Light pink candle - The Joy Candle
I love the smell of a fire on a cool autumn evening. Whether we are on a trip in our camper, pulling into a campground after a long day’s travel or just hanging out around the firepit in our backyard, there is something so comforting and relaxing in that smell. Not everyone feels the same, though. For instance, fire fighters whose job is to douse flames and prevent their spread are able to differentiate what materials are being burned by their odor. A chemical fire smells different than a forest fire and certain wood, like pine and cedar, burns quicker than others. And then there are those among us who have lost property or loved ones as a result of a devastating fire. I imagine just the smell of something burning can trigger them, bringing their memories of fear, heartache and loss front and center.
It’s the smell of burning that lingers. It penetrates the fibers of our clothing, even our hair, and settles in, even spreading to other fabrics close by. Yes, it’s the smell that can take us back to either lovely memories around a firepit, or traumatic memories of a house going up in flames.
In today’s reading we pull up to a well-known scene from the book of Daniel, where three young Hebrew men are forced into a fiery furnace, yet afterwards there isn’t even the smell of fire on them!
* Read Daniel 3
Wow! What a story! Before we dig into this part of the story, we need to build some context and understand what part Jesus’ ancestor, King Jehoiakim, played in these young men being thrown into a fiery furnace. Let’s go back to the first chapter of Daniel, which parallels 2 Kings 24:
In the third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem and laid siege to it. The Lord handed King Jehoiakim of Judah over to him, along with some of the vessels from the house of God. Nebuchadnezzar carried them to the land of Babylon, to the house of his god, and put the vessels in the treasury of his god.
The king ordered Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the Israelites from the royal family and from the nobility—young men without any physical defect, good-looking, suitable for instruction in all wisdom, knowledgeable, perceptive, and capable of serving in the king’s palace. He was to teach them the Chaldean language and literature. The king assigned them daily provisions from the royal food and from the wine that he drank. They were to be trained for three years, and at the end of that time they were to attend the king. Among them, from the Judahites, were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. The chief eunuch gave them names; he gave the name Belteshazzar to Daniel, Shadrach to Hananiah, Meshach to Mishael, and Abednego to Azariah. (Daniel 1:1-7)
Jehoiakim, whose father was good King Josiah, did not follow in his father’s footsteps but instead did what was evil in the Lord’s sight. As a matter of fact, Jehoiakim wasn’t even set up as king by the people but by Pharaoh Neco of Egypt as a puppet king. Pharaoh made Jehoiakim pay tribute to him by collecting taxes from the citizens of the land, the common people who didn’t have extra to give. Jehoiakim ruled for 11 years, but in his third year as king of Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon laid siege to Jerusalem. Please pay close attention to Who handed Jehoiakim over to Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 1:2 - it was the Lord God who delivered him up because of the progression of evil most of Israel and Judah’s kings had led them into. This would be the beginning of the 70 years of captivity foretold by the prophet Jeremiah, whose prophecies detailed God’s judgment on Judah for their disobedience, culminating in destruction and exile in Babylon.
Interestingly, after Daniel and his friends were deported and Jehoiakim had been reinstated as king in Jerusalem, but as a vassal ruler under King Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah was instructed by the Lord God to write down on scrolls all of the prophecies he had already shared verbally with the people from the time of Josiah’s until present time. Yahweh said, “Perhaps when the house of Judah hears about all the disaster I am planning to bring on them, each one of them will turn from his evil way. Then I will forgive their iniquity and their sin.” (Jer 36:3) Plans were made to read the prophecy written on the scrolls to King Jehoiakim in the royal palace. It was winter, so the king was keeping warm at the fireplace. As the king would hear a few columns of text, he would grab the scroll, cut it into pieces and throw it into the fire to burn, until all of the words God had given to Jeremiah were completely destroyed. Jehoiakim was scrambling for control over his current situation and would not listen to the truth or submit to the God who put him on the throne. He reasoned that if the prophecy was burned up then it would not come to pass. He was wrong; no amount of fire could stop these prophecies from being fulfilled, but imagine the smell of the burning scrolls…
It was many years later when Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused to bow down and worship the golden statue of King Nebuchadnezzar and were sentenced to death in the fiery furnace. Like their buddy Daniel, they trusted the words of the Lord their God through the prophets and therefore could say with confidence to King Nebuchadnezzar’s face, “If the God we serve exists, then he can rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and he can rescue us from the power of you, the king. But even if he does not rescue us, we want you as king to know that we will not serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up.” (vv 17-18) Of course, we know the rest of the story: Nebuchadnezzar begins to rage and has the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual. While his soldiers are throwing the Hebrew dissenters into the flames, they are consumed themselves! Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego fall, bound, into the furnace, but they are not alone. There is a fourth man in the fire with them, with the appearance of a divine being like a son of the gods; this was either Preincarnate Christ or an angel, but either way, it was a physical demonstration of God’s presence with believers in their distress, a graphic fulfillment of the Lord’s promise in Isa. 43:2-3:
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you,
and the rivers will not overwhelm you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be scorched,
and the flame will not burn you.
For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, and your Savior.
In the case of these faithful men who were committed to only worship Yahweh, the fire had no effect on them - “not a hair of their heads was singed, their robes were unaffected, and there was no smell of fire.” (v 27)
* Sing Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee(See page 61 for lyrics)
* Reflect
* God is the sovereign Lord of history who causes kingdoms to rise and fall according to His decree. Nothing happens apart from His having ordained it in eternity past, and this is a comforting truth. It tells us that everything in history has a purpose even if we cannot now discern what that purpose happens to be. All events great and small are being used by the Lord to advance His glory and our good, and His control over all things is the only way we can be confident of that precious truth.
* How should this perspective impact yours?
* Pray for faith to trust and believe that God’s sovereign will cannot be thwarted - in our world, our church, our family, our body!
