TuesdayMarch 17, 2009 of the Third week in Lent

Readings: Daniel 3: 25, 34-43 Psalm 25 Matthew 18: 21-35
psalm Response: " Remember Your Mercies O Lord"

Azariah was the Hebrew name of Abednego. Shadrach, Mischach and Abednego were captives of the Babylonian regime which captured Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple in 587 BC. Although written many centuries later, Daniel used the events of the Exile to reveal the triumph of God in the end.
Nebuchadnezzar took many of the leading citizens of Judah for their talents or their potential. The three friends of Daniel were chosen by the King to be magicians and advisors to him after a training period in which they were to be shown the mores of the Chaldeans, including their eating habits.
The King demanded each of the trainees eat from the royal table. Most of the foods offered were not kosher, "unclean," therefore the Judean captives convinced the royal cook to allow them to eat vegetables in defiance of the King's order. They ate only vegetables and at the end of the trial period were in better shape than those who obeyed the rules of the King.
Even though Nebuchadnezzar had acknowledged Daniel's God when Daniel was the only person in the Kingdom to interpret the King's dream, he soon denied his own conviction and had a golden statue sculpted and ordered all his subjects to bow down to this god at a prearanged signal. Azariah, Hananiah, Mishael and Daniel refused the Kings order and were thrown into a raging fire.
Each was frightened by the heat projected by the fire. However, when they were actually within the flames,they licked about them but did not harm them in any way.
Azariah, therefore, prayed the prayer of verses 26-34 in thanksgiving and praise to their God. Each was saved from the flames and were rescued by an unseen God they proclaimed and the King, himself, repeated his prior admition of their God being the only God.
Daniel is writing in the style of the age from 200 BC to 100 AD called Apocolyptic, whereby the scenes of history were projected onto the present. The message was in the end God wins!

The psalm recognizes the constant but invisible presence of God in our lives. Kings and rulers can charge and imprison us but they cannot be out done by force, because in reality, they have their positon from God's grace. They are to be obeyed by us but not according to their laws in contradistinction to God's Law.

The theme of God's mercy is epitomized by the extraordnary gift of forgiveness imparted by jesus' answer to Peter's question, "How many times do I forgive, seven?" It was his intent to show his own merciful heart!
It seemed incongruent to Peter, one would have to be merciful seven times the symbol of immeasurable occasions, onlr y to have his mentor, Jesus, tell him seventy times seven.
Peter was struck with the generosity of Jesus, until, he, himself, would experience forgiveness from an almost unpardonable action in his own past!

We cannot outdo God! His love is everlasting!