A Humane Rule

It doesn't take much effort to find a current government to accuse of violence, corruption and failure to care for the weakest and most vulnerable. We could think of past governments like Hitler's Nazi Germany or Stalin's Soviet Union as especially egregious, and could go further to name Pol Pot's Cambodia, Rios Montt's Guatemala, but beastly governments exist today that consume their people's livelihoods, potential and even their bodies. Look at a summary of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe in 2013, for example:

After 33 years, Mugabe’s legacy is this: rampant abuses of human rights, the elimination of all political opposition, the organized slaughter in Matabeleland, the exile of the white minority, the persecution, murder and dispossession of an estimated 400,000 black Zimbabwean farm workers, a massive and continuing exodus of refugees, and the destruction of Zimbabwe’s economy, which has left countless Zimbabweans starving, unemployed, impoverished or buried.

We may not have such beastly government in the United States, but the way the NSA has been scooping up communications of people around the world suggests a government that has lost appropriate boundaries, and even more disconcerting that President Obama was unaware of the scope of the program. It is a sign of a system that is losing its humanity.

Daniel chapter 7 should strike a chord with us today--in its description of beastly governments and its longing for humane rule. Daniel has a dream of four beasts coming up out of the sea. The first was the most "human", and the later beasts more vicious and terrifying. The second consumes human bodies. The third destroys everything it touches. The last terrifies and speaks arrogantly:

Then, as I watched, its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a human being; and a human mind was given to it. Another beast appeared, a second one, that looked like a bear. It was raised up on one side, had three tusks in its mouth among its teeth and was told, ‘Arise, devour many bodies!’ After this, as I watched, another appeared, like a leopard. The beast had four wings of a bird on its back and four heads; and dominion was given to it. After this I saw in the visions by night a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth and was devouring, breaking in pieces, and stamping what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that preceded it, and it had ten horns. I was considering the horns, when another horn appeared, a little one coming up among them; to make room for it, three of the earlier horns were plucked up by the roots. There were eyes like human eyes in this horn, and a mouth speaking arrogantly. 

An attendant at the divine court explains to Daniel that these four beasts are four empires--corresponding to the Babylonian (viewed most positively by Daniel), which was followed by the Medean, then Persian and lastly Greek empires. They would be progressively more beastly--the last the most terrible.

But after theses four empires, Daniel sees "One like a Son of Man" come:

I saw one like a human being
   coming with the clouds of heaven.
And he came to the Ancient One
   and was presented before him.
To him was given dominion
   and glory and kingship,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
   should serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
   that shall not pass away,
and his kingship is one
   that shall never be destroyed. 

Finally--there will be an empire that is Human, humane in its treatment of people. No longer will people's bodies and livelihoods be torn apart by savaging governments. No longer will governments boast beyond their limitations. This is an Empire of God's saints, the holy ones:

The kingship and dominion
   and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven
   shall be given to the people of the holy ones of the Most High;

For Daniel, hope for a humane government is found when God's holy people--all the saints--are ruling in harmony with the One True God.

Christians took Daniel 7 in a different direction: Jesus is the Son of Man. Jesus is the one who brings the "Kingdom of God" (or better: "Empire of God") which saves people rather than uses them as grist for the empire's mills. Our hope is not in our ability to rule (even as the saints), but in Christ's rule. He is the Prince of Peace, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the one who brings life and hope, and the Humane Rule:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
   because he has anointed me
     to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
   and recovery of sight to the blind,
     to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ (Luke 4:18; Isaiah 61:1)