Mid-Lent 5
Dan
3:1-30
3/20/13
When we are going to grill something
for dinner, Matthew and Abigail like to help me start the fire. After I have the charcoal ready to go, they
get to squirt on the lighter fluid, strike the match and light the coals. And then of course, gradually, slowly, the
flames begin to arise and spread out.
On a number of occasions when we
have been doing this I have emphasized the point that lighter fluid is made for
this purpose and that they are never to use anything else in lighting the
charcoal. They are not to do something dumb like their father once did. And
then they enjoy hearing again the story about the time I used gasoline to light
the charcoal.
It was an evening when things were
running a little later than normal. Amy
and I had planned on grilling and I knew she was really ready to get dinner
going. I went out to the garage, and
much to my chagrin I discovered that we had run out of lighter fluid. It was getting late and I didn’t want to have
to tell Amy that I had to run out to the store and get more lighter fluid. So I
looked over at the gasoline can and thought that maybe, just this once, I would
use gasoline.
Now I knew that using gasoline was not
a good idea. I knew that gasoline
reacted very quickly to flame – that’s part of the reason it makes an engine
go. I knew that I had to be very careful
… and I was. I put the gasoline on the
coals. I got over on the side of the
grill and barely stuck my hand over the edge – just far enough so that the end
of charcoal lighter could reach the charcoal.
The
instant that I pulled the lighter trigger I began to pull my hand back. And in the very same instant that I did that,
the inside of the grill went “WUMPH!”
Instantaneously flame erupted from the charcoal in one great burst. I
didn’t get burned, but boy did I feel the heat as I whipped my hand out of the
way. When it was over, the charcoal was
lit and I was ok. But my heart was
beating fast – the experience scared me.
And I decided there and then that I would never, ever, use gasoline to
light charcoal again.
As
I prepared to preach on tonight’s text, this experience came to mind. King Nebuchadnezzar has those who deal with
the fiery furnace heat it up seven times more than usual. He has them do things
differently – more intensely – and the result is that flame of the furnace
kills those outside – it kills the men who approach in order to throw Shadrach,
Meshach and Abednego into the furnace.
In
tonight’s text we hear about three of the young men from Judah who had been
taken into exile in Babylon along with Daniel.
The Babylonians in fact took three different groups of people back to
Babylon. The first group was in 605 B.C.
These were the elite of Judahite society, especially the young people.
It was a common practice in the ancient world for conquerors to do this. The elite youth were taken to receive
training in the ways of the conquering nation.
The plan was that then later in life they would return to their own land
where they would be pliable instruments of control for the conquerors.
Now
the ancient world was polytheistic – it believed in many different gods. It was often assumed that different gods
dealt with different areas of life. The
one thing you didn’t want to do was to leave out a god and anger the
deity. And so people were more than
willing to add new gods to the collection they worshipped.
The
exception in the midst of all this was Israel.
As you know, the First Commandment says, “You shall have no other gods.” Yahweh described Israel as his choice
possession. He described himself as a
jealous God because he would not share his people with the false gods.
With
Yahweh’s blessing, Daniel and his friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had
shown themselves to be outstanding and capable individuals. So while Daniel was at the court of King
Nebuchadnezzar, the other three young men received positions in which they
helped to administer the affairs of the province of Babylon.
We
learn in our text that Nebuchadnezzar made an idol that was ninety feet
high. He set it up and decreed that when
music was played by a whole variety of instruments, everyone was to fall down
and worship the idol. Anyone who didn’t
would be thrown into a fiery furnace. So
dutifully, all of the officials showed up and at the sound of the music they
worshipped the idol.
Everyone,
that is, except Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
Now we need to realize that these three Judahite young men had been
placed in positions of authority in Babylon.
It’s not hard to image that this rubbed many people the wrong way. After
all, these young punks were from a nation that Babylon had conquered! Why in
the world were they now in positions of authority over Babylonians?
