Daniel's Prayer

Daniel’s prayer is beautiful and rich with meaning. He understands the old covenant (agreement) His ancestors had made with God – that if they were devoted to God, He would protect them, but if they turned from God, God would bring calamity. Daniel repents of sin, and pleads with God to forgive His people, so that they can return from exile. He, like Jeremiah, also points ahead, with hope, to the coming of a covenant that does not depend on human effort. As you read, reflect on how Daniel’s prayer can teach you about deep repentance, and also how it demonstrates the importance of Jesus’ work to bring about the new covenant.

STUDY THE SCRIPTURE

 

Click here to access the reading from Daniel 9:1-19

 

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REFLECTION

 

Confession and Hope When Hope’s Deferred

by Dan Kidd

  

Daniel’s story is an object lesson in living through prolonged grief, frustration, and hope deferred. He lived through a period of Israelite history where it would be particularly difficult to believe that they were God’s chosen people: those who God chose to reveal himself to the world through their blessedness. Both the northern and southern Israelite kingdoms had fallen, having been turned over to their enemies by the God they betrayed. Their survivors were scattered in exile or left in the smoldering heap of once great cities. Daniel was stolen from his home and thrown into the courts of powerful, dangerous kings. And though Daniel often miraculously thrived in these conditions, the blessed grandeur of God’s holy cities were reduced to a memory—a tormenting specter of what was lost. 

In this passage we see Daniel, up close, in his sorrow. Having meditated over the prophetic warnings of Jeremiah, he understands full well that he and his people’s long-suffering is a result of their sinful rebellion. Then he does something unexpected. Instead of cursing the generations before him for their wickedness—for the suffering their behavior had brought on him and his friends—Daniel identifies himself with the offenders. We have no stories of Daniel being anything but relentlessly devoted to Yahweh, but in this prayer he shares in their guilt, and he prays to include them in his repentance and the Lord’s restoration. 

Spoiler alert: God’s people did not become more obedient or less sinful in the years and centuries after Daniel’s prayers. But restoration came nonetheless. Not with the end of their national exile but in the life, death, and resurrection of God in the person of Jesus. Daniel knew something of this. In this poignant verse he reveals so much—about us and about the Lord. "We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. Lord, listen! Lord, forgive! Lord, hear and act! For your sake, my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name.” Even squarely in the midst of God’s prolonged wrath against Israel, Daniel sees and names God’s righteousness and mercifulness. 

I suspect Daniel’s prayer has something to teach us about having hope when hope is long deferred. I suspect he has something to teach us about how deeply soaked in sin we are and how little our delusion of self-righteousness gets us. And I am certain that this passage emphasizes how profoundly we rely on the mercy, goodness, and restoration of Jesus! What hopes do you have from Jesus today? What would you like to confess to Jesus today? For what are you grateful?

 

UALC’S CAMPAIGN OF PRAYER – TUESDAY

UNITY: God of peace, we pray for de-polarized, non-defensive pursuit of truth, unity, and equality. We pray for well engaged minds. Set us free from the competing narratives of our culture wars that funnel us into opposing camps and make of us a house divided. Kindle in us a desire for your truth that is larger than our desire to have been right.