In one set of lectionary readings for this week, the Old Testament selection comes from Daniel 3. It is the memorable story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and their deliverance from the fiery furnace. Though they are pressured by the king to bow to the idol made in his image, they will not, even though threatened with a painful death. In response to the king, they make a profound statement: Our God is able to deliver us and our God will deliver us; but even if he does not deliver us, we will not bow down to any other God.
What a profound and paradoxical pronouncement and so foreign to our modern ears! I found Fleming Rutledge’s reflections helpful. She writes,
This is a statement of ultimate trust in God for his own sake, a statement so radical as to make other statements about God look conditional, self-serving, and half-baked in comparison. This is not the familiar evangelistic technique of winning souls by recounting one tale after another of prayer requests answered. God is God, whether he chooses to intervene on the human stage in a particular way or not. His majesty, his righteousness, his worthiness to be worshiped do not depend on any given set of conditions that human beings might devise. The three young men believed that it was infinitely better to die praising the living God than it was to compromise his honor by acting as though he were no better than Nebuchadnezzar’s image - a god bound to and limited by the needs and demands of his followers, a god who would be at the beck and call of those who claimed to worship him…
God is supremely able, and worthy of worship for his own sake. Deliverance in this world is a sign of his greatness and “his mercy toward them that fear him,” but it is not an end in itself. In those little, “But if not,” a whole history of pain, suffering, ambiguity, and seemingly unanswered prayer is summed up. In those little words, “Even if not,” the determination of the Christian community to hold fast to the name of the Lord in spite of everything finds its noblest expression…
The worship of the living God may not bring us prosperity, may not bring us success, may not bring us advancement in this world, but he alone is worthy of worship for his own sake, he alone keeps his promises in the way that is best for us, he alone can and will vindicate the cause of his people. And for those who believe this, no road is too long, no fire too hot, no night too dark, no sacrifice too great, for truly, as King Nebuchadnezzar was forced to admit, “There is no other God who is able to deliver in this way.”
Saints, we are living through tough times, though I am not sure they are the worst times ever, especially in our American context. However, we are called to be exiles in this world (Hebrews 11:13, 1 Peter 1:1, 2:11) and to live as faithful followers of Jesus, regardless of the circumstances around us. The question we will be faced with is this: Will our commitment to Christ be conditional, dependent on us getting from God what we want, or unconditional, following wherever He leads, even if that means loss, struggle, and hardship? Or put more starkly, Who is the Lord, Jesus or us? May God grant us grace to answer the former more and more and the latter less and less.
