The Statue We Keep Rebuilding

Have you ever made a promise to God in a moment of desperation? Perhaps in a hospital waiting room, or during a sleepless night when the walls of your life seemed to be closing in. "Lord, if you'll just get me through this, I'll change. I'll pray more. I'll be different."

And then the crisis passes.

The diagnosis comes back clear. The job comes through. The relationship mends. And within weeks, sometimes days, you find yourself back exactly where you were before, as if the encounter had never happened at all.

That's Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 2-3.

His dream had terrified him. Rattled him to his bones. To the point that he demanded all of Babylon's sages come and not only interpret the dream, but tell him what the dream was. This was his way of "testing" them. If they could not tell him his dream, but had to make something up, they'd probably be bafooning him with their interpretation of it, too. There's a strange wisdom in it, even though it's mixed with cruelty.

When Daniel, after much prayer and fasting, revealed both the dream and what it meant, Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face. "Truly, your God is God of gods and Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this mystery" (Daniel 2:47).

What a confession! From a pagan king, no less!

It seemed as though the true God had broken through and reached his heart.

But turn the page to Daniel 3, and how quickly this pagan king forgot it all.

The very man who bowed before Daniel's God has now erected "an image of gold whose height was sixty cubits and whose width was six cubits" (Daniel 3:1).

And he commands, upon pain of death in a fiery furnace, that all people, every nation, bow down and worship it.

What happened?

Had Nebuchadnezzar forgotten the dream? Not at all. But he'd also not forgotten about his ego, either.

In the dream, Nebuchadnezzar had seen a statue with a head of gold, arms and chest of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron mixed with clay. Daniel had told him, "You are the head of gold" (Daniel 2:38).

Nebuchadnezzar knew what part of it he was. The golden head. You can almost imagine, at least in part, that he was proud of that. "I'm not the bronze thighs, or the iron/clay feet! I'm the golden head!"

But there was more to the dream than that. The statue's form, the way it was built, was a warning. The head of gold would give way to lesser kingdoms. But they wouldn't last, either, because all earthly empires fell in time. All human glory decays, it falls, and becomes as dust in the wind.

The dream was a merciful revelation from God. It was an invitation to humility. It was supposed to call this king to repentance, that he'd realize that only the kingdom set up by the God of heaven "shall never be destroyed" (Daniel 2:44).

And what does Nebuchadnezzar do with this mercy?

He builds a new statue.

This time, entirely of gold. Not just a head of gold. The entire thing. Head to foot, top to bottom, pure gold. All of it made of the material of himself.

As if by such an act of metallurgy he could thwart the warning of the dream. He'd been so desperate for an interpretation of the dream, he worshipped God through Daniel as a result. And then, he actually doubles-down. Taking the "interpretation" of the dream as an opportunity to build a literal statue to his own glory.

As if he could construct an empire so glorious it would never pass away. As if he could make himself divine.

And the ancient serpent so slithered back onto the scene. That's the way the devil works. He does not usually approach us with horns and a pitchfork. He doesn't come to us merely in moments of weakness, but in the wake of our worship. It is as though he says, "yes, you've give God your due," now lets' see what you can do to make something of yourself.

"You will be like God" (Genesis 3:5). That's what the serpent had told Eve. And you can imagine that's exactly what he whispered to Nebuchadnezzar.

He tells us the same thing still, only in the "polished' language of our time. For we do not build for ourselves statues of literal gold. We build idols to ourselves through accomplishments. Through success. Through the little kingdoms we erect in this world as if they were going to last forever.

The serpent is cunning. He says, "You deserve this. You have earned this. You are can achieve!"

Saint Augustine saw this pattern clearly in himself. He wrote of his own delayed conversion, of the way he begged God for chastity, "but not yet" (Confessions, VIII.7).

How often do we offer prayers and worship with divided hearts, just like Nebuchadnezzar?

Such prayers go like this: "I acknowledge you, God, but I would like to keep this one thing for myself. I will worship you on Sunday, but Monday belongs to me. I will give you my time, but not my money. My reputation, but not my resentments. My virtues, but not my vices."

And so we build our statues of gold.

Not sixty cubits tall on the plain of Dura, but tall enough.

The statue of our career. The statue of our reputation. The statue of our comfort. The statue of the greenest yard in the neighborhood. The statue of what others think of us. The statue of the version of ourselves we present to the world. And we demand, quietly, that everyone around us bow to it. Maybe not literally, but we demand recognition. And when we are not so recognized for our personal successes, our polished statues to ourselves, we throw tantrums.

We might not throw those who don't give us our "due" into a fiery furnace. But we shun them. We ignore them. We speak a little word about them to others. We "cancel" them on social media.

The tragedy of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 3 is that he had been given the truth in Daniel 2.

But he didn't hold onto it. He sought an interpretation, desperately, then ignored it. He re-interpreted it for himself. He bent the revelation of the dream's meaning into a justification to double-down on his ego.

The tragedy of our own spiritual lives is often the same. We have moments of profound clarity, times when God feels near and we see the futility of our little idols. And then we return to our building projects. We pick up the trowel. We melt down more gold.

The Gospel gives us the truth path. Not the glorification and exaltation of ego but the crucifixion of it.

Saint Paul writes: "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:19-20).

This is the head of gold laid down, the empire of ego dismantled, shattered into rubbish, so that God Himself might build something eternal in its ruins.

The image God intends for you is not one of your making. It is one He restores. Christ Himself is "the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15), and He wants nothing more than to unite us to that very image!. Not by the effort of our accomplishments, our our personal success, by participation in His life, His suffering, His love.

 

Practical steps for this week:

First, identify your statue. What is it you've tried to fashion out of "gold" to impress others, to maybe even impress yourself, that you demand others pay homage to? Perhaps it is your need to be right. Perhaps it is your reputation as someone who has it all together, as a "holy" person, or a successful one. Name it honestly before God.

Second, ask where you told God, "yes, but not yet." Or, "yes, but I have another idea." We think we can put these things into a kind of quarantine. Into a little "place" we've carved out of our lives that's wholly our own. Places where we can remain lord of such things. Take it into prayer, and give it up. Sacrifice it. When we sacrifice the things of our ego and pride, we become living sacrifices ourselves.

Third, don't only focus on major "crucifixions" of self. We can die to ourselves in little ways, too. Sometimes it's just by holding the tongue. Sometimes it's a small act of kindness we do without anyone seeing us, kept in secret. It can be a quiet prayer that no one else will hear for someone who has hurt you or done you dirty. Often, the "statues" of ego aren't demolished with one massive catastrophe, but through little strikes, repeated over and over again, until we've become the kind of dust from which God fashions us anew, that He might breathe His life into us again in love.

Every statue to self, no matter how impressive, will fall. Just as every empire in human history falls. The only question is whether we will fall with those things of our making, or whether we will surrender it... that Christ would raise us into Himself, into the people He created us to be, who will endure with Him forever.