Sermon for Evensong at All Saints Church, Penarth, on the 5th Sunday of Easter, 18th May 2025

https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=614076925

I am a cat person, although I am going through a period of deprivation, because of the lack of a cat in the Bryant household.

So when I saw that our first lesson today was ‘Daniel in the lions’ den’ I was thrilled, as you can imagine. I wanted to tell you about the king of cats, lions; about lions who had not eaten people – Daniel, for one – even though they were given a good opportunity to do so.

I thought I would spend a minute or two reminding you of the wonderful story of Christian the Lion [https://youtu.be/EZ-da0AZcRU?si=36ryLiiLebWvA_wy] I’m not quite sure how he got his name and I doubt whether there is any theological significance to it, so far as I know, but there is a wonderful film about him, which you can see on YouTube today.

It’s a film about two trendy chaps in the 60s, living – where else? – on the King’s Road in Chelsea, who went to Harrod’s, who in those days had a pet department, if you can believe this, where you could actually buy pets, obviously pets of the calibre you would expect from such a leading store; so you could buy a lion cub. These chaps indeed bought a lion cub, whom they christened Christian. They took him home to their flat and started to bring him up.

He was a very friendly lion cub who certainly hadn’t acquired a taste for eating people. And this isn’t a story that ends like the Hilaire Belloc ‘cautionary tale’ of ‘Jim, who ran away from his Nurse and was eaten by a Lion’. You will remember that

There was a boy whose name was Jim

His friends were very good to him

They gave him tea and cakes and jam

And slices of delicious ham ….

Anyway, he ran away from his nurse when visiting the zoo and

‘Bang!

With open Jaws, a Lion sprang,

And hungrily began to eat

The Boy: beginning at his feet.

Well I’m sure that you will know that gruesomely wonderful poem very well anyway, but this is not one of those tales. This is like the story of Christian the Lion. It is the story of a lion, or lions, who didn’t eat people. In particular they didn’t eat Daniel.

Indeed the book of Daniel is full of amazing stories and visions: before the story of the lions’ den there is the account of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, the three young men thrown into the furnace for refusing to worship the Babylonian king in preference to the one true God, whom God saved so that they emerged from the furnace unscathed.

Later on there are amazing visions which Daniel had, described as apocalypses, revelations: they are a bit like the book of Revelation, visions of the end time, how God will put things right.

Our second lesson is the end of St Mark’s Gospel, what is called the ‘shorter ending of St Mark’s Gospel’, which doesn’t go on to talk in detail about Jesus after he had risen from the dead. It simply ends with the empty tomb. How does this relate to the story of Daniel?

Who rolled away the stone? I think that’s the link, because Daniel was thrown into the pit of lions and the entrance was sealed with a big stone to prevent any escapes, just as Jesus’s tomb was sealed, also with a huge stone.

You will remember that at the end of St Matthew’s account of Jesus’s crucifixion [27:62-66], the chief priests and the Pharisees went to see Pontius Pilate and asked for a guard to be put on the tomb and for it to be sealed, because they remembered that Jesus had said that he would rise again after three days; and they said to Pilate, ‘Command that the tomb be made secure until the third day; otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away, and tell the people, “He has been raised from the dead”.

So the link between the two lessons is supposed to be somebody appearing alive even though they’ve either been put where nobody could possibly survive, like Daniel and the lions, or actually securely entombed and very dead, like Jesus: but in both cases the person who has been locked in behind the rock, dead, reappears, alive.

Two different accounts of how two people came back from the dead? I am not sure that’s right; because the only one who definitely was dead was Jesus.

The whole point about Daniel was that he wasn’t dead, that the angel protected him, or the lion made friends with him, if he was a lion like Christian the Lion, so it wasn’t really a question of resurrection from the dead.

Daniel writes about himself as though he was operating at the time of King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, about 580 BC, whereas he was actually writing 400 years later; so really, he was making things up, to produce an inspiring story to encourage the Israelites.

