Advent Midweek II

Rescue and Redemption in Daniel

Advent Midweek II: “Christ In the Fire”

December 13, 2023

Text: Dan. 3; Matt. 27:45-54

            No sooner do we read (as we did last week), King Nebuchadnezzar’s confession (in the wake of his troubling dream about the image), that Daniel’s God is God of gods and Lord of kings (Dan. 2:47), then we find in the very next chapter that Nebuchadnezzar sets up an image of his own, to be worshiped!  So much for learning his lesson!  Now he commands that at the sound of any kind of music, all people everywhere are to fall down immediately in homage toward the idol. 

            Needless to say, this was unacceptable to faithful Jews, and in particular, to Daniel’s three friends, the young men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  They refused to worship the image.  They knew and believed the First Commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me.  You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything… You shall not bow down to [such images] or serve them” (Ex. 20:3-5; ESV).

            Note the fury of idolatrous governmental powers when one refuses to worship the state-approved gods.  In a furious rage, Nebuchadnezzar ordered the men to come before him.  And he gave them a choice.  It is a choice faced by countless Christian martyrs throughout history: Fall down and worship these idols, or suffer and die as an enemy of the state.  “Listen here, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: Fall down and worship my idol, or you will be cast into the burning fiery furnace.”  “And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands” (Dan. 3:15). 

            What is a Christian to do?  What should you do when faced with that alternative (as well you may one day!)?  You know the answer, but it is not an easy one.  Many throughout history made the (spiritually) deadly decision to deny Christ, fall down before the idol, burn the incense, and save their necks in this life.  God preserve us from apostasy in the moment of decision.  Undoubtedly, the thinking went something like this: “I can deny Him, and then repent later.  He will forgive.”  But we must remember, with trembling, our Lord’s warning: “everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 10:32-33).  God grant us His Holy Spirit, to answer faithfully and courageously when the moment comes upon us, entrusting ourselves to Him who is mightier than any world power; indeed, than Satan himself… As the three men answered: “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” (Dan. 3:16-18).

            What gave them the courage to answer that way?  Faith.  Trust.  They trusted that their God could deliver them from the fire, and that He would.  And even if He didn’t… that is, even if, in His wisdom, He let them perish in the fire, they would faithfully suffer it, endure it, as confessors of the one true God, who would deliver them even through death. 

            Well, you know what happened next.  Nebuchadnezzar, burning up in his own fury, ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than normal, and the mighty men of his army to bind the three young men in their cloaks, tunics, hats, and garments (probably to prolong the burning), and cast them into the furnace.  And the furnace was so hot that the mighty men were killed by the flames in the process.  Notice how the burning rage of those who hate and persecute God’s people ends up burning the persecutors themselves.  That is a warning to them.  And in the end, it will be true even of the devil. 

            Now, here, a little musical interlude (no, I’m not gonna sing).  But in the apocryphal chapters of Daniel, at this point in the story, the three men sing a Psalm of praise!  In the midst of the flames! …  By the way, apocryphal doesn’t mean untrue.  While we should not read the Apocrypha as inerrant and inspired Holy Scripture, Lutherans have always maintained that it may be beneficial devotional material, and that much of it is true.  So they may actually have sung this.  It’s possible.  And we have it in our hymnal, Hymn 931.  You should read it this week, or even sing it.  It begins, “All you works of the Lord, bless the Lord—praise Him and magnify Him forever” (v. 1). 

            They are praising because they believe, and now even see the Lord’s deliverance, His Angel, present with them in the flames, protecting them from harm.  Nebuchadnezzar sees it, too.  “Did we not cast three men bound into the fire?... 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” (Dan. 3:24-25).  We know this is no mere angel.  It is the preincarnate Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son, not of the gods, but of the one true God!  Christ is in the fire with the three young men.

