the king’s lions and all the king’s men
Couldn’t keep faithful Daniel down in the end.
Rhymes teach us to recognize similar patterns. That’s why the old saying goes that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. In Daniel’s case, this saying is true. His story “rhymes” with Jesus’ story five hundred years later (Matt. 26–28). Like Daniel, Jesus was unjustly condemned to die by a conspiracy of spiteful officials. Like Darius, Pilate tried but failed to free the innocent man. A sealed stone covered the mouth of both Daniel’s den of lions and Jesus’ tomb. At daybreak, both Darius and Mary Magdalene came back and found that an angel had gotten there first. God had made miraculously sure that his blameless one was alive!
Christians are those whose lives “rhyme” with Jesus’ story: through faith in Christ, we daily die with him to our old, sinful self and rise with him to a new life that pleases God (Romans 6). Does your life rhyme well or badly with Christ’s?
Offer yourself to Christ today for a life that rhymes with his.
Jerome Van Kuiken is a missionary kid, a Wesleyan minister, and professor of Christian thought at Oklahoma Wesleyan University.
© 2023 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
