In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; his mind was troubled and he could not sleep. – Daniel 2:1

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 24, 2020): Daniel 2

Country-folk singer John Prine passed away on April 7, 2020, one of the many victims of the COVID-19 Pandemic. One of the eulogies of Prine, a description frequently shared after the singer’s death, was that the singer-songwriter was the same on the stage as he was off of it. Living in a world where many of our cultural heroes often become tarnished by their actions in private, John Prine was a gentleman on the stage, and he continued to act like one when the cameras were off, and the singer was alone with his friends. Our hope, my hope, is that that is the way we will be remembered after we leave this mortal plane. We want to be seen as authentic people who were the same when the harsh light of the public eye was shining on us, as we are in our more the private moments when no one is watching.

We have an insatiable appetite for knowing what happens behind closed doors. It is not enough to understand what the President is like when he is on a platform or performing his duties in front of an audience. Our curiosity demands to know what the President might be like when he steps away from the cameras. And he is not the only one. We want to know how royalty acts when they are out of the public eye, or how our movie stars act when the cameras are off. And we often make judgments about people based on these things that we find out take place when no one is looking. We are scandalized by famous people when they just don’t seem to understand life or walk through their lives like they are owed something, and we are encouraged by people who seem to act just like us when the cameras are shut off. The number of “Tell All” books that can be found in any bookstore actually tells the story of our curiosity.

One of the values of Daniel is that it gives us a different view, and a more personal perspective, of Nebuchadnezzar. To the world, the leader of the Babylonian Empire was a figure that caused young and old to experience nightmares just at the thought that he might be heading their way. He was the ultimate evil genius, bent on harming whoever it might be that stood in his way.

But, and especially in the early chapters of the book, Daniel gives a more personal view of the King. We learn that King Nebuchadnezzar is a real man with his own fears and insecurities. He is not just a man who induces nightmares in others, but a man who is kept from sleep by dreams that come to him unwanted in the night. He is a man who has advisors, and who listens to them. The early chapters of Daniel are the prophet’s “Tell All” story about a king that most of the world knew only from his public image as an empire builder, but who, behind closed doors, was very different. The world looked at Nebuchadnezzar and saw a villain; Daniel tells the story of Nebuchadnezzar, the hero, a man not all that different from any of the rest of us.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2 Kings 24