Cathedral of St. John the Baptist at 1900 Carlton Rd., Parma, OH 44134-3129 US - About the Fore-Fathers of Jesus Christ

      During the prefeast season of Christmas the Church celebrates the memory of many of the Hebrew prophets. Especially commemorated are the prophet Daniel and his companions, Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael, the three Hebrew youths who refused to worship the idol of King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon and were thrown into a fiery furnace, only to find themselves singing and dancing in the flames together with a "fourth person" who is taken by the Church to be the prefiguration of Jesus Himself.        Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth: "Peace be multiplied to you. I make a decree, that in all my royal dominion men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel, for He is the living God, enduring for ever; His kingdom shall never be destroyed, and His dominion shall be to the end. He delivers and rescues, He works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth, He who has saved Daniel from the power of the lions." (Dan 6;25-27).       The festival of Daniel and the three young men is essentially a festival of faith in the one true God, the Lord of Israel who saves those who believe in Him, and who at the end of the ages will bring forth an everlasting kingdom to which even the pagan kings will be compelled to bear witness. Thus, at the end of his life Nebuchadnezzar himself is forced to testify of the God of the three youths who put him to shame.       The prophet Daniel was an apocalyptic seer whose visions are repeated in the New Testament book of Revelation, where the everlasting kingdom of God which he foretold is clearly identified with the kingdom of the Messiah-Christ, who is Jesus of Nazareth.       The three young men who were confronted by the wicked king of Babylon did not claim that the true God would save them from death in the flames. They surely believed that He could, but they did not insist that He would! just the contrary. They bore witness to the fact that their God does whatever He wants. It was none of their business what He would or would not do, and it was certainly not the business of the king. They trusted their God in everything. If it was His will to deliver them, they were ready for that. But if it was His will that they should perish in the flames, they were ready for that as well! For they believed that whatever God did, He was still the God in whom they could trust for their ultimate victory. And no matter what God did, they still, under whatever circumstances, would not worship the idol that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. In a word, according to the witness of the three young men, real faith and genuine trust in God makes no deals and no claims. It is completely and totally ready, as was shown supremely in Jesus, to accept whatever the Father wills and provides, knowing that His faithful ones will never be put to shame. Only such faith can change fire into dew and deliver from death.

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