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Standing Among Lions

            “Congratulations, you survived without needing medical care.” What a relief to hear those words after taking a test online to determine if I’d survive a lion attack. My wilderness experience is little to none.  I’ve never been on a safari, and I don’t hunt wild game but I clicked on the answers I thought would work and they did. For example, if a lion is staring you down like you’re its breakfast, stare back. Make loud noises, especially growling noises and show your teeth. Stand up straight, stick out your chest, and do anything possible to make yourself appear bigger, like raising up your jacket or outer clothing, holding up your arms, or lifting into the air anything with you like a bicycle or child. If you can, retreat slowly but never turn your back and run.

            Okay, I’m not sure I’d remember to do all that in the event that an actual lion ever attacks, but, as a Midwesterner, I don’t see myself in any setting anytime soon where there’d be a wild lion in the same zip code. Except for the lion Paul mentions today, remembering, “I was delivered from the lion’s mouth.” It’s less likely that Paul is recalling an actual lion, and more likely that he’s using a figure of speech referring to a powerful ruler, or a set of circumstances that can cause him harm or even kill him because of his loyalty to Christ, or perhaps it’s a reference to the power of the devil, whom the Bible says “prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

            On this special remembrance of the Reformation of the church, God’s Word focuses on two things. First, that for anyone who is loyal to Jesus Christ in belief and behavior, there are lions—dangers, possible harm to us because of our faith, threats. They are real and they are powerful. Secondly, our deliverer, the one to whom we pledge our ultimate allegiance, Jesus Christ, is also real, and he’s mightier than the lions we face when we practice our faith. “Though devils all the world should fill, all eager to devour us, we tremble not, we fear no ill, they shall not overpower us…but for us fights the valiant one whom God himself elected. You ask, ‘Who is this?’ Jesus Christ it is, the almighty Lord.”

            The first-grade teacher seated her students in a circle and asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up. One by one, each child got up and nicely announced “I’d like to be a banker, like my dad,” or “A movie star,” or “I want to be a teacher like you, Miss Appleby.” The last child to speak, this shy little boy, stands up, “I’m gonna be a lion tamer in the circus. I’ll command those lions with a whip and a chair and make them leap through hoops of fire and obey my every word!” Seeing the disbelieving looks of his classmates as he sat down, he quickly explained, “Well, you know, I’d have my mommy with me.”

            Some of the strongest, most courageous believers in the Bible understood what this little boy was saying. They didn’t stand among lions alone. Samson “tore [a] lion apart with his bare hands” but only because “the Spirit of the Lord came upon him in power” (Judges 14:6). When explaining how he’d conquer Goliath, the giant Philistine, shepherd boy David reassured the soldiers, “[I have] killed both the lion and the bear…the Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine” (1 Samuel 17:36,37). Hurrying to the lions’ den to check on his friend, Daniel, whose faith he knew, King Darius shouted into the pit, “Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to rescue you from the lions” (Daniel 6:20)? The deadly danger in the life of faith-filled followers of God isn’t lions, even though we all encounter them. The deadly danger is encountering them alone. Samson, David, and Daniel freely explained to anyone interested in their story, “The Lord delivered me.” Just like Paul, writing some of his final words to the Church, “The Lord stood at my side and gave me strength.” Why did that matter to Paul? He continues, “so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed.” Our Savior God gives us strength over lions, giants, and kings as both treasure and tool, so that we fully proclaim his message to others. Not partly proclaim. Not sometimes proclaim. Not tell half the story to half the people in our lives who need Jesus. Not silently cower when called to witness in a crowd. Not say one thing on Sunday and do the opposite on Friday.

            What’s missing in your less-than-full proclaiming about God to others? The lions are scary, aren’t they? The outside dangers, the inside fears, the threats all around—they shut our mouths, while the lions roar. The lions in our lives stare us down and instead of staring back, instead of making ourselves bigger by clinging to the cross of Christ or standing in his tomb and rising to new life we run…thinking we can outmaneuver a lion. But he stalks for the kill, captures our conscience, growls through the night, and then at when we least expect it he roars. He prowls unnoticed. He pounces with all his might, and standing alone we become the lion’s prey. Cowards. “There shouldn’t be lions,” we complain, but Jesus insists, “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves” (Matthew 10:16). “My dear followers, there will be lions, and wolves, and persecuting people, and evil enemies, and difficult decisions when you follow me.”

           How can you survive a lion attack? Here’s how Paul survived, “And I was delivered from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom.” Another roar fills the air. The evil lion bears his fangs and answers, thundering the very ground on which you stand, and you fall, like in a dream when you can’t escape, you can’t run, you are doomed. Another roar again fills the air, and fills the earth, and your fears, your hopes, your needs, your sins. And the Bible says, “The lion has roared…The Sovereign Lord has spoken” (Amos 3:8). The vicarious Lamb, whose blood overpowered your sins, taking their curse forever, has risen from the dead as the victorious Lion, whose resurrection overpowers the devil, death, and any danger. His roar speaks in words of forgiveness, words of restoration, words of promise, words of reassurance for those Standing among Lions. “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent” (Acts 18:9). “Do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say” (Matthew 10:20). Where you have been silent in your witnessing, you can speak. Where you have told only a little, you can tell more. Where you have been hesitant to act, you can step forward. Standing among Lions because the risen Lord stands. And you are his roar!

            So then, personalize the words of Paul. “At my side,” you can say, with faith in your lion Lord, and he roars, “I am with you.” “Through me,” you can say, with faith in your lion Lord, and he roars, “I am sending you.” “Fully proclaimed,” you can say, with faith in your lion Lord, and he roars, “I am never ashamed of you. You never need to be ashamed of me.” “Bring me safely,” you can pray, with faith in your lion Lord, and he roars, “I will save you.” “To him be the glory,” you can pray, with faith in your lion Lord, and he roars, “You are my glory.”

             [Martin Luther was ushered into the Diet of Worms on April 17, 1521] at 4:00 p.m. He was visibly awed by what he saw. There was Emperor Charles V himself, heir to a 1000-year-old empire. Near him on the raised dais were his advisers and the representatives of Rome. All around were Spanish troops decked out in their parade best. The rest of the hall was filled with the politically powerful of Germany—the seven electors, the bishops and princes of the church, the territorial princes, and representatives of the great cities. In the midst of this impressive assembly there was a table, piled high with books.

             The chancellor of the archbishop of Trier gestured toward the pile and announced to Luther that he had been called to the Diet to answer two questions: Had he written these books? Was there a part of them he would now choose to recant? The monk and professor from little Wittenberg was plainly taken aback. There would be no debate, or even a judicial hearing. His judges had already made their decision. He could scarcely be heard as he said, “The books are all mine, and I have written more”… [After a recess until the next evening] the same questions were put to him…Luther replied in a short speech, [concluding]… “Unless I am instructed and convinced with evidence from the Holy Scriptures or with open, clear, and distinct grounds and reasoning—and my conscience is captive to the Word of God—then I cannot and will not recant, because it is neither safe nor wise to act against conscience.” He then added, “Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me! Amen.[i]

           And he did.

Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (www.gracedowntown.org) on October 30, 2011

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