Desecration

It was a beautiful evening in Babylon, friends of the kingdom were gathered in celebration and king Belshazzar and his noblemen were riding high. Things were going well for the second generation potentate who had succeeded his father Nebuchadnezzar. So well in fact that he felt a bit a revelry was in order.

You see he was the son of the man who had conquered all the surrounding nations and put them under his feet. He was the alpha of the universe and the gods of the nations were his servants.

So how better to celebrate this than to take something that one of his many subjugated nations said was sacred, some beautiful and ornate cups that had been confiscated from the Temple in Jerusalem, and use them however he felt like.

These were, in Belshazzar’s mind, evidence of his dominion over the world. It used to be that no one, including most Jews, were allowed to use these cups because they were holy, set apart and meant only to be touched by people who themselves had been set apart and prepared for the task. They were, so the Jews said, to be used only in worship to the God of the Universe, the One True Living God. But everybody had some kind of claim to primacy, but all those people - with all their claims - now bent the knee to him, king of the universe.

How better to revel in his greatness than to take these sacred instruments and drink from them as if he was the priest of this now vanquished god?

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But perhaps Belshazzar should have had more caution. His father, the one who, through ingenuity, ruthlessness and strength actually had subdued the world, had gone through a strange chapter in his life where he had lost his marbles, gone out into the wilderness and ate grass on all fours like a mindless bovine. He had returned from his ox-like state only after, so he claimed, that he had given praise and honor to the Most High God. But hey, Dad had seen a lot of crazy stuff in his life and had a lot of pressure on him. It’s not unheard of for people to need a sabbatical you know.

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Needless to say the warning was not heeded on this point. So Belshazzar proceeded.

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Now don’t get me wrong, most people who violate taboos and mock holy things don’t get the comeuppance like we will soon read that Belshazzar received. Whether it be the transgender “priestess” taking center stage in an iconic cathedral or the podcaster showing how “he’s not owned by corporate interests” by saying how much he loves Hitler, there is a rush that is felt when one grabs the holy vessel and drinks from it, even though he’s not supposed to.

Desecration is thrilling. It’s no mystery why people do it. It makes you feel powerful, like the rules don’t apply to you and that there’s no deity that could do anything about it even if they did.

God is merciful, patient and kind. He forebears the sin, rebellion and prideful desecration of man with the hopes that His goodness will lead us to repentance (Romans 2:4).

And His mercy extends to people who do things that aren’t as overtly sacrilegious as Belzshazzar. It’s easy to be disgusted by egregious acts that we read about online, but we aren’t all that different. 1 Corinthians 6:19 says that our bodies are “temples of the Holy Spirit” thus any act that we perform in our bodies that dishonors the Lord is a kind of desecration because we have taken the dwelling place of God and defiled it with our sin.

The Romans 2:1 principle, which basically states that anything we would accuse someone else of, we are likely guilty of ourselves, is undefeated.  And it particularly applies when it comes to desecrating sacred things.  We have yet to fully grasp what it means when Scripture says that the “body is for the Lord” (1 Corinthians 6:13) and that “the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him” (1 Corinthians 6:17).  If we did, we would be as concerned by our own defilement of the sacred places of our spirit and body as we are with public acts of defiance against God.

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Yet what Belshazzar did mattered to God.  The three most terrifying words in the Bible are “the Lord saw” (Genesis 6:15) and there are some moments in history when a certain act demands a response, and this is what happens in Daniel 5:5-6

⁵ Suddenly the fingers of a human hand emerged and began writing opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, and the king saw the back of the hand that did the writing. ⁶ Then the king’s face became pale and his thoughts alarmed him, and his hip joints loosened and his knees began knocking together.

One second Belshazzar is on top of the world basking in the glory of the gods his family has defeated and in the next he’s struggling to stand because he’s so afraid.  The truth was that the pomp and circumstance that Babylon enjoyed had little to do with them and much more to do with the fact that God was reshaping the world and disciplining His people for their idolatry and sin.  Babylon and Belshazzar were merely tools that God was using to accomplish these things and the words that this mysterious hand wrote on the wall indicated that this time was over.

The King of Babylon didn’t know that, nor do those who exalt themselves against the living God today.  Both felt/feel as though they’ve reached an ascendancy against this antiquated way of viewing the world and that their dominion will never end.  God has other ideas.

Either way not everyone who lifts his head against the living God will have an experience as extreme as Belshazzar in this life, but everyone will one day stand before God and answer for what we did in this life.  Are we ready for this day?

And just as it is destined for people to die once, and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.

Hebrews 9:27-28