The offensive truth hidden inside the Good News and what we should do about it

Jesus came so you could die.

Note that I didn’t say, “Jesus came so HE could die.” That statement is good news, and it’s a foundational element of the gospel, but I meant what I said:

Jesus came so YOU could die.

And that’s also part of the good news.

If you’re anything like me, you read that, and you have some immediate objections:

“Wait…isn’t dying bad?”

“What about John 10:10 (‘I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.’)?”

“How is me dying any part of the ‘good news’?”

But, get past the initial shock reaction, and you can see that it is indeed good news.

After all, Jesus also said these words:

“Calling the crowd along with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me and the gospel will save it.’”

According to Jesus, you can die now and live forever, or you can live for now and die forever. It’s death either way.

Most of the time, the choice to die now is not literal, instead referring to the intentional death of the ego, and a commitment to live under Jesus’ direction. It’s an inward death and an outward life. But sometimes, it is actual, physical death that’s on the table.

Daniel Chapter 3 records a story about some men who faced just such a stark choice. Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (their birth names, not the slave names their captors gave them) are commanded to fall down and worship an image of King Nebuchadnezzar.

The consequences for not obeying?

“Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.”

The response of the three Hebrew men (as reported by some jealous tattletales)?

“There are some Jews you have appointed to manage the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men have ignored you, the king; they do not serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up.”

The king’s response to their response?

“in a furious rage Nebuchadnezzar gave orders to bring in Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. So these men were brought before the king. Nebuchadnezzar asked them, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, is it true that you don’t serve my gods or worship the gold statue I have set up? Now if you’re ready, when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, drum, and every kind of music, fall down and worship the statue I made. But if you don’t worship it, you will immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire—and who is the god who can rescue you from my power?”

Their response to his response to their response?

“Nebuchadnezzar, we don’t need to give you an answer to this question. If the God we serve exists, then he can rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and he can rescue us from the power of you, the king. But even if he does not rescue us, we want you as king to know that we will not serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up.”

That’s a bold choice. It’s a choice to die.

But, before we look at how it turned out, consider a scenario in which they chose differently:

“Ok, king. We’ll bow. Play the music and watch us genuflect and grovel. We’re Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, your humble servants.”

It looks like self-preservation but would, in fact, be choosing death as well. In fact, it’d be choosing death by suicide. Instead of burning in a furnace, they’d bleed out because such a choice would end up requiring a myriad of cuts. They’d have to cut out their heart-language, cut off their relationship to their people, sever their ties to their past, excise their ideals, and chop off the lifeline between them and their God.

A furnace is quick; death by the thousand cuts of self-preservation is slow. But it’s death either way.

Spoiler alert: they didn’t die either way that day. Instead, the God who was able to save them actually saved them:

And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego fell, bound, into the furnace of blazing fire. Then King Nebuchadnezzar jumped up in alarm. He said to his advisers, “Didn’t we throw three men, bound, into the fire?”

“Yes, of course, Your Majesty,” they replied to the king.

He exclaimed, “Look! I see four men, not tied, walking around in the fire unharmed; and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”

Nebuchadnezzar then approached the door of the furnace of blazing fire and called, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, you servants of the Most High God—come out!” So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out of the fire. When the satraps, prefects, governors, and the king’s advisers gathered around, they saw that the fire had no effect on the bodies of these men: not a hair of their heads was singed, their robes were unaffected, and there was no smell of fire on them. Nebuchadnezzar exclaimed, “Praise to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego! He sent his angel and rescued his servants who trusted in him. They violated the king’s command and risked their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God. Therefore I issue a decree that anyone of any people, nation, or language who says anything offensive against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego will be torn limb from limb and his house made a garbage dump. For there is no other god who is able to deliver like this.”

Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah chose to die, but Jesus gave them life. I could be wrong, but I think the “fourth man” in the fire was Jesus, incarnate, re-injected into the time stream to prove that “those who lose their life” for the Kingdom of God will be saved.

Oh, and deliver His three countrymen.

If He did that, then, is He less capable today? I don’t think so. The world doesn’t need any more grovelers and craven self-preservers, but it is in desperate need of some courageous die-rs, self-deny-ers, and Jesus-followers. Jesus can save the latter, but He can’t do anything for the former.

What will you choose? Remember, it’s death either way, but one death leads to life everlasting, and the other does not.  

Choose wisely.