March 22

Daniel 3

1 King Nebuchadnezzar had a golden statue made. It was 90 feet tall and 9 feet wide. He erected it on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. 2 Then King Nebuchadnezzar sent out a summons to assemble the satraps, prefects, governors, counselors, treasurers, judges, magistrates, and all the other authorities of the province to attend the dedication of the statue that he had erected. 3 So the satraps, prefects, governors, counselors, treasurers, judges, magistrates, and all the other provincial authorities assembled for the dedication of the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had erected. They were standing in front of the statue that Nebuchadnezzar had erected.

4 Then the herald made a loud proclamation: “To you, O peoples, nations, and language groups, the following command is given: 5 When you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, trigon, harp, pipes, and all kinds of music, you must bow down and pay homage to the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has erected. 6 Whoever does not bow down and pay homage will immediately be thrown into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire!” 7 Therefore when they all heard the sound of the horn, flute, zither, trigon, harp, pipes, and all kinds of music, all the peoples, nations, and language groups began bowing down and paying homage to the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had erected.

8 Now at that time certain Chaldeans came forward and brought malicious accusations against the Jews. 9 They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, “O king, live forever! 10 You have issued an edict, O king, that everyone must bow down and pay homage to the golden statue when they hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, trigon, harp, pipes, and all kinds of music. 11 And whoever does not bow down and pay homage must be thrown into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire. 12 But there are Jewish men whom you appointed over the administration of the province of Babylon – Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – and these men have not shown proper respect to you, O king. They don’t serve your gods, and they don’t pay homage to the golden statue that you have erected.”

13 Then Nebuchadnezzar in a fit of rage demanded that they bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego before him. So they brought them before the king. 14 Nebuchadnezzar said to them, “Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you don’t serve my gods and that you don’t pay homage to the golden statue that I erected? 15 Now if you are ready, when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, trigon, harp, pipes, and all kinds of music, you must bow down and pay homage to the statue that I had made. If you don’t pay homage to it, you will immediately be thrown into the midst of the furnace of blazing fire. Now who is that god who can rescue you from my power?” 16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to King Nebuchadnezzar, “We do not need to give you a reply concerning this. 17 If our God whom we are serving exists, he is able to rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and he will rescue us, O king, from your power as well. 18 But if he does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we don’t serve your gods, and we will not pay homage to the golden statue that you have erected.

19 Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with rage, and his disposition changed toward Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He gave orders to heat the furnace seven times hotter than it was normally heated. 20 He ordered strong soldiers in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and to throw them into the furnace of blazing fire. 21 So those men were tied up while still wearing their cloaks, trousers, turbans, and other clothes, and were thrown into the furnace of blazing fire. 22 But since the king’s command was so urgent, and the furnace was so excessively hot, the men who escorted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were killed by the leaping flames. 23 But those three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell into the furnace of blazing fire while still securely bound.

24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar was startled and quickly got up. He said to his ministers, “Wasn’t it three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?” They replied to the king, “For sure, O king.” 25 He answered, “But I see four men, untied and walking around in the midst of the fire! No harm has come to them! And the appearance of the fourth is like that of a god!” 26 Then Nebuchadnezzar approached the door of the furnace of blazing fire. He called out, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the most high God, come out!  Come here!”

Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego emerged from the fire. 27 Once the satraps, prefects, governors, and ministers of the king had gathered around, they saw that those men were physically unharmed by the fire. The hair of their heads was not singed, nor were their trousers damaged. Not even the smell of fire was to be found on them!

28 Nebuchadnezzar exclaimed, “Praised be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent forth his angel and has rescued his servants who trusted in him, ignoring the edict of the king and giving up their bodies rather than serve or pay homage to any god other than their God! 29 I hereby decree that any people, nation, or language group that blasphemes the God of Shadrach, Meshach, or Abednego will be dismembered and his home reduced to rubble! For there exists no other god who can deliver in this way.” 30 Then Nebuchadnezzar promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon (Daniel 3, NET).

For me, Daniel is one of the most insightful books of the Bible when one is thinking about how they should be shaped to live in a contemporary society that has become “post-Christian.” Daniel and his three friends (the main characters in the chapter we just read) are traumatically torn out of Jerusalem by the Babylonians during the Exile sequence when both the royal house of Judah and Solomon’s Temple come to ruin in 586 BC. Of the three authorities for the faithful Jews, the kings, the priests, and the prophets, only the last of these, the least formalized or institutional, is left anything like functional. Daniel’s predecessor, Jeremiah, emblemizes what the true members of this prophetic class were working through during this time, and it is quite likely that Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (to use the Hebrew names of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) were readers of Jeremiah’s open letter to the faithful Hebrew people who’d been taken into the Babylonian captivity. They certainly behaved as if they took Jeremiah’s instruction seriously – we will be coming back to looking at Jeremiah a bit more next month.

