To Change the World, Love Jesus Again
Words by Blaine Eldredge
Let me tell you a story.
There was a king in Mesopotamia. He inherited a raggedy empire, and though he had endured a long time in obscurity, he re-saddled the horse and armored the chariot and conquered a large part of the world. His name was Nabu-kudurri-usur. Rendered in English, that’s Nebuchadnezzar, second of Chaldean kings and greatest among Babylonians. The name is not a human title—it’s an appeal to the country’s slaughtering god, and in the way of kings at the time, he took many captives home, the young, the learned, the promising. They were tutored in politics and economics and astrology, and also sorcery, and divination, and enchantment. There were a good many magicians in his court, and many strange things came of it.
Among those born to Babylon were three young men from near the Mediterranean Sea: Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. “God is good,” “Who is like God?” and “God saves,” in their own language. But they’ve lost their history so completely they’re known today by their slave names: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. “Servant of the moon god Aku,” “None is like Aku,” and “Slave of Nergal.” It’s hard to imagine a more direct assault on their identity, but it happened, and they became Babylonian officials.
At this point Sunday-schooled Christians see the story coming, but stand by.
Nebuchadnezzar made a statue. He summoned the rulers of his kingdom, down to the minor ranks. It must have been a sight: satraps, magistrates, governors, treasurers, judges and prefects on camels, palanquins, and chariots. With the groan of slaves and the clatter of armor and the chants of magical sects, it must have been like Burning Man or some other festival on the desert plain. Overhead, eagles and ravens thought it was battle. Commands were given though no one could hear them. No matter—the rules were laid out in the summons. “When you hear the music, worship the statue.” The pipes sang out, and like blown grass the crowd went down.
Only, not the three above.
It was conspicuous and Nebuchadnezzar heard about it. He was, the story says, furious with rage—the same phrase used to describe the Pharisees when Jesus healed on the Sabbath—and he called for the men.
So. Here we are in the present tense. Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah are taken to the king.
In other circumstances, it would have been a splendid scene. The sandstone walls engraved with Babylonian legends. The palace steps. The gold, the cloth, the cropped trapezoidal goatee of the king, and back of the throne, the sibilant murmur of sorcerers. Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah approach the dais. Up on his throne: Nebuchadnezzar, leering and biting his thumb.
Now, he knows these guys. Their buddy Daniel helped him out with a dream of his a year ago. He asks, in effect, “What the hell is going on?”
The men answer together: “We can’t do it.”
Nebuchadnezzar snorts and takes a breath. Then he tries another tone. “This can all go away,” he says. He looks at the watching officials; his reputation’s on the line. These guys better cave. Nebuchadnezzar lowers his voice to hiss, “Just say you’re willing to worship the statue, and you can go.”
The men are resistant, not rebellious. They look him in the eye but they don’t bother answering.
“Oh.” Nebuchadnezzar’s eyebrows go up. “Perhaps you think your god will save you?” Down he comes from his throne. His platform sandals clap on the tile. He leans over them. There’s a jangling of gold and a rush of harsh perfume. His voice is an ominous hush. “No god can save you from me.”
Except, that’s not how it goes. Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah are thrown into the city’s sacrificial oven, into fire so hot it kills their executioners, and their God does not quench the flames.
Instead, he appears inside, burning hotter than the fire.
“And the point is not so much that he saves the three men (though that’s certainly a perk). The point is that he will go into the middle of all agony and take the punishment himself and make life out of death and tear down every tyrant.”
This is the Jesus we’re talking about, the most astonishing figure who ever changed the course of history. He is the answer to the human heart. Knowing him, and loving him, is the meaning of life.
We’re living in a stressful time. The people and systems we trusted to save us are being shaken and many of us are wondering what, exactly, we’re supposed to do. How do you fix humanity? How do you change the human heart? How do you change the world? The answer may surprise you. At least, it’s surprised saints throughout the ages. Love Jesus. Fall in love with him again. Let him seed a change in your heart that will indeed transform the world.
But of course you can’t love someone you can’t see, and you can’t love a stranger you can. I had to shake hands and chill with my neighbor before I could learn who he was. I had to meet and date my wife before I could see who she was and fall in love with her.
So what about Jesus? There’s an ancient solution. It’s that peculiar, tissue paper-paged book, the Bible, which exists for a number of reasons, the most important of which is to help you see Jesus, long before he comes in the flesh.
Say what? Before he comes?
Indeed: by the time you get to the stories of Jesus, you’ve been told a lot about him. Most of it’s not facts, most of it’s stories, and most of those—stay with me here—are about other people. Taken together, they unveil the character of Jesus. Meaning: Moses, Joshua, Rahab, Ruth, David, Elijah, etc., all show you one part of Jesus, like tiles in a mosaic, so that when he finally comes, you know what he’s like. They show Jesus in their own actions. And they show Jesus in the way Jesus—being God—responds to them.
