I have always liked the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: their courage in the face of a fiery death, their faith in God despite the threat of suffering, and their strength of character, which led them to choose God and truth over the comforts of earthly life.  As a child I puzzled over the ending, the scene in which King Nebuchadnezzar sees the four men, “unfettered and unhurt, walking in the fire.”  Why did the angel of the Lord, the one who "looked like a son of God," not bring them all the way out of the furnace, I wondered?  What were they thinking as they walked around in the flames? 

In the reading from John’s Gospel, Jesus tells His disciples, “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  We, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, have been bound and cast into flames, but in our case it is the chain of sin that binds us and the flames of temptation that threaten to devour us.  When we choose pride, self-indulgence, and vice over humility, selflessness, and virtue, we yield ourselves to a furnace from which we cannot escape on our own.  But Christ, like the angel of the Lord, frees us from sin and enables us to walk through temptation unburned.  He does not remove us from the furnace altogether; we remain amidst the flames for a time, surrounded by many idols: success, power, pleasure, wealth.  But the freedom Christ offers is freedom from the grip of sin, freedom to love Him above all else and thus to remain “unfettered and unhurt” no matter how fiery the furnace.

As I reflect on the readings for today, it occurs to me that they are wonderfully timed.  As we near the end of Lent and as Holy Week approaches, our commitment to our Lenten sacrifices may be fading (or have already faded).  The temptation to indulge in the small offerings we have given up, or to leave undone the good works we have promised, may be especially powerful when we are weary.  But John’s Gospel offers us the hope that what we cannot accomplish on our own we can accomplish with Christ.  If, when we feel the absence of the thing we crave, we contemplate Christ rather than the enticement of sin, if we open ourselves to God’s grace and make room for Christ in our hearts, we may find ourselves free to walk with Him through these final days of Lent and into the glory of Easter.