These four protagonists of the book of Daniel likely came from prominent noble or priestly families, and in chapter 1 of Daniel, you can read about how these boys were brought into a training program for civil servants of the Babylonian imperial service. Rather than refusing to cooperate, the boys work hard and become standout students; they even allow the Babylonian officials to change their names. When the time comes to participate in the lifestyle of their captors though, drinking wine and eating meat, likely coupled with making sacrifices and doing homage to the pagan deities of the Babylonians, they refuse and insist that they’ll get by on vegetables and water. The officials are a bit dumbstruck by this, but when the boys say they’ll take full responsibility for whatever consequences might come, they end up acquiescing. Of course, the story goes, Daniel and his buddies stand out even more as the best and brightest, and they’re given places of favour in the imperial government as young officials.

Daniel 3 picks up with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego now established bureaucrats in the Babylonian regime who end up in another similar situation to what they faced when we first meet them. They’re now being asked to participate in a farcical worship ceremony where a giant statue that Nebuchadnezzar has had made, presumably of himself, is to be adored when the imperial band hits the downbeat. All the other officials play along, but the three make the same call as they made back when they were mere students. They can’t control what the people around them are going to do, but they can make sure to honour God first and foremost in their own behaviour. Among all the kowtowing officials, they stand tall and refuse to worship a god made by human hands.

Nebuchadnezzar is, maybe understandably, furious. Isn’t he the god they should most fear after all? Isn’t he the one whom they ultimately serve? Throughout Daniel, you see these men of faith gently but boldly sticking to their convictions, just as their spiritual forefather Jeremiah instructed. They work for the good of the place they’ve been put. They recognize God’s authority in allowing Babylon a time of eminence, a position as the divine hammer of an unrepentant Judah, and instead of getting mad or sad, find a way to behave honourably towards their earthly masters while maintaining faithfulness to the ultimate master, the God who is there and who made them.

Anyone who faces persecution will do well to emulate the words of these brave young men in the face of the most powerful man in the world: “We don’t answer to you, powerful though you may be, we answer to the One who made you and, if it’s His will, we’ll be saved. Even if it isn’t, we still know right and wrong, and worshipping your gods made by human hands, worshipping that image of you, well that is wrong.” The only thing they’ve threatened is the pride of a great man. There’s no violence needed; there’s no further rebuke required. They just stand firm upon their faith in God’s faithfulness. I like that the narrative doesn’t give us too much description about their attitude or emotion. Are they defiant? Are they meek and retiring? We don’t really know – we just see facts asserted.

Nebuchadnezzar’s feelings don’t care for those facts, and it’s remarkable to see just how far off the handle he flies. His own loyal soldiers, mighty men no less, are unable to survive forcing the young men into the furnace because of the heat, but when the would-be god goes to look at the effects of his all-consuming rage, he sees that there is a higher power standing right there with them. It’s a well-worn tradition within the Church’s interpretation of the Old Testament that when an embodiment of God (the ‘angel of the LORD’ or what have you) shows up in the Hebrew Bible, we’re looking at the second person of the Trinity, Jesus himself, though probably not yet known by that Name. Death and hell are ultimately rendered powerless by Jesus; He’s the one who made it so that fire could exist in the first place. A little heat isn’t going to stop Him from humbling the proud and raising up the humble.

I hope to never have to face something like what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego faced, but if I ever do, or even if it’s something small, but that rhymes with the persecution they faced, I pray for the faith to stand firm upon God’s character. In Matthew 10, Jesus warns a later set of His followers to make sure their fears are rightly ordered. It’s not a good plan to antagonize Caesar or any of his plenipotentiaries, but they can only kill one’s body (verse 28). Having a disordered set of fears can rend your soul. When I think about the legacy of the great men of that first century or two after Jesus’s crucifixion, I can’t help but see a parallel with this story. Pilate orders Jesus’s death. Later Caesars will end up ordering some of Jesus’s great followers, Peter and Paul prominently among them, to be killed for this same refusal to worship the created thing instead of the Creator of all things. But it only takes a couple of centuries for the blood of those great martyrs to catalyze an Empire-wide conversion.

We may live in a post-Christian culture, but it’s rank hubris to think that this ebb in faithfulness has somehow made the message of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s bold declaration of faith any less relevant, or fundamental, or damning to those who would replace God with something made by human hands. 2000 years on, Pilate has long been relegated to the dustbin of history. Christ still lives. As I wrap up this reflection, I land on thinking about the way that disciple whom He loved, described Jesus’s glorious residence among us, “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). I pray this week, and in every week that follows, that you have boldness to hold those two things together just like those great heroes of faith, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, did in their moment of trial.

Next week's text is Matthew 6.