Blazing Fire

“Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven”, words taking from Scripture, expressing God’s anger by coming like a blazing fire. Blazing fire! That was the nickname we gave a nun in grade school, blazing fire, I can tell you her left hand was a blazing weapon.  

She was my teacher in fourth grade in the days when we had those many air raid drills where we had to hide under our desks when the air raid sirens were heard. I remember it well, “Shades down and under the desk” preparing for the real thing.

Yes, only a drill, but they were important drills, preparing for the worse, hoping for the best, in case of some type of an enemy attack.  Drills preformed with perfection prevent the real thing from being unfamiliar to us. We’ll be ready.

Football teams participate in drills preparing for the big game. The military engages in maneuvers, preparing them for the real battle. The fire department, police and first responders perform drills preparing in case of a catastrophic event. We do the drills, to be prepared.

One day in fourth grade I was being disciplined by the Sister Elizabeth, blazing fire herself, for something I’m sure I didn’t do, at least on purpose, and then she punished me by walking me by the ear, into the cloakroom and closed the door. There I was all alone.

Suddenly, the air raid sirens started to blare and I could hear through the walls the scampering about of the kids sliding under their desks, pulling down the shades and Blazing fire herself, barking out her orders. But, they forgot about me.

But, in that closet they also kept the pretzel bag, full of freshly baked salted pretzels that would be sold that day at recess. And it smelled so good.

Temptation got the best of me and I pulled up a strip of ten pretzels from inside the bag and tried to break one off, just one little pretzel, but, it slipped and a strip of 10 pretzels fell on the dirty hardwood floor exactly right next to the closed door that led into the classroom.

Thank God, the siren muffled the sound, but I knew that plenty of loose salt fell all over the filthy floor and if I didn’t clean that up, big trouble, the wrath of a nun called blazing fire would be upon me.

I threw the pretzels back into the bag, but for the life of me I couldn’t think of anything to sweep up all that salt. So, I was on all fours, pushing the salt in every direction away from the door.

The air raid sirens stopped and the cloak room door opened and there, Blazing fire herself came in, and there I was on hands and knees almost kissing the floor, blowing away the remains of any salt. Talk about trembling fear. But, something strange happened.

She reached down and helped me up, and apologized for leaving me all alone in the closet, and then commented, “but how good and obedient you were, down on your hands and knees, during the air raid drill.

But she, said some powerful words, “Always be prepared, for some day when you least expect it, it will be the real deal”.

Those words are like the real meaning of life.  We don’t know when God will call us. And every day is a drill and someday a drill will be the real deal.  Thank you blazing fire.

But, the true meaning of “The blazing fire” or “blazing like an oven”, as Malachi claims is a metaphor. It is the image of a brushfire that burns the stubble left over after the grain has been harvested.  It is the short growth that wasn’t cut and had been dried by the heat of the sun, and it is useless except as a fire starter.

So, what is God telling us? This blazing fire destroys all possible growth, any hope of any regeneration as the roots and the branches are burned, no promise of any new fruit. Every aspect is consumed by fire.  This was God’s anger against the Israelite nations, the stubble, for being the stiff-necked people they were.

It is a metaphor, so remarkable in its brevity and yet filled with so much for our imagination. For us, it is the Day of the Lord, the day of the harvest and the day the stubble will be burned, the day when the good will be rewarded and the evil punished, it is the fulfillment of God’s promises and the realization of the destiny of the world.

It is looking ahead at the end of history, to the last things, distinguishing between the wicked, who are burned, and the righteous, who by being prepared, who knew that the preparation would remove all fear of dying. Leaving no doubt, there is a heaven and there is a hell.

But, before all of this, there will be persecutions.  We’re told, persecution will not merely be an occasional episode, rather, it will be an “indisputable reality” for the Church and for individual Christians.

Through the ages, Christians have been burned, beheaded, crushed and fed to wild animals because of their God.  This is the picture most of us imagine when we hear the word “persecution”. But persecutions can be experienced in a different reality. It can be experienced by you and me in everyday life.

You can be heckled at work because of your faith, for standing up for moral issues and principals, you can be cursed at when praying in front of an abortion clinic, or just being made fun of by friends and family, because your God comes first on Sundays. You are becoming the righteous with your daily drills, and they will become the stubble.

Jesus tells us, every generation as Christians who will always be persecuted, even by family members, because of our love for Jesus.

And then, there will be awesome sights and the mighty signs that will come from the sky. And, at the end of the world, when Jesus comes in all his glory, many will be afraid, many will hide, except those who are prepared, those who know the drill by practicing their faith every day. 

At the second coming, Christ will be a blazing fire, not out of anger, but to snatch up those who are righteous, who practice their faith by defending God’s Word.  

The rest, those who were ashamed of God, of defending God and obeying his commandments, will be the stubble, to be set on fire and thrown into eternal darkness. He said, if you are ashamed of me and my words in this faithless and sinful generation, then I will be ashamed of you.

There is that old expression that says, “You know the drill”.  Make every day a drill for Jesus’ coming, be prepared, because one day, when we least expect it, it will be the real deal.