Some things you have to see to understand. So off we go: to the deaths of three men with whom Jesus closely identifies. Let’s start with Deuteronomy (chapter 34), and the finale of the Exodus story.
Moses is old though you wouldn’t know it. The narrator makes it clear: “his eye was undimmed, his vigor unabated” (Deut 34:7). He’s like a tough old sailor in an Irish bar, with fading tattoos and a grip like a crab trap. He’s led Israel for more than 40 years, and now, at last, they’re on the border of the Promised Land.
Only, Moses isn’t going in. He’s known that for some time. Back in the desert, he lost his temper—again—and more or less called himself God. That’s a dangerous inclination for the leader of an idolatrous people, and God made it clear: when you get to Canaan, someone else is leading Israel in. Which is about to happen when you get this scene.
It’s evening in the desert, and lovely in the way of dry places. There’s a breath-soft breeze, and a gauzy band of deep red where the sun went down, and Moses strolls out of camp to climb a low hill. It’s called Pisgah, “The Cleft,” which must be an inside joke, because that’s where Moses was when he saw the Glory of God (cough Jesus) walk by all those years ago. The LORD is with him. They walk up Mount Nebo, then down an alpine saddle, and over to Pisgah. There’s a solemn air between them, as of a wedding, or a funeral, or a coronation. When at last they stand on the hilltop together, they turn a slow circle. God is showing him everything: Gilead and Naphtali, Ephraim and Manasseh, and Judah all the way to the sea.
In fact, God shows him more than you can see from dinky Pisgah, which is a mystery in itself, but still, there you are: Moses sees the Promised Land. It’s hard to imagine what that was like. Israel had been away 400 years, and even before that, they hadn’t really lived there. Not even Moses saw Canaan when he fled Egypt in his youth. He went South, to Saudi Arabia, because Canaan was too dangerous. And yet Moses knows this place from his dreams and from the ancient scrolls and from campfire stories the elders pass down. Yonder green band must be the palm trees of Jericho. That dusky valley there must be the Jordan. I guess that’s Galilee, all the way up there. God nods to him and (paraphrasing here) softly says, “Here it is. Everything I promised to give you. I wanted to make sure you saw it.”
But of course he did—Moses worked for this his whole life. He worked for this when he strode up to Pharaoh and made his demand. He worked for this when he saw a river turn to blood. He worked for this when he went up a mountain in the desert, into the very presence of God, and came down so full of the power of God his face shone like the temple itself. He grips hard on his staff and nods and chokes down a sob. It’s his dream, but he’s seeing more than that. He’s seeing the goodness of God, and the way God keeps promises, and picks up dying dreams to shelter them until they heal and come true.
And after that, Moses dies. It’s not totally clear who buries him, but it’s probably God (the alternative is that Moses buries himself, which is, at the very least, improbable), reserving for Himself the honor of raising a cairn over his friend. After all, that’s what Moses was. The scribe makes it clear: “And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel, like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face.”
Notice that significant detail: it’s not so much that Moses knew God. It’s that God knew him. It’s a wonderful reversal of the story people tell themselves because God is the actor. Moses did not search for God. God searched for Moses (Ex 3:4). In fact, this pattern goes all the way back to the beginning. It’s God who seeks out Adam (Gen 3:9). And for Abraham (Gen 12:1). And for Hagar (Gen 16:8). And for Gideon (Judges 6:12). And for Elijah (1 Kings 19:9). And for everyone else, over and over again. I mean my goodness, after the resurrection, Jesus spends a good deal of time tracking down his disciples (John 20:19).
Humanity is not the principal actor in the dance with God. God seeks out humanity in an effort that persists to this day. To put it in simple terms, Jesus is searching for you right now.
And then, these two things from the story of Moses: First, Moses indeed enters Canaan. When Jesus transfigures, and Moses shows up to chat, they’re standing in the Promised Land. Second, Moses is there because the prophet everyone wanted has come. A man the LORD knows face to face. After all, “This is my son” (Matt 3:17). He’s the leader, the priest, the one who can carry the very presence of God to the people because that’s who he is.
Or here’s another one.
The old king David is dying—he can’t get up from his bed (1 Kings 1-2). Forget supple Moses. At night, David shivers so hard his blankets fall off. And the kingdom is not well. Though the crown is going to his youngest son, named Solomon, his oldest living heir’s the cock of the walk. Adonijah—he has servants and chariots and royal apartments. He has command of the army, and the loyalty of David’s fey general Joab.
That’s background, though. In the foreground is a familiar scene: it’s dark. And late at night, David calls for Solomon, who rushes through a palace empty and austere as any hospital to see his dying dad. The room is black, though there’s a candle by the bed, and Solomon sits down. David looks over and smiles. But he doesn’t say anything, and he looks at the ceiling again. Solomon waits, and notices again how thin his dad has become, and wonders at the many thoughts in his face.
