For all of today’s readings, click on today’s date at http://www.usccb.org/bible/
Even if he does not
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Fifth Week of Lent
Daniel 3:91 (or 24)
Nebuchadnezzar rose in haste.
This has all the makings of a great story. A righteous Hero (three of them), an unrighteous Rat (and his rat cronies), and a Rescuer (who looks like the Son of God). The fire hasn’t got a chance.
Daniel’s story of King Nebuchadnezzar is one of the best in the Bible. He rises up in pride and arrogance and then falls on his face in humility and shame. His court is corrupt and eventually he is cast out into the desert for a long period of solitary confinement. He relates to everyone, especially God, with passion and imagination. He sins boldly.
And in this story he thinks he did the wrong thing. He loved his Hebrews and had no desire to destroy them. He was probably tricked into making this requirement that everyone worship him and nothing else. So after his friends were tossed into the fire, the next morning he “rose in haste.”
Shadrach had told him the night before, “We know our God can protect us from the fire. But even if he does NOT, we will worship him and not you.” God is God and you are not. King Neb was enraged, but after he went to bed he was also convicted. Lying awake at 3 a.m. will do that to you.
There they were, all three, still standing. The fire burned but they did not. They were covered by their companion, who was brighter than the fire, hotter than the fire, stronger than the fire, but not destructive like the fire.
White light like this blinds us and burns us, as it did Isaiah when he was commissioned in God’s temple. We must be purified. And then we are not harmed any more by the holy fire. We become part of it, and our lives are changed forever.
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came out of the furnace without their companion, but with the glow of holiness. King Neb watched. He was amazed. He fell to his knees. But he did not join them, and I think their lives took very different directions after he made this choice. King Neb saw, but really, he didn’t see.
That kind of blindness rushes toward me every day. I need not look beyond what works for me and protects me in the moment, my own rules of confinement, terms of endearment, my own established world. Jesus spoke into the life of the cripple at the pool as he looked into his eyes, and the cripple gave up his world, and he was healed. King Neb was not.
Jesus’ eyes. King Neb did not look into the eyes of Jesus. God would have showed him how. He shows me too, and all I have to do is let him.
At the brink, Lord, of one thing after another, teach me to lift my eyes up and see how close you are. Nothing else matters. Your goodness changes everything.
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1468