They had been overrun again – the first time had been in 587BC, when they were defeated by the armies of Babylon and they were taken off to Babylon as captives – Ps 137, ‘By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept’ – and in the time when Daniel was actually writing, about 165BC, Israel was under Persian occupation, as it had been invaded again, by the Persians, originally under Alexander the Great, in 330BC, and 150 years later, when Daniel was active, they were still being oppressed, at that time by King Antiochus, a descendant of Alexander.

Daniel’s book is effectively written in code; his dreams, predicting the downfall of the king, whom he names as king Nebuchadnezzar, (who was the king 400 years before), are code for statements against King Antiochus, who was his present company. It’s a political book. It’s a sort of tract, a revolutionary text.

Are there any parallels with the resurrection story in St Mark’s Gospel? The interesting thing that scholars always bring up is how abruptly it ends.

So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

That’s actually not a good translation. The Greek seems to end in the middle of a sentence. ‘For they were afraid’ doesn’t really give the full flavour of it. It’s really ‘…they were afraid, because…’ [εφοβουντο γαρ] Because what? It’s almost as though there is stuff missing. Indeed there are other manuscripts which do add bits, a couple more paragraphs.

One bit added to some manuscripts is this:

And they delivered all these instructions briefly to Peter and his companions. Afterwards Jesus himself sent out by them from east to west the sacred and imperishable message of eternal salvation.

That is described as the ‘shorter ending’ of the gospel: I think we might describe it as the medium-short ending, because many of the early texts don’t even have that bit. And some other manuscripts have an additional ten verses, which go like this:

9 When he had risen from the dead early on Sunday morning he appeared first to Mary of Magdala, from whom he had formerly cast out seven devils. 10 She went and carried the news to his mourning and sorrowful followers, 11 but when they were told that he was alive and that she had seen him they did not believe it.

12 Later he appeared in a different guise to two of them as they were walking, on their way into the country. 13 These also went and took the news to the others, but again no one believed them.

14 Afterwards while the Eleven were at table he appeared to them and reproached them for their incredulity and dullness, because they had not believed those who had seen him after he was raised from the dead. 15 Then he said to them: ‘Go forth to every part of the world, and proclaim the Good News to the whole creation. 16 Those who believe it and receive baptism will find salvation; those who do not believe will be condemned. 17 Faith will bring with it these miracles: believers will cast out devils in my name and speak in strange tongues; 18 if they handle snakes or drink any deadly poison, they will come to no harm; and the sick on whom they lay their hands will recover.’

19 So after talking with them the Lord Jesus was taken up into heaven, and he took his seat at the right hand of God; 20 but they went out to make their proclamation everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed their words by the miracles that followed. (Mark 16:8–Luke, NEB, https://ref.ly/Mk16.8-Lk;neb)

I think you could say straightway that, whichever bit is the real end of the gospel of Mark, he says enough to make us realise that something had happened, the like of which had never happened before and has never happened since.

But I think, with the greatest respect to Daniel, people’s lives haven’t been changed in the same way by his prophecies and the story of his escape from the lion. I’m tempted to say that Daniel’s story is just that, a story, albeit a very wonderful one; whereas Jesus’ is something else entirely. Perhaps that contrast helps us to appreciate just how amazing the story of Jesus is. Uniquely amazing.

But – you know, you can’t keep those lions out. After I’d finished composing this, I realised that there is still an important lion out there, who is still relevant today, and he is another link with Jesus. It’s Pope Leo – because ‘Leo’ is Latin for ‘lion’. Today he officially began his ministry, he went through the ceremony of his ‘inauguration’. Do watch it on BBC iPlayer. Let us rejoice, and let us wish Pope Leo, Leo the Lion, every blessing as he puts on the ‘Fisherman’s Ring’ as the successor to Saint Peter today. If I was a Rastafarian, I would say he was following the Lion of Judah.

Amen.

Hugh Bryant