Through fire and water

Tracy Niven
Monday 15 May 2023

Preacher: Revd Dr Donald MacEwan, University Chaplain
Readings: Daniel 3:1-28; Psalm 66:7-18; 1 Peter 3:13-22

In every chapel service, the choir sings a psalm.  It’s not chosen at random, but to illuminate the other readings set for the service or for the season.  This song-book of 150 psalms is an extraordinary record of human experience, much broader in range than last night’s Eurovision Song Contest, though with less dry ice.  When I read the psalm for today, 66, one phrase leapt out at me: We went through fire and water.  (Actually, some of last night’s singers did walk through columns of fire.)

Maybe that phrase, through fire and water, struck me so much because two weeks ago today I was at the Gaudie, that torchlit procession along the pier as dusk falls.  Gowned students were carrying fire, and as they walked out and back on the pier, you could say they went through fire and water.  We certainly went through water the following morning, a stone’s throw from the pier, splashing through the North Sea as the sun rose on the May Dip.

God is with us through fire and water.  In the Bible that’s not initially a metaphor.  Earlier in the same psalm, we hear of God turning the Red Sea into dry land, parting the waves so the Hebrews could escape the murderous Pharaoh: the Exodus from Egypt.

And in the dramatized reading earlier from the Book of Daniel, we encountered a story, a wonderful story, of literally going through fire.  It’s both simple and profound.

It’s about a despotic ruler, Nebuchadnezzar, in Babylon (modern-day Iraq) who erects a massive statue as a test of loyalty, apparently to his god but really to him.  Three Jewish men in his court, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, will not bow down and worship this idol, because of their faith in God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  And so Nebuchadnezzar condemns them to death, casting them into a fiery furnace.  But, miraculously, they are not burnt by the fire: they are saved.  And the king sees not three figures in the fire but four, and this fourth looks like an angel.  Is it the presence of God himself?  (The image from Sudan on the cover of the order of service from the Eighth Century depicts this fourth with the three youths.  Sudan today, over 2000 years from when this story was written down, has leaders like Nebuchadnezzar demanding loyalty, and killing to enhance their power.  And there have been reports of fighting around the National Museum in Khartoum where this treasure is kept.)  The three men emerge; Nebuchadnezzar is astonished and transformed.  Instead of his statue, he uses the words “the supreme God” for the Hebrews’ God.  And he praises God, recognising that God honoured the faithful disobedience (to him) of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.  God was with these faithful souls through fire.

How do we hear this story today?  Not mainly for help in literal fires, though I well remember the fire which engulfed the BMS building on the North Haugh in 2019.  Last month, the new BMS building was opened – but there remain researchers whose lives and work are still deeply affected, who are still going through fire.

Or we may hear the story from Babylon, and think of places today where Christians and other people of faith are persecuted for their convictions and commitment, where there are discriminatory laws, violent attacks and intimidation: these include North Korea, Nigeria and India.  Thankfully, it is much safer to be a Christian in St Andrews, but people can still feel some heat from others for following Jesus – resisting aspects of contemporary society, its trust in things; and promoting a deep care for humanity and creation, unpopular with power and wealth.

But I think there is an even broader meaning for today in the tale of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.  For we all go through some tough things: waters that may overwhelm us, fires that may cause burnout.  This semester alone, students, staff and others have experienced many such floods and fires:

ill health, from long-ranging effects of Covid to cancer diagnoses;
mental health issues from increasing anxiety to deepening depression;
friendships that go from fun to fraught in the blink of a whats’app group chat one night;
relationships which lose the lightness of love;
the relentless pressure of deadlines, and yet the weird feeling of vertigo when they’re all over;
the pain of loss, especially the death of those we love.

For many people, life can feel like one fiery ordeal after another.  Well, if this story from Daniel is God’s word for us today, are we rescued from the furnace?  Do we emerge unscathed?  Are people transformed by our rescue?

