The Fourth Man in the Fire
Daniel 3. 19-25, Malachi 4.1-6, II. Peter 3.11-13, Luke 21.5-19
So how was your week? We’re coming up on Thanksgiving, and it may seem a violation of the holiday spirit to say it, but this has been a pretty tough week for some of us. I don’t know about you, but sometimes this week I’ve had the feeling that I’m living in the meltdown, in a place where things are falling apart, where much of what I care about most is threatened and under attack. The Brunson family found itself in crisis this week, when little McKenzie’s mom showed up and announced that she was taking McKenzie away to Arizona. You can imagine the heartache that Judi and Bud and all the rest of the family have been going through this week. It broke my heart, but all I could do about it was to stand there feeling the sorrow along with them, feeling pretty helpless to do anything more. For much of this week our dear Omerine was in Harrison with her mother, who was gravely ill following a stroke—and Saturday morning around 5:30, Omarine’s mother passed away. Then I heard that Angie Gage has lost her cousin in combat in Iraq. And then I learned that a dear friend had just found out about some medical tests that came back with a fairly discouraging report. At Hendrix College, too, the mood was pretty downbeat for the week before Thanksgiving; students and faculty alike were feeling all the pressures of the end of a grueling semester. But I guess the worst part of the week for me—the straw that broke the camel’s back—was a totally unexpected confrontation with some dear friends, who walked away from our friendship, and walked away from this church, when they found out that they had a disagreement with your senior pastor about the recent presidential election. I was absolutely stunned—and I still am. For most of last week, I was walking around in a state of shock and a deep sadness that sometimes bordered on depression. It took me most of the week to come to terms with the realization that for some of my brothers and sisters in Christ, a disagreement about politics takes precedence over our unity in the love of Jesus. For some of my brothers and sisters in Christ, it seems that politics trumps everything—even the grace of God, even the love of Jesus, even our communion in the Holy Spirit. That realization brought a lot of what I thought I knew about the life of God’s people into serious question, and I’ve had to spend this past week rethinking a lot of things; I’ve had to go back to the drawing boards, so to speak, and try to figure out what kind of world this is that I’m living in after all. That’s the kind of week it’s been for me.
So the somber words of our Scripture texts from Malachi and now from the Gospel of Luke fit my mood pretty closely this morning. Malachi describes a day that will be like the burning of a furnace, when everything gets rearranged, when a lot of things just can’t take the heat. And Jesus foretells a time of turmoil and conflict, plagues, earthquakes, and famines—the literal shaking of the foundations of the world we thought we knew. At the end of a week like the one that’s just passed, it’s easy for me believe that those words were spoken directly to my heart.
Luke tells us that the disciples were admiring the sturdy foundations of Herod’s temple. Here was a sight that blew them away. Here was something far bigger than themselves, something with a claim on permanence, something that could be counted on to last forever. The disciples, after all, were mostly country-bumpkins, and it’s easy to imagine that the big city of Jerusalem had already impressed them with its amazing sights and sounds. And now the sight of the temple took their breath away! Never before had they seen anything like this! “Jesus!” they said—“just look at these stones!” Their reaction reminds me of the time in the summer of 1959 when little Johnny Farthing from what I sometimes call “Redneck City, VA”—little Johnny Farthing from the rural South—laid eyes for the first time on the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. I could hardly believe my eyes. Maybe that’s something like what the disciples were feeling when they gazed at the Temple. They had never seen anything like this! That’s just how I felt when I saw the wonders of the big city for the first time. A few years later, I had a similar sensation when I stood staring up at the grandeur of the gothic chapel at Duke University. Norma and I saw it again this past summer when we were there, and I felt the same sense of wonder all over again. The main tower of Duke Chapel soars up toward heaven and seems as if it will go on forever. It’s huge , massive, impressive—and someone who did the measurements has concluded that Duke Chapel is of approximately the same size as Herod’s Temple in Jesus’ day. No wonder this bunch of country hicks from the backwaters of the Galilee stood there staring in amazement, saying to Jesus, “Lord, just take a look at those stones! Have you ever seen anything like that?” But Jesus isn’t impressed. He stuns the gawking sight-seers with a startling pronouncement: he tells them that whatever may seem so imposing now will one day surely be swallowed up in nothingness. Even this shall pass away… Even this has no claim on permanence: “I tell you,” he says, “this whole structure is going to melt away; there is coming a time when not one of these stones will be left upon another. Take my word for it,” says Jesus: “all of this that so impresses you, everything that you take to be an abiding reality, everything that right now seems so sturdy and reliable—all of it is going to pass away.” And guess what? Jesus was right. That’s the verdict of history: Jesus was, and is, eternally right. In July of 2000, I went to Jerusalem with Dr. Flannery-Dailey and a group of Hendrix students. Pretty soon after we arrived in Jerusalem, I went looking for Herod’s Temple. When I stood at the site where the disciples had been so over-awed by the massive dimensions of the Temple, do you know what I saw? Just a jumble of rocks making up what is now called the Wailing Wall, where the Jewish people go to pray and to weep for their devastated Temple. The Temple that so impressed the disciples is simply not there anymore. And I thought to myself, “Just look at these stones now. Jesus was right…” Everything passes away. Everything eventually gets caught in the meltdown. That’s true for me, and that’s true for you, but it’s also true for the things that we hope will outlast us. One day, maybe sooner than we would like to think, you and I won’t be here anymore. One day, they’ll come looking for us and we’ll be gone. As much as we try to deny it, or forget it, or ignore it, we all know that God was talking to us when he said, “Dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” But then we grasp for permanence in other ways—some of us write books that we hope people in future generations will read; some of us try to build financial empires that we hope to pass on to our descendents, and some of us seek other ways to leave footprints in the sands of time, so that when we are gone at least we won’t be forgotten. And in that way we hope to live on, at least in the memories of those who come after us. But, of course, those who are coming after us are in the same predicament that we are in. They are as mortal as we know ourselves to be. They too will be swallowed up in the same meltdown that consumed Herod’s Temple.
