Pastor’s Heart OP-ED BY DR. ROBERT KENNEDY
When our sons were very young, we gave them sketch pads and pencils to do their creative work. However, there were times we discovered marks on the family room walls or other parts of our house.
Such discoveries emitted varying emotions and left us unsure of how to handle them. Should we be angry, laugh, cry about what our sons did on the walls, instead of using their scratchpads? We tried wiping off the walls, but eventually had to repaint them. After we whipped and repainted, we explained to our sons why they should not mark on the walls and hoped that they understood.
It is interesting to note that while they did not mark the walls that could be readily seen on entering our home, they marked up the walls in their bedrooms. Perhaps in their minds, it was more fun marking on bigger spaces. As parents, we learned to keep our calm as we asked our sons what they were trying to draw. They gave all kinds of fascinating interpretations. At other times, they denied making the marks and even started to cry because they thought they might receive some form of discipline.
This story about our sons reminds me of the famous words in four-lines the poem, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám, that we often recited in our elementary school.
“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”
Yes, our sons’ marks on the walls, and the words of Omar Khayyám, connect with the story recorded in Daniel chapter 5, which tells of the night when the Persian king, Cyrus, marched into Babylon. The Great king Cyrus and his army rerouted a tributary from the Tigres that surrounded the palace wall. They took the kingdom at the moment when King Belshazzar and his guests were having a drunken feast. At the end of seven days, they became so intoxicated that the king took the vessels that his grandfather, King Nebuchadnezzar, had brought to Babylon from the temple in Jerusalem.
King Belshazzar defiled the sacred vessels by using them in his drunken orgies. In the middle of their last evening of feasting (for so it would be with the entry of Cyrus and his army), a mysterious hand appeared and wrote upon the plaster of the palace wall. The words were in Aramaic, the language spoken in Persia at the time, but evidently unknown to most Babylonians. The frightened king was instructed by his grandmother to send for Daniel, who had interpreted King Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams.
When Daniel appeared, king Belshazzar promised him gifts and promotion in his kingdom, if he could interpret the writing. But Daniel told Belshazzar that he did not need his gifts, but that he would interpret the handwriting on the wall. Daniel read the words; MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN, and then gave the interpretation – numbered, numbered, weighed, divided.
That interpretation predicted the fall of Babylon. By the end of the interpretation, Cyrus and his army entered the palace, slew the king and many of his attendants, and took the city. Daniel was spared and later became the most prominent governor in the Persian Empire.
Yes, “the handwriting on the wall” has been used as a phrase to remind people that often enough, the providential hand is writing messages across the pages of history to remind, rebuke, warn, caution, or correct our behavior, before a night of destruction come upon us. Sometimes the hand writes upon a plastered wall or other material things in the world, such as in the stock market; at other times, it is in hurricanes, the fires, the earthquakes, or the multiple other signs of climate change and environmental degradation.
Of course, maybe the handwriting is in the pandemic at this time. And make no mistake, God is telling us something. Maybe he has held back his hand from a miracle cure until we recognize that our lives of drunkenness, dishonesty, immorality, political corruption, racism, and religious prostitution need to cease.
People who lack divine wisdom, discernment, humility, and repentant hearts might be pretending that the writing on the wall is mere gibberish and not a message from God. Some persons might be despising the true-hearted scientists and historians’ interpretations and even despising the faithful interpreters of God’s word. But to such, I need to say, if anyone is living in ignorance or in a drunken stupor, take a pause and read the Bible where you will find more than in any other place, words written by the hand of God. Pray for wisdom that you might be able to interpret them. Ask the Lord to help you understand what is happening or about to happen to us.
Friends, if I am not sure of anything else, I am sure that I can confidently say that if we keep on living with recklessness during this pandemic, we will undoubtedly self-destruct. And what is true for the United States of America is also true for other lands. In effect, we need to take precautions; we need to stop trivializing the hand that writes or about to write.
It is the hand of God that writes. It is not like our little sons who used their pencils to draw lines on our walls. The hand of God is apparent in the message it writes. Its message might seem mysterious at first, but it is clear and can be interpreted. Be careful to warn that disaster stands before us if we are unwilling to take cautions. On the contrary, salvation stands before us if we are willing to receive the message and, in contrition, repent, and reform.
May God help us to read the writing on the wall.
