(Based on Daniel Zine Chapter 3: Fiery Furnace)
Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, the season focused on all those cheery topics like sin and death and how Jesus died. The words “from dust you came and to dust you will return” set a somber tone for the 40 days that follow. There is (uncharacteristically for the church) no resolve, no happy ending, no good news in those words. We sit for a long while in the “I was lost” part without adding the “but…” just yet.
One Ash Wednesday, I noticed a mom holding a baby, and as the baby received the ashes on its forehead, I overheard a little boy say, “That’s sad because that baby is going to die.” Kids have a way of pointing out so matter-of-factly the dark realities that the rest of us don’t want to mention or face.
In the third chapter of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego have to face a dark reality: If they do not bow down to King Nebuchadnezzar’s big golden statue, they will be thrown into a fiery furnace. If you go back and read chapter three, you will notice that ten times it points out who “set up” the statue. King Nebuchadnezzar wants the credit. It’s a power play on his part… If the people know who is commanding them and who holds their lives in his hand, they will definitely obey. What King Nebuchadnezzar does not remember is that there is a God who is more powerful than his hottest fiery furnace. He asks the question, “And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?” as if it’s rhetorical… as if he has the ultimate say.
Imagine his astonishment when he sees four men “unbound, walking in the midst of the fire.” And the fourth one “is like a son of the gods.” Some theologians believe that the fourth figure in the fire was an angel of the Lord, and others believe that it was the preincarnate Christ. Whichever the case, we know that we have a God who is powerful enough to walk in the flames with his people and deliver them from death.
This kind of power makes what Jesus did here on earth even more flabbergasting. The question “Who is the god who will deliver you?” is answered in the Son of God, Jesus Christ. When he hung on the cross, people yelled, “Save yourself, and come down from the cross!” Others said, “He saved others; he cannot save himself.” They did not understand that he did have the power to save himself, but his purpose was not to save himself but to bring eternal life to us.
When we face trials, danger, and death, we remember the fourth one in the fire, the one who walks alongside us in the midst of the flames. We remember that the fourth one in the fire came to die so that we might live.
Sometimes it feels like there is no good news. We sit among the ashes of this world, feeling like they have the final say. But as King Nebuchadnezzar found out, the one who walks in the fire has the power to save. Like the ashes smudged on our foreheads, our trials are cross-shaped. The cross takes the heat so that we are delivered. Because of Jesus, not one thing has a hold on us, for “to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). Whether we live or die, the Son of God is right there beside us.
Written by Juliette Alvey