And
so when some of the Babylonians noticed that the three Judahite men didn’t
worship the image, they saw an opportunity to deal with them. Like tattle tales
they went to Nebuchadnezzar and reminded him about his decree. And then they
said, “There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the
province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, pay no
attention to you; they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image that
you have set up.”
Nebuchadnezzar
was furious. He had three men brought
before him and stated his decree again.
He said, “Now if you are ready when you hear the sound of the horn,
pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, to fall down and
worship the image that I have made, well and good. But if you do not worship,
you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. And who is the god
who will deliver you out of my hands?”
The king laid down the gauntlet:
worship my god or die. But Shadrach,
Meshach and Abednego replied, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you
in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from
the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But
if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship
the golden image that you have set up.”
This portion of Daniel is written in
the Aramaic language and not in Hebrew.
Aramaic is a cousin language to Hebrew, but if you haven’t studied it
you can’t read it. I took Aramaic my
senior year at Concordia College, Ann Arbor and I can still remember when I
read this text in the original language twenty two years ago. I was struck at that time – as I continue to
be now – by how the three young men faithfully entrust themselves to
Yahweh. They are going to be faithful to
him no matter what. They believe that if
God wants to he is able to rescue them.
And even if God doesn’t choose to do so, it’s not going to change
anything. They still aren’t going to be
unfaithful to him by worshiping Nebuchadnezzar’s idol.
So as I mentioned at the beginning
of the homily, Nebuchadnezzar had the furnace heated up seven times more than
normal. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were cast into the fiery furnace. And then Nebuchadnezzar saw something
strange. He was astonished and rose up in haste. The king declared to his
counselors, “Did we not cast three men bound into the fire?’” They affirmed that this was indeed the
case. And he replied, “But I see four
men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the
appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.”
Nebuchadnezzar recognizes that there
are not three men, but instead four; that they are no longer bound and instead
are walking around in the furnace unharmed; and that fourth figure has the
appearance of “a son of the gods.” He
saw that God was acting to protect the three men through the presence of an
angelic figure. The text doesn’t give us much information about the identity of
this fourth figure. Certainly, at the very least it was an angel. Beyond that
it may have been the figure often described in the Old Testament as the “angel
of the Lord” – a figure often understood to be the Son of God before the
incarnation.
The king then bid Shadrach, Meshach
and Abednego to come out of the furnace.
And when they had he said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in
him, and set aside the king's command, and yielded up their bodies rather than
serve and worship any god except their own God.”
In our text tonight we are reminded
about the challenge of keeping the First Commandment that we face in our own
time. No one is going to throw you in a
fiery furnace, but they will ostracize you for seeking to live your faith and
to talk about it. Our culture says that everyone can believe what they want –
but you had better not claim that what you believe is true. It’s find if it is true for you, but you had
better not speak up and say that it is absolutely true for everyone. And so
there is ever growing pressure to remain silent.
The season of Lent calls us to take
up this struggle. It holds up before us
the need to fear, love and trust in God above all things – and to repent and
confess those times we haven’t. But it does this in the knowledge that Jesus
Christ has already taken his stand with us in the struggle.
In our text tonight we see the angel
– perhaps even the Son of God before he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and
born of the virgin Mary – standing with the three young men in the
furnace. And this reminds us that the
incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ, has taken his stand with us in this
world. When he was baptized he stepped
into our shoes and began to walk the way that led to the cross. He yielded up his body to the will of the
Father in order to receive the punishment against sin that sets us free to be
the children of God. And then on the
third day he rose from the dead.
Now you have shared in his saving
death through the water of Holy Baptism.
And because you have shared in the death of the risen One, you have the
assurance that you too we will share in Christ’s resurrection on the Last Day.
These things are true for you
because of baptism. And so you are
called to confess Christ in word and deed to the world. Because of what God has done for you in
Christ, you can have the confident trust of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. You
can confess Christ before the world, knowing that Christ will confess you
before the Father on the Last Day.
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