Daniel 3: 19 – 30
Then Nebuchadnezzar was so filled with rage against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that his face was distorted. He ordered the furnace to be heated up seven times more than was customary, and ordered some of the strongest guards in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and to throw them into the furnace of blazing fire. So the men were bound, still wearing their tunics, their trousers, their hats, and their other garments, and they were thrown into the furnace of blazing fire. Because the king’s command was urgent and the furnace was so overheated, the raging flames killed the men who lifted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. But the three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down, bound, into the furnace of blazing fire.
Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up quickly. He said to his counsellors, ‘Was it not three men that we threw bound into the fire?’ They answered the king, ‘True, O king.’ He replied, ‘But I see four men unbound, walking in the middle of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the fourth has the appearance of a god.’ Nebuchadnezzar then approached the door of the furnace of blazing fire and said, ‘Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!’ So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out from the fire. And the satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the king’s counsellors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men; the hair of their heads was not singed, their tunics were not harmed, and not even the smell of fire came from them. Nebuchadnezzar said, ‘Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants who trusted in him. They disobeyed the king’s command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God. Therefore I make a decree: Any people, nation, or language that utters blasphemy against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins; for there is no other god who is able to deliver in this way.’ Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon.
Reflection
Rage has two faces.
The first, and most commonly understood one, is that of tyrants such as Nebuchadnezzar. They are dedicated to the status quo, which benefit them and others with power. The other face of rage is seen in Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They had been uprooted from their homeland when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem. They shared in what Martin Luther King Jr called a ‘divine dissatisfaction’ that the world as it was was not the world as it should have been. Yet they channelled their rage into the God who is love, rather than succumbing to fear and its cousin, hate.
For them, love was not ‘emotional bosh.’ Perhaps these words of Dr King also would have resonated with them:
‘I’m concerned about a better world … through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can’t murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can’t establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate through violence. Darkness cannot put out darkness; only light can do that.’
Dr King concluded this message addressing the ‘divine dissatisfaction’ of the treatment of Black people in America, by saying:
‘[L]et us remember that there is a creative force in this universe working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realise that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego went with the living God into that tyrant’s fire. With God, they came out not even smelling of fire. We, likewise, go with God whenever we do not cave to the fear and violence of today’s tyrants. We go with God when we act on our own ‘divine dissatisfaction’, channelling our rage to participate in the creative joy with which God liberates people from all forms of oppression. Thanks be to God.
Prayer
God, you deliver us from the evils of violent tyrants.
Save us from doing violence ourselves.
Let us go into tyrants’ fires without fear.
Let us channel our rage, our divine dissatisfaction,
that the world as it is is not the world as it should be,
into acts of love, carried out in your holy name. Amen.