Profiles in Power

One of the most striking aspects of the story of Daniel in the lion’s den is often overlooked. Daniel’s virtue, wisdom, and faithfulness to God, even in captivity, are emphasized, of course. And his miraculous escape from death by the angel who came to stop the mouths of the lions all night is the joyful climax. But what of the powerful King Darius who was trapped by his scheming courtiers to ensnare Daniel? It is his absolute power to make unchangeable decrees that traps him into sending this trusted counselor to certain death. He believes he is all-powerful, but it is just that power which forces him to carry out Daniel’s death sentence.

The Persian princes who are jealous of Daniel’s pre-eminence at King Darius’s court hatch a plot to condemn him to death if Daniel continues to pray three times a day. They entice King Darius to use his undisputed power to make a decree that anyone who prays to anyone but him for 30 days will be cast into the lions’ den. Darius is presumably not feeble-minded, but his vanity prevents him from seeing through their malice. Surely no one could object to only praying to him, the king, for 30 days! Furthermore, although he is an absolute ruler, he does not consider that according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, once a law is made it cannot be altered, not even by the king who made it.

When Daniel is caught in the act of praying to God and brought to Darius for punishment, Darius realizes he is trapped by his own doing and “sets his heart” to try to deliver Daniel, “laboring until the going down of the sun to deliver him.” But the jealous courtiers remind him that he cannot change even his own decrees. Daniel is therefore cast into the lions’ den to undergo a dreadful death, while Darius prays that the god whom Daniel serves will somehow deliver him. The king spends the night fasting and awake, arising at dawn to rush to the lions’ den, hoping against hope that Daniel’s God has managed to save him. “O Daniel, servant of the living god, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver you from the lions?” The answer is of course yes; an angel came and shut the lions’ mouths and Daniel is not hurt in any way (Dan. 6:14-25).

Darius was captured by his own power; only God was able to save Daniel from this king’s ill-considered edict. We see the same dynamic in the New Testament when King Herod foolishly, and perhaps drunkenly, promises anything she wants to his stepdaughter Salome after she danced for him and his courtiers at his birthday party. Herod has imprisoned John the Baptist at the wish of his wife, Herodias, who hated the prophet for accusing her of being an adulteress for marrying her husband’s brother. But Herod feared John, just as the kings of Israel and Judah had always feared God’s prophets, and knew that John was a just and holy man, even gladly listening to what he had to say.

Salome asks her mother what she should ask for, and Herodias, seeing her chance for revenge, says, “The head of John the Baptist.” When Salome tells Herod, he realizes he has been trapped by his power and his pride. Who would have thought a young woman would make such a bloodthirsty request? How about jewels and palaces? He is exceedingly sorry, but feels he cannot go back on his oath in front of the distinguished and powerful guests at his banquet and so carries out his promise. God does not deliver John, as he did Daniel. John’s head is brought up to the banquet on a platter and given to Salome, who then gives it to her mother. John’s disciples come and retrieve his body and bury it. But that is not the end of it. Herod is later haunted by what he has done, thinking that Jesus, whose fame as a healer and miracle worker is growing, must be John risen from the dead. That is an unwitting prediction of what God will accomplish, not for John, but for Jesus (Mark 6:14-28).

The final example of a very powerful man who is also trapped into going against his conscience and good sense by exactly that power is Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea who sentences Jesus to death. All four Gospels record that Pilate tells the Jewish leaders who have arrested Jesus that he has found no fault in him. Peter later preaches that Jesus’ own people denied him “in the presence of Pilate when he was determined to let him go” (Acts 3:13). Matthew includes Pilate’s wife in his misgivings when she sends him a message to have nothing to do with that man since she has been troubled by dreams about him.

Luke tells us that Pilate tries to evade responsibility by sending Jesus over to Herod since he was a Galilean, which is Herod’s jurisdiction. Herod rather strangely hopes to have Jesus perform a miracle for him. Jesus, however, says nothing, so after mocking him, Herod sends him back to Pilate, who is now forced to decide (Luke 23:8-11). Pilate reminds the crowd of the custom of releasing a prisoner for the Passover feast and gives the crowd the choice of Jesus or Barabbas, a condemned criminal. The crowd shouts for Barabbas to be released. Pilate asks, “What shall I do with this man?” and they cry, “Crucify him!” Since he fears that a riot might be beginning, he has water brought and washes his hands for all to see, saying, “I am innocent of this just man’s blood,” as if that ritual could absolve him of his responsibility (Matt. 27:24).

It is in John’s Gospel (chapter 19) that we see the extent of Pilate’s dilemma as he is trapped by his own power. First, he asks the Jewish leaders who bring Jesus to him for judgment to take him and judge him themselves. They reply that he deserves death but that it is only lawful for the Roman governor to execute him. Pilate seems to really want to know who this man is. He asks Jesus if he is the king of the Jews; Jesus answers that his kingdom is not of this world and that he came into the world to bear witness to the truth. The cynical representative of Caesar Tiberius replies, “What is truth?” Pilate returns to the accusers and says he finds no fault in the man but they shout that he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God. Then Pilate is more afraid and returns to questioning Jesus — where do you come from? When Jesus gives no answer, Pilate is amazed. “Do you not know that I have the power to crucify you or release you?”

Jesus replies that he would have no power over him unless it was given to him from God. As with “truth,” the question is, what is “power” and where does it come from? Pilate asks the accusers and the crowd they have stirred up, “Shall I crucify your king?” And they reply, “We have no king but Caesar,” although they loath Caesar and his power over them until they get a chance to manipulate it for their own ends. Pilate’s final word to them, so to speak, is the only thing ever written about Jesus in his lifetime, the title he writes to put on the cross, naming the crime for which he was executed: Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.

And to make sure everyone could read it, he wrote it in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin (John 19:19). Little could he realize that faith in this crucified man, whom God would raise from the dead in three days, would spread in every language of the Roman Empire within a generation. Pilate did have the power to crucify Jesus or release him. He chose the former and, ironically, his name is forever linked with Jesus’, being repeated in every language of the world as Christians recite the Apostles’ (or Nicene) Creed (“He suffered under Pontius Pilate”).

We often seek power in many areas of our lives, but it can be a two-edged sword. When we say the prayer Jesus taught us, the doxology at the end reminds us to put that desire in perspective:for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.