Sometimes, yes, absolutely, but we need to understand something crucial here.  Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were not rescued from entering the furnace – they had to go in.  Nobody is immune from trials and troubles: they come as standard with life.  Health issues in body and mind, fractured friendships and relationships, deadlines and losses – they are part of our everyday lives.  We might wish for a life without worry, but I sense it would be a rather dull, grey, boring existence this side of eternity.  God doesn’t enfold us in bubble-wrap even in the Bubble of St Andrews.  Instead, we go through the fire, through the waters of our troubles, and we find we are not alone.  Remember, Nebuchadnezzar saw a fourth figure, a presence, a companion with them.  Was it an angel?  Christians have seen the figure as pre-figuring Christ, the risen Christ with us in all we face.

How do we experience this fourth in our fires?  By seeing him?  Hearing his voice?  Perhaps, but surely that is unusual.  Could I suggest these ordinary experiences in which God is with us?

In a loving friend sharing pasta when you’ve no time to cook.
In facetiming family, who hear selected highlights from our lives.
In the embrace of a partner after a long day.
In a walk in stunning shades of green on the Lade Braes.
In a quiet moment in this chapel, drawing strength from its centuries of prayer.
In opening scripture, and reading words that seem just right for you at that moment.
In facing your problems, and dealing with what needs to be done.
These human moments strike me as no different from the presence of God in the furnace: they are the means God uses to deliver us.

But what of times when it feels there is no fourth presence, we are not strengthened, there is no experience of God with us?  People share that experience with me too.  Let’s go back to the story.  Shadrach says something magnificent:

If the God whom we serve is able to save us from the blazing furnace and from your power, then he will.  But even if he doesn’t, Your Majesty may be sure that we will not worship your god, and we will not bow down to the gold statue that you have set up.

But even if he doesn’t

This is so realistic.  Shadrach opens up the possibility of not being rescued, of perishing in the flames, but he still trusts in God, still refuses to obey the tyrant Nebuchadnezzar, still knows it is worth being faithful, living with integrity, following the course.

Our reading from 1 Peter spells this out:

13 Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? 14 But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed.

But even if you do suffer: there is something powerful about the words But even – in the mouths of both Shadrach and Peter, hundreds of years apart.

I hope that I’ll sense God’s presence, strength and guidance; that I will have success in degree, work and life; that I will experience plenty of love in family, friendship and other half; that I will be in a good place in body, mind and soul.  But even if these don’t happen, I am blessed, I will not be afraid, I will come through the fire, wade through the water, and land safe on the other side.

You may well know this text called Footprints, but it just seems so perfect for today:

One night I dreamed a dream.  As I was walking along the beach with my Lord, across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.  For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand, one belonging to me and one to my Lord.  After the last scene of my life flashed before me, I looked back at the footprints in the sand.  I noticed that at many times along the path of my life, especially at the very lowest and saddest times, there was only one set of footprints.

This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it. “Lord, you said once I decided to follow you, you’d walk with me all the way.  But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life, there was only one set of footprints.  I don’t understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me.”  He whispered, “My precious, precious child, I love you and will never leave you.  When you saw only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”

We’ve looked backwards at footprints, maybe on the East Sands – let’s also look forwards.  For some here, this could be your final Sunday service in chapel.  By 3 September, you may have graduated, or handed in your Masters dissertation or PhD thesis, or your time in St Andrews is over.  What’s next?

Well, let me share what people tell me when they come back, years later sometimes.  They tell me what’s happened – new work, new homes, perhaps their deepening commitment to Christ’s kingdom of love.  Sometimes I’m part of the story, right here, when I conduct their wedding, or when I take their child through the water of baptism.

Of course, there will be fires to go through, but even then, there will be that presence with you, that fourth figure in the flames, the one whose love never lets us go through fire and water.  That’s the song of our lives, and it wins hands down every year.

END

 

 

Share this story


Leave a reply

By using this form you agree with the storage and handling of your data by this website.