The Rev. Paul J Cain
Malachi 3:1-14
My Messenger
Second Sunday in Advent C, 09 December 2012
Immanuel Lutheran Church, Sheridan, Wyoming
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
About the Cover: John the Baptist heralds our Lord’s advent,
crying out in the wilderness for us to make ready the way for our King in lives
of true repentance and God-wrought faith. Each year when John steps before us,
he challenges us to stop playing religious games and to realize that welcoming
the Savior, whose opposition to sin never changes, into our lives is a matter
of eternal life or death.
Malachi, whose name
means “my messenger,” is the last prophet of the grace of God until John the
Baptist appears approximately 400 years later. And so it is fitting for Malachi
to prophesy concerning the forerunner of Jesus, who will proclaim: “Behold, the
Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). The prophet
predicts the function of John: “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will
prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his
temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is
coming, says the Lord of hosts. (3:1). Jesus’ forerunner is referred to as one
like Elijah in the concluding verses of Malachi: “Behold, I will send you
Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the
hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their
fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”
(4:5–6; cf. Mt 11:13–14; 17:12–13; Mk 9:11–13; Lk 1:17).
In Jeremiah’s day,
600 years before Jesus, Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed. This we
learned last week. The people were taken to exile in Babylon. Seventy years
later, the exiles return. Spurred on by
the prophetic activity of Haggai and Zechariah, the returned exiles (under the
leadership of their governor Zerubbabel) finished the temple in 516 b.c. In 458 the community was
strengthened by the coming of Ezra the priest and several thousand more Jews.
[The] King (Artaxerxes) of Persia encouraged Ezra to develop the temple worship
(Ezr 7:17) and to make sure the law of Moses was being obeyed (Ezr 7:25–26).
Although the Jews
had been allowed to return from exile and rebuild the temple, they were
discouraged. Their land remained but a small province in the backwaters of the
Persian empire. The glorious future announced by the prophets (including the
other postexilic prophets, Haggai and Zechariah) had not (yet) been realized.
Their God had not (yet) come to his temple (3:1) with majesty and power (as
celebrated in Ps 68) to exalt his kingdom in the sight of the nations. Doubting
God’s covenant love (1:2) and no longer trusting his justice (2:17; 3:14–15),
the Jews of the restored community began to lose hope. So their worship
degenerated, and they no longer took the law seriously. This is the situation
Malachi ministered to, about 400 years before Christ.
Malachi once more
reassures and warns his readers that “the day [‘that great and dreadful day of
the Lord,’ 4:5] is coming” and
that “it will burn like a furnace” (4:1). In that day the righteous will
rejoice, and “you will trample down the wicked” (4:1–3). So “remember the law
of my servant Moses” (4:4). To prepare his people for that day the Lord will
send “the prophet Elijah” to call them back to the godly ways of their
forefathers (4:5–6).
In walks one like Elijah, that is, John the Baptist, whom we
read about on Sunday. A portion of St. Luke chapter 3 is our Gospel lesson this
week, relevant to what Malachi said about the coming Lord: But who can endure
the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a
refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. 3
He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and
refine them like gold and silver. St.
Luke 3 shows that John does the work Malachi foresaw.
John certainly did
exhort the people. But before he gets to the Good News, he proclaims the law.
He shares about the coming judgment that the Messiah would bring:
9 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the
trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and
thrown into the fire...17 His
winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the
wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” (Luke
3:9, 17)
The refiners fire.
Thrown into the fire, Burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Malachi and
John are talking about the same things. The reference to the coming wrath is
both a reference to the destruction of Jerusalem that occurred in AD 70 and the
final judgment, the Day of the Lord that Malachi speaks of in chapter 4, the same chapter
where he prophesied about John being one like Elijah:
“For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the
arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set
them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root
nor branch. (Mal. 4:1)
Fire means judgment,
coming wrath. The ax is at the root—a
symbolic way of saying that judgment is near for those who give no
evidence of repentance. His winnowing
fork. The chaff represents the unrepentant and the wheat the righteous.
Many Jews thought that only pagans would be judged and punished when the
Messiah came, but John declared that judgment would come to all who did not
repent—including Jews.
After His first Advent, the judgment, wrath, fire, ax, and
winnowing fork were reserved for the unbelieving
Jews. The Temple and Jerusalem were destroyed yet again in AD 70. John preached,
“Bear fruits in keeping with repentance.” But his words were not heeded by
many. And destruction was the
consequence. Both the preaching of Malachi and John the Baptist prepare us for
what we know as the Second Advent, the Second Coming of the Messiah, the Christ
as Judge. “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance,” we are told. Our works do
not earn our salvation, but our thoughts, words, and deeds can threaten our
salvation, if they are not in keeping with repentance. Let us learn from the
mistake of those who would not repent after hearing John’s preaching. Let us
heed the words of our Lord’s messengers as we prepare for the Day of the Lord.
It will be great and dreadful for those who do not repent. But for those who
repent, the Judge is our advocate. Let us heed the words of our Lord’s
messenger:
3 “Behold, I
send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you
seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in
whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. 2 But who can endure
the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a
refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. 3 He
will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of
Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in
righteousness to the Lord. 4 Then
the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days
of old and as in former years.
5 “Then
I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the
sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against
those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless,
against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord
of hosts.
6 “For
I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.
7 From the days of
your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them.
Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts.
Our God is trustworthy and true, unchanging, reliable, and
merciful. The world may change around us
and threaten uncertainty, so-called “tolerance” and a different
so-called “truth” for as many people that exist, yet our Lord remains
trustworthy and true, unchanging, reliable, and merciful.
Our offerings are acceptable to the Lord, and we bring them
in righteousness, only because the Lord Christ has purified and refined us like
gold and silver. But He did not purify us using gold or silver, as we confess
with Dr. Luther: I believe that Jesus
Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born
of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned
person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of
the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and
with His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His own and live under
Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and
blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all
eternity. This is most certainly true. Amen.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