In fact, there’s too much in David’s face for David to say. You have to think of Marcus Aurelius, or Alexander Dumas’s Abbé Faria: a feather-bearded sage on the border of eternity, cooking up his last words.
Finally, he locks eyes with Solomon. “I go the way of all flesh,” he says. He shuts his mouth to see what Solomon will say. And though the room is dark, there’s a visible spark in his eyes because David sees the truth, though few men worked harder for a routed dream and no one knew death better. Really: his best friend Jonathan was slain in the wars when Philistines routed the army and Jonathan was trapped on a hill and not one of his company survived. His oldest son was murdered by a brother. His next died in the first years of his life—at least, no record of his life remains. In fact, David lost two sons that way. The next rebelled and was killed. It broke David’s heart because he tried to save that son even while he slandered David’s name.
And here’s the truth: David gained his kingdom by the sword. He fought for it all his life. And now, as he dies, his work is in shambles. No peace has come, no war is ended, no dwelling place of God with man exists. Not one thing he did changed the human heart, and it doesn’t matter because David sees the God who is saving the world. Do you see? David leans over and holds Solomon’s thin wrist. “Be strengthened,” he says. “Become a man.” And then he lowers his voice still more and urges, “Give your allegiance to the LORD. Walk the path he puts in front of you. See him. Love him. Because if you do, we will not lack a king in Israel.”
And David’s right, in the end. Though Solomon fails, and the kingdom splinters after him, there is indeed a king in David’s line because centuries later Jesus comes to the world. That’s the truth David sees: Even when the world we knew is passing away and all our work is in shambles, God will find us in our darkness and turn a dead fire into the beacon that will save the world.
After that, the room goes dark. The candle wanes, and early in the morning David lets go of Solomon’s hand. He’s smiling, though: when there’s enough gray light to see David’s face, there’s a clear dimple in either cheek. And of course he is. He’s finally gotten what he wanted, which was to see God face to face.
Are you seeing him yet?
The loving king who blesses an unexpected heir and imparts to him all the treasures in heaven? The man who walks straight toward his enemy, completely confident in God’s power to save? The king who mixes justice with mercy and loves even those sons who are scorning his name? The one whose bright eye holds the love to heal all things? That is the Jesus we’re talking about.
There’s plenty already.
But let’s end where we started, in Babylon (Daniel 9-12). The man is Daniel, who is—did I mention?—a descendant of King David.
He couldn’t yet grow a beard when Jerusalem fell and Nebuchadnezzar took him away, but he knew the LORD, and he did the dream interpretation thing, and he had a knack for politics. In time he became a ranking official. In fact, when Nebuchadnezzar disappeared (a story for another time), and his son, Belshazzar, took over as regent, Belshazzar offered Daniel the third highest job in the land. Daniel refused. Then—funny how these things go—Daniel got the job anyway. Ten years later, Babylon fell to Cyrus, king of Persia, and all the friends that Daniel made were swept away. Then Cyrus’s son, Darius, made Daniel third in command. It was a sensible choice—Daniel was an old man then, nearing 80. He wasn’t Babylonian, and he knew the region well.
Now, somehow, Daniel had the scroll of the prophet Jeremiah. It was probably contraband and most everything in Jerusalem had been burned, but still, there you are. Perhaps he sent away for it or brought an unknown scribe to dictate his own copy. That’s possible; after all, he was an influential man.
But anyway. In Jeremiah, it says that Israel would stay in captivity some 70 years. Daniel thinks his time is almost up. He can practically see the palms again, and all the old haunts near Jerusalem. There’s no telling if any of his childhood friends are still alive. But they may be. They may be. So he prays and asks God if he’s going home soon. Then, unfortunately, Gabriel comes and says no, it’s not almost over, your people are not ready, there are 400 years to go.
After that, Daniel fasts and mourns all the time. He never was a party guy (he’s not in the room during Belshazzar’s famous feast, and he’s conspicuously absent during Nebuchadnezzar’s statue festival), but now, his lifetime hope is gone. Three years go by. There’s a lot of work to do, and it’s safe to assume Daniel is busy. There are too-bold Egyptians. There are rowdy Babylonians who can’t take a point. There’s a war with the Greeks in the north. In fact, there are rumors a battle’s coming at a place called Thermopylae, but who knows. The Greeks are always threatening to occupy the ocean there.
Then, one night, Daniel has a vision. He’s down by the Tigris—as he so often is—when a heavenly being appears. This guy’s much stranger and brighter than the angels mentioned before. It’s like a person (ish), only radiant and terrifying and hard to describe. Daniel can’t move, so the creature comes over and says, “Be strengthened.” He puts a hand on Daniel’s arm, and Daniel gets up.