A few years ago, Duke University Press published a book of min in a prestigious series. At the time it seemed like a pretty big deal. I was elated and overjoyed about getting my book published. But today it’s out of print! If it’s not already forgotten by everybody, soon it will be. For me that helps to put things in perspective. Sooner or later, it all melts down. It all fades away. It all turns to dust. Sooner or later, everything, and everyone, is swallowed up in death and becomes a part of the dead past. That’s why St. Augustine said, “If you build your life on anything that can be taken from you, you’re making a huge, eternal mistake—because sooner or later, if it can be taken from you, it will be…and if that’s what you’ve centered your life in, what will you do then?”
So where can we find hope in the midst of the meltdown? Did you notice? Right after startling his disciples with a profoundly disturbing insight into the mortality, the impermanence, of all things, Jesus startled them again with a word of hope: “Look up!” he said; “Look up! Your redemption is drawing near!” Of course, we modern people hardly think we stand in need of redemption. We like to think that we are in control of ourselves. We like to think that we are in charge of our own lives. We like to think that we are the masters of our world. Why should we need a Savior when we’re so on top of things—so in control of things— in our world? We can do heart transplants and bypasses—we can walk on the moon—we can build skyscrapers that would make Herod’s Temple seem like a peasant’s hut. Just look at these stones. But Jesus says that one day all these things will pass away; all these things will one day melt in a fervent heat. And somewhere deep inside, we can’t help knowing that Jesus is right… That’s why we try to keep ourselves distracted by all the bubbles and baubles and jewels and toys of modern civilization, so that we won’t have to face the inevitability of the meltdown—because that just might throw us into a crippling despair.
But it turns out that when you find yourself right in the midst of the furnace— when everything you counted on and took for granted begins to melt away—Jesus is right there with you in the midst of the flames…and his eternal love turns out to be the one thing that can’t be burned away. Even after a week like the one that’s just ended, that’s what I’m most thankful for.
When the three Hebrew children—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—were thrown into a fiery furnace because of their faithfulness to God, King Nebuchadnezzar, came to witness their execution—but he was stunned to see not three but four men in the fire…and he recognized that the fourth man in the fire was none other than the Son of God (Daniel 3.19-25). Is there meaning in the meltdown? You bet there is! The good news is that when all that we have accumulated, all that we have clung to, all that we have relied on burns and melts away, there in the heart of the furnace we come face to face with the Fourth Man in the fire—the One whose name is Immanuel —God with us.
Many years ago, struggling with what turned out to be terminal cancer, Betty Warren, a member of my little church in Prospect Hill, N.C., said to me, “Bro. John, this isn’t what I wanted. This isn’t what I had planned for this stage in my life. And yet, through it all, these have been the best days of my life, and right now I’m closer to God than I’ve ever been before. Just because the things I used to rely on have all been taken away from me, I have had to learn how to lean on Jesus, and I’ve found him more real, more precious, more near to me than I had ever before known him to be. I know God better right here in this hospital bed than I’ve ever known him before, and I there’s one thing that I know with absolute certainty: It is well with my soul.”
My brothers and sisters, in days like these, there lies our hope. There’s a Fourth Man in the fire, and his name is Jesus—Immanuel, God with us. Here’s the meaning in the meltdown: God is with us. God is for us—even, and especially, in the meltdown of this world and all the things we have thought that we could count on.
How about you this morning? Does your world seem to be spinning out of control? Are you beginning to suspect that the center just will not hold? Do you know what it feels like to be living in a meltdown? Then hear the Good News: God himself will meet you there for a connection, an intimacy, a communion that will empower you not just to survive but to overcome. In the shaking of the foundations—in the meltdown that reveals with terrible clarity what’s real and what’s not—in the brokenness of his own body and in the shedding of his own blood, Christ comes to us with the grace that makes us whole. And whosoever will may come.
Thanks be to God. Hallelujah. Amen.
John L. Farthing
21 November, 2004