We
don't often spend time with Malachi, one of those “minor prophets”
who appear on the stage towards the end of Old Testament history.
Indeed, the name Malachi simply means “messenger” - so that the
individual is subsumed by his role, as the final voice in the chorus
that has, through the ages, exhorted Israel to get ready for the
coming of her Saviour.
So
we have a message from an unknown messenger, heard today completely
out of context. That happens so often as we work our way through the
Lectionary...and it's rarely helpful.
It's
worth my telling you, then, that in Chapter 2 Malachi has told God's
people that they have wearied God by their questioning of His
justice. While they complain “All who do evil are good in the sight
of the Lord...Where is the God of justice” - God's response, the
passage we hear today, is positively ominous. We hear it, of course,
cushioned by the musical glory of Handel's Messiah, but actually,
the message is far from encouraging.
“Who
can endure the day of his coming?”
That
seems a strange question for us in this season of Advent, when our
waiting is generally full of excitement.
Excitement
is fine – but what are we excited about?
It
seems to me that at times the church has rather lost its grip on
Advent. The world is intent on persuading us that what we are really
looking forward to a festival of excess – of shopping, eating,
drinking – even in a recession...or perhaps to a cute and cuddly
baby, radiating unlikely though heavenly peace...and we don't seem to
be very good at resisting that pressure.
Of
COURSE it matters that we are able to relate to popular culture –
for if we fail to do so, then we have no hope of sharing the gospel
with friends and neighbours...but I suspect that sometimes we all of
us take things a bit too far. It can be very hard to see anything
different about the lives of all of who profess to follow Christ.
It's all too easy to become simply “church goers” - defined by
the way that we spend our Sundays – rather that radical disciples,
co-operating with God's mission to share His love with the world.
And
in Advent, it's so very easy for our preparations to be sidelined in
favour of shopping, cooking, writing, wrapping...to treat these weeks
as just the space in which to get ready for the feast.
But
Advent focusses, too, on the 4 last things – Death, Judgement,
Heaven and Hell....unfashionable concepts that we prefer to skate
over. But we need, all of us, to listen to the prophets...to engage
with their message, which is, again and again, a call to REPENT.
The
pictures that we are given make that very clear.
While
Malachi finds the people of Israel accosting God with their own
grievances, wanting to hold HIM to account, it is in fact they –
and we – who face God's judgement. God will do anything ANYTHING to
enable us to come close to him...- that's what Christmas is all
about...- but as well as God's initiative, there is our response.
The
Lord will suddenly come to his Temple. The Lord HAS come. The message
of God to his people is lived out by Jesus, our Lord
Alleluia!
God comes...
Amazing
grace! God
welcomes us, just
as we are...
BUT
as
we draw near to God's holiness, those
words
that
Malachi
offered
to
the
dissatisfied
people
of
Israel
will
become
true
for
us
too.
We
will be changed. We will be stripped of those things that we've clung
to, those impurities that are so much part of life that we don't even
notice them. They will be burned away – the very word “purify”
comes from the Greek word for fire – or dissolved,as stubborn dirt
by the caustic properties of fullers soap. He
shall
purify
us, so
that we too may present offerings
in righteousness. That's the
promise...A promise made 2400
years ago......but a promise to be trusted.
The
Lord will come to his Temple – and purify his priests.
Fine
words, a wonderful picture but after Malachi spoke, it seemed that
nothing much happened. For another 450 years God's people waited –
and then, when Jesus arrived, they waited some more.
The
Lord they were seeking came to his temple, right enough,but it wasn’t
what they expected. Instead of a warrior, the Lord came as a baby.
Instead of military victory, the Lord experienced capture and a
degrading death.
The
New Testament writers had no doubt that the prophecy of Malachi was
fulfilled in the coming of Jesus the Messiah. The Lord came and the
people of God were remade. The whole people of God became the new
priesthood, the spiritual descendants of Levi. Through Jesus’ death
and resurrection, the sins of the people were dealt with once and for
all, and the righteousness of God imparted to all who accept it.
But
that was 2000 years ago, and perhaps we feel that we are in the same
place as those Jews 450 years before Christ. The Lord came, and we
beheld his glory, and then – nothing much happened.
Time,
then, to listen to the wisdom of St Bernard, who said “The Lord's
coming is threefold...and the third coming is between the other two
and is not as visible as they are. The
first coming was in flesh and weakness, the middle coming is in
spirit and power and the final coming will be in glory and majesty
So
– we are people who receive our Lord in that “third” coming.
Despite
the creeping secularism, the mess and muddle of a broken church, we
can be sure that the Lord has not forgotten us. He comes to us in
Spirit and in power...transforming us as we meet Him in the
Sacraments...
No
longer limited to the Temple in Jerusalem, He is present in his
people wherever they are. The Holy Spirit who came upon the disciples
in tongues of fire at Pentecost is a transforming, purifying fire
that can burn in all of us.
In
these days of Advent we prepare to hear again of God's Love made
flesh in the stable at Bethlehem – Christ's first coming, in all
its aching vulnerability.
We
heed the reminder, too, to look forward to Christ's second coming,
when things that were thrown down shall be built up and all that was
broken restored, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.
But
we live with our daily experience of his coming – God with us to
cleanse and heal as we repent and are absolved...God transforming us
as He gives us himself, in bread and wine.
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