            To save them.  Not from the fire, but through it.  This is so instructive for our Christian faith and life.  The Lord does not spare the three young men from being cast into the fire.  But He is with them in it.  And so it is with us and our suffering.  Of course, we can’t even begin to imagine how much suffering the Lord spares us in the first place.  We can never know all that doesn’t happen to us by the grace of God.  But sometimes God gives us to be cast right into the thick of it.  And when He does, the comfort is, we are never alone.  There is the Angel of the LORD, the Son of God, with us (Immanuel) in our suffering.  Only in our case, not preincarnate… incarnate, in the flesh born of Mary, our flesh.  He is not just with us in our suffering, in spirit.  He is with us all the way, bodily.  And we know that most profoundly in the Holy Supper.

            And not just with us in our suffering.  For us in His suffering and death on the cross.  Our Lord Jesus Christ bore the fire of God’s wrath for our sins.  The Innocent was cast into the burning fiery furnace of God’s fury, by, and for, the guilty.  The arrogant.  The tyrants.  Idolaters.  Even apostates.  Us.  For us, and in our place.  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:25).  And beholding Him in the fire… like Nebuchadnezzar… the centurion (the representative of the Roman Emperor) acknowledged the truth: “Truly this was the Son of God!” (v. 54).  And His suffering is our deliverance.

            In the case of the three young men, the Lord delivered them before death could overtake them, before the flames could begin to harm them.  That happens to us sometimes.  You’re in a car accident that should have killed you, but you walk away without a scratch, or with only minor injuries.  You are sick unto death, but your recover.  The cancer disappears without a trace.  It happens, and that is from God.  We should acknowledge it, and give thanks.

            But often the Lord delivers us, not from death, but through death itself.  To go the way He, Himself, has gone before.  To follow Him through the grave, into resurrection and life.  Tonight, we commemorate just such a deliverance in St. Lucia, St. Lucy, Santa Lucia.  Her name means light, and, indeed, from an early age, her Christian confession and charity shone the light of Christ upon all who knew her.  That is why, in Christian art, she is often pictured in her bright white baptismal gown, with a wreath of candles on her head.  She was a bright light in a very dark time.  These were the days of Emperor Diocletian’s persecution of Christians.  When Lucia refused to marry a pagan noble, the jilted suitor turned her in as a Christian to the governor of Syracuse.  Now, the governor gave Lucia an ultimatum (and this will sound familiar after hearing the account of the three young men this evening): Worship my gods, or suffer the punishment.  When Lucia refused to commit idolatry, remaining steadfast in the faith, well… some of this may be legendary, but who knows?  Who knows?... the governor ordered her to be taken to a house of prostitution and publicly defiled.  But the soldiers could not move her from the floor.  The Holy Spirit held her fast.  So, instead, she was tied to a stake to be burned, but the fire would not light.  Who knows?  Who knows?  It isn’t your Christianity that objects to the miracle.  It is your rationalism.  By some accounts, Lucia’s eyes were also gouged out, which is why she is sometimes portrayed as blind (and St. Lucia buns are baked to look like eyes).  But regardless, the idea was to torture her into denying the faith.  Finally… and mercifully… she met her death by sword, confessing her Lord to the end.

            But understand, she was not abandoned.  She was rescued by the Lord through death, through her martyrdom, even as He rescued Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  And as He will rescue, and is even now rescuing, you.  That is the very meaning of Advent.  Jesus comes to us in the very midst of the fire, the suffering, the fallenness of our lives, to suffer for us, to be with us in it, to rescue us and redeem us. 

            And note this: Even as He who died for us is now risen from the dead, He will raise us.  He will call us out of the grave, as Nebuchadnezzar called the young men out of the furnace, as the Lord Himself called forth Lazarus: “Come out, and come here” (Dan. 3:26; John 11:43).  And we will come out before the Lord.  And just as Jesus now stands in His risen and glorified body; and as the three young men came out with no harm to their bodies, or even their garments, no singed hairs, and no smell of fire upon them; so we will come out and stand before the Lord, healed and whole, no harm to our bodies, no singe or stain or stench of death. 

            Our Lord Jesus is able to deliver us from the fire of God’s wrath, and from every trial.  And, in fact, He does.  So we fall down before Him alone to worship.  For it is as Nebuchadnezzar says: “there is no other god who is able to rescue in this way” (Dan. 3:29).  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.