Susanna from the Bible and Life Lessons from her!

We find the story of Susanna in Daniel 13. 

Long story short - Susanna decides to bathe alone in her garden and is unknowingly observed by two men who are elders and judges. The men decide to make advances on her. They threaten to publicly accuse her of adultery if she does not comply; an accusation that would end in her execution. She does not comply and so the elders make good on their threat. The prophet Daniel, prompted by God, intervenes on her behalf and Susanna is spared. It is a rich story!

There are two different postures toward God exhibited by the elders and by Susanna, and what this tells us about living a good and moral life.

Here's how the two elders are described after “they began to lust for her” (Dn 13:8). “They perverted their thinking; they would not allow their eyes to look to heaven, and did not keep in mind just judgments” (Dn 13:9).

This is how sin works in us. This is how we allow sin to corrupt our thoughts, our actions, and our lives. It begins with temptation, but temptation alone is not enough (remember, even sinless Jesus faced temptation). There is a difference between being tempted and committing immoral acts.

This line from Daniel shows us what has to happen within us before the temptation can become actual sin. The elders perverted their thinking. 

Keep in mind, this is not something that passively happened — they intentionally twisted their own thoughts, in order to convince themselves that what they knew to be wrong was in fact right.

How did they do this? By not allowing their eyes to look to heaven.

This is the most critical line of the passage. By not looking to heaven, they avoid the light of goodness and truth. Had they looked to heaven, the darkness of their evil desires would have been revealed. Their guilt would have been undeniable. There are two ways to end the pain of a guilty conscience: turn away from sin or turn away from the light. They turned away from the light.

By contrast we have Susanna, who never takes her gaze off of God. She understands the dire nature of her situation. Either she commits adultery with these men and escape punishment; or refuse and be punished for the very crime she refused to commit. 

Looked at from a purely worldly perspective, it would seem better for Susanna to commit the sinful act and save her own life than to be killed for not doing it. But Susanna does not have a worldly perspective. Her perspective is that of heaven.

“If I yield, it will be my death; if I refuse, I cannot escape your power. Yet it is better for me not to do it and to fall into your power than to sin before the Lord” (Dn 13:23).

There is no fate worse in Susanna’s mind than to sin against God. Such an act would be a betrayal of His love.

The elders follow through on their threat and at her trial, humiliate her. 

“As she wept she looked up to heaven, for she trusted in the Lord wholeheartedly” (Dn 13:35). Because of her fidelity, the Lord sends Daniel to her aid.

All that I want to highlight here is that through all of her trials, Susanna never took her eyes off of God. We can spend years studying the Bible, the teachings of the Church. We can memorize the verses backwards and forwards. But we will still be tempted. And when faced with temptation, all the knowledge in the world won’t help us if we avert our eyes from heaven. We hide God from our sight, thinking wrongly that that will hide us from His, and find a way in our minds to justify our sin.

Likewise, we can have every intention to do good and still find ourselves faced with seemingly impossible situations, where every power in the world seems bent upon forcing us to do the wrong thing. 

It is so easy for us to fall, especially when our lives or our livelihood are in perill. The courage to resist worldly influences can only come from outside of the world. We find it not by looking to others or even within ourselves, but by keeping our eyes on heaven and trusting in the Lord, as did Susanna.

Let us keep our eyes ever on God, like Susanna, so that our hearts may be filled with the courage needed to resist evil, and an infallible trust in His goodness.