READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Daniel 3:1-30
St. John 20:1-18
May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
Jesus speaks to you today, saying:
“But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”
I want you to note and memorize the words spoken by the 3 children thrown into the fiery furnace. They say, “But if not” in our English translation. And that’s in response to their own statement about how the Lord has the ability to rescue them, quite bodily, out of the hand of the evil king who wants to broil them.
“But if not”, they confess. Even if God does not save them from the king’s hand, they will not give up the faith that has been so graciously bestowed upon them and the forgiveness of sins that has been completely purchased and won for them.
For as you heard in the reading from Daniel 3, king Nebuchadnezzar is posing as god, as all good political leaders do, and he is seeking to maintain his membership roles. He does this by purging them of any dissent. He does not care that people can fake worshipping his idols, because in the end the fakers comply and do exactly as he wanted in the first place.
I argue this morning, that Nebuchadnezzar doesn’t want a religion, in the truest sense of the word, he wants sheep to fleece. And the sheep comply in the face of a little threat of violence, because who wants to die? Nebuchadnezzar wants cash cows…er sheep. He wants his wallet to grow and his name and kingdom to be the greatest. You can’t murder everyone because what kind of cash-sheep system has no sheeple??
Conveniently enough, the culture group that he needs to make an example of, has already proven itself more exemplary than Nebuchadnezzar’s own culture. Daniel and the three young men have already been promoted to pretty high offices within the kingdom, after having been dragged from their homes into exile. But they are true believers and that part of the people are the problem for the king.
So Nebuchadnezzar must solve this problem, because for earthly kings, there is no “But if not”. The king cannot say “Bow down and worship or I will kill you” “But if not”, “but if you don’t”… because then there would be no teeth in the mandate and the kingdom would rebel against such ridiculous law-making.
In Nebuchadnezzar’s false religion, the religion of the world, if you apostatize, you are put to death. Death is the punishment for leaving. This is one of the ways to spot a false religion in general: if death is the penalty for leaving the “faith”.
Now death is the penalty for leaving the Christian faith as well, because Jesus does say things like, “You will die in your sins” (Jn 8:24). But He never commands His followers to pull the trigger. Sin is rebellion, as in, sin causes you to leave the faith. If you love your sin, you can keep it, but you will die by those self-inflicted wounds, being seperated from Life Himself.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego do not believe Christianity is a false religion and put their lives on the line to prove it. They proclaim life after death. They proclaim that God rewards those who leave the worlds’ religions with life. “…our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up” (Dan 3:17-18).
The world’s religion promises death. The one, true religion promises life. The 3 young men were alive during the exile, they would be alive if the king rescinded, and they would be alive after death. That is what “But if not” means there.
For as we ponder this early morning at the tomb, it is the close and completion of that “But if not”. For Jesus is the one young man that stood before the king, defying mandate and order, and was sentenced to death by the burning fiery furnace of God’s wrath, crucified as a king.
His words to Pilate and the priests were “But if not”. If you put me to death, you will see the Son of Man coming in glory, seating at the Right Hand of God. If you put me to death, my kingdom is not of this world and the Father will glorify Me.
“but if not”…but if the Cup does not pass from me, if my friends all betray me, if my world rejects me and puts me to death, even so, the will of God is always best. And just like the 3 young men, Jesus was rescued out of that furnace, but He was rescued in the best way. The way that puts an end to death and will allow all of us to be dumped into a furnace, die, and still come out alive.
God gives us “But if not” faith. God gives us the faith to stare down death, even when we don’t want to. The women that went to the tomb early this morning and did not have “but if not” faith, for they were looking for a dead man. But, you can be sure they left with it.
Because God has raised Jesus from the dead, we have faith to face death and say, “Even though you do your worst, all you do is put me out of your jurisdiction”. For Nebuchadnezzar’s authority only extends as far as he can reach and he cannot reach into the grave.
And that is the point and object of faith. Men can only kill the body. The world can only kill your body. It can not destroy you. It cannot destroy what and whom you love. It cannot remove joy from your life without your say-so. And it cannot remove life from your grasp.
For your life is hidden in Christ and is found in His grasp. His grasp which did not let go of spear and nail until He had paid for your redemption completely. Now in Christ, you live and the furnace you are thrown into is but a font of water. The poison the world force-feeds you is but bread and wine to you. Christ is arisen, man and the world can do nothing to you.
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