When Daniel gets his breath again, he asks, “What’s up?”
“This story will end,” the creature says. Daniel cocks his head and the creature nods to confirm its meaning.
This. Story. The fall of man, the separation from God, the spiritual war, God’s pursuit of humanity. Daniel’s eyes go wide. “But,” the creature adds, “it gets worse before it gets better.”
Now remember—Daniel has already seen two violent wars, and two established nations fall. He’s probably seen the death of his three best friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. At least, there’s no record of them surviving the Persian invasion. “Worse?” he asks.
The creature nods. “People exalt themselves,” it says, and Daniel agrees. “They’ll do anything for power and anything with it.” Daniel nods again. He knows that well enough.
But then the creature blows his mind. “At the end,” it says, “those that sleep in the dust will awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame. And those who are wise will shine like gods forever.”
Daniel gapes—this is new. Resurrection and everlasting life? That’s something to know about.
And then Daniel tilts his head. The creature can tell what he’s going to ask, but Daniel asks anyway: “What will the outcome be?”
The creature hesitates.
Because of course Daniel wants to go home. He wants to see Jerusalem again. He wants to see the fields where he grew up, if he can find them. To dip his feet in the Jordan while the frogs come out and watch doleful tortoises come down to drink. He wants to hear Hebrew spoken again, and to hear his old name called, just once, “Daniel!”
But he doesn’t get to. The last words of the book go like this: The creature replied, “As for you, go your way until the end. You will rest in the earth. At the end of the days, you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance.”
Daniel doesn’t get to go home. No, what Daniel gets is better. He doesn’t get Hebrew, he doesn’t get ruined Jerusalem; he gets the restoration of all things. He gets to see all his vanished friends again. He gets the Jerusalem of his youth, with water in the fountains and laughter ringing on the ancient stones.
And there’s so much more to say about Daniel. He endures a little Gethsemane. He’s a prophet who doesn’t want his role, but accepts it anyway, and suffers faithfully for his resurrection into glory. He loves and serves and then dies among his enemies. He’s a prophet who has, as Belshazzar’s wife puts it, the spirit of God in him. And he’s a man who carries the longing for redemption in the center of his chest. Jesus, too, weeps for Jerusalem. Jesus can’t wait to see the world restored. As Daniel goes to Babylon, so Jesus enters the world.
Except. Jesus ratchets all this up a notch. He is the future. He is the restoration of all things coming back in power to bring judgment on every terrible empire. He is the firstborn from among the dead, so that while Daniel is promised life in the world to come, Jesus rises in this one to make good on that claim.
This is the man we are talking about, visible in a thousand ways.
In the synoptic gospels, Satan takes Jesus to a high place. It’s the end of Deuteronomy, only with the roles reversed, and Satan shows Jesus the kingdoms of the world and says, “You can have all this if you’ll honor me.” Jesus responds with all the fire of scrappy Moses, only more so: “You shall not put the LORD your God to the test.” It means Jesus is faithful, yes, and it also works another way, as in, Jesus says: “I am the LORD. Stop testing me.”
Or look at John 6. Jesus has done some impressive stuff and, as with Daniel, folks want to give him all the power they can (6:15). Jesus refuses and slips away. And then, in what is literally the next scene, Jesus walks on water, which is both, A, hard to walk on, and, B, the mythical chaos element in the Bible. In other words, Jesus refuses power and then shows that he holds all of it anyway.
Or look at Jesus before the high priest of the Sanhedrin, right before his execution. They’ve got him on trial and nonetheless Jesus stands tall with the shocking resolve of David in his eye and the stature of the king. His bearing is so clear they can’t help but ask him, “Are you the anointed one?”
Jesus responds, “That’s what you call me—king in Israel. But you’re about to see me take the throne above all things.” And they do see him do it. They see him reign in power by dying for his enemies, descend into hell to personally confront the captain of demonic evil, and rise again to impart life and power to the world.
Jesus is the one who is seeking you even now. He’s swiftly at work in the world, at his original business: the overthrow of evil, the healing of the heart, and the restoration of all things. And you are the center of this action. I mean it. The God who entered the fire, who rubbed shoulders with Moses, who kept his promise to David, who is coming soon, again, has done all this for you, for the restoration of your heart, and so that you could see him again. Nothing remains for you but to see him, and love him, and give him your wholehearted allegiance.
And what about the world? Its redemption is well underway, and when you make loving Jesus your principle project, you can hear his voice, and contend with evil, and ask for the transformation of your heart until real restoration overflows it like water from a well-fed pool. You will find your place in the line. After all, Abraham, Moses, and Rahab, Ruth, David, and Peter, Joan of Arc, Athanasius and Teresa de Avila, George MacDonald, Sojourner Truth, and Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Dallas Willard, and the unknown heroes in your hometown are already ahead of you. With Jesus, you will find your place among them.
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