Prepare

Malachi 3:1-4

What do you do to prepare for Christmas? Most of us have traditions that we follow: who puts up a Christmas tree? Who decorates with lights? Who buys Christmas presents? Who prepares for charitable outreach, like food baskets or gifts for those in need? Who prepares for a special Christmas program or party?

What other preparations do you make for Christmas?

A major theme of Advent is preparation. Advent is a kind of strange time; we’re supposed to prepare for something that already happened. Kind of like Good Friday, where we mourn over Jesus’ death, even though we know that Easter will come and we’ll be celebrating his resurrection. So how do we prepare for something that already happened?

While we’re on the thought of what already happened, I want to look backwards from the passage we read in Malachi 3. Most of us don’t spend a lot of time in the little books of prophecy in the end of the Old Testament, the ones that are known as the Minor Prophets, so what’s in them isn’t as familiar as David and Goliath or Noah or Abraham.

Before Malachi 3, we see a pretty grim picture of what worship had become some four hundred years before Jesus’ birth. God asks “Where is the honor due me?” “Where is the respect due me?” God makes the accusation that they are showing contempt to God by bringing defiled sacrifices. This is what God says in Malachi  1:8: When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the Lord Almighty. I had no idea when I started this message that I would end up talking about money. I simply picked the Lectionary scripture for the week. But Malachi is talking about money. But can you imagine what would happen if we paid our taxes the way we give to the church? Let’s imagine that we have a non-confusing flat tax rate of 10%. We’ll call that 10% a tithe. What a novel concept. Can you imagine what the IRS would do if you said, “I have a long tradition of paying my taxes. I was one of the biggest givers in the entire county. I paid 2-3% of my income.” You’d be in jail so fast! Or how about this one: “I don’t pay my taxes; I only give to my own pet projects.” Can you imagine telling the police this as they came to take you to jail? How ridiculous would that be to give that attitude to the government? Yet some of us do this all the time to God, and we don’t realize or admit that we are showing utter disdain for God.

Do you know what God says about the one who won’t give God what is due him? Cursed be the cheat…

Then Malachi addresses the priests, those who are supposed to be the spiritual leaders of the people. Listen to what God said to them: “For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty and people seek instruction from his mouth. But you have turned from the way and by your teaching have caused many to stumble. You have violated the covenant with Levi,” says the Lord Almighty. (Malachi 2:7-8).

Malachi addresses this admonition to the priests, but it’s not only for clergy. It is for any of us who have positions of influence. What are we teaching? So no matter if you are a preacher, a Sunday school teacher, a lay leader, a children’s church teacher, or a Bible study leader, this applies to all of us. We are looked to as messengers of the Lord Almighty, because, as Christians, everything we do or say is done in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, how are we presenting Him?

OK, now that I have done some introduction work, let’s get to today’s passage in Malachi 3:1-4. “See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.

I don’t know what’s been preached here during Advent, but I know that every year, the lectionary focuses on John the Baptist, as he was the messenger who came to prepare the way of the Lord. His voice was as foreign then as it is today. Calling people to repent? How culturally insensitive! How dare he call lifestyle choices sin! But I want you to notice something, not just about John the Baptist, but about Malachi. These words were not delivered to godless heathens. John wasn’t preaching to Samaritans, and Malachi wasn’t prophesying to outsiders. They were speaking to Jews. God’s covenant people. People who had lost the way. The scathing critiques John the Baptist delivered were to church people. What do you think John the Baptist would say to us? Would he say, “You guys have it all together” or would he say, “Repent!”

We think if we show up on Sunday and are generally nice to one another, then we’re fine. But we live in a way that says “self-preservation” instead of “prepare for Jesus’ return.” Remember, Advent is about preparation, not just for Jesus’ birth, but also for his return. And when Jesus himself is talking to his disciples about that return, he says he doesn’t know the day nor the time – only God knows. The messenger’s job is to prepare the way.

The assumption in verse 1 is that the people are seeking the Lord. One hallmark of the Jews is that they have been seeking and awaiting the coming Messiah. But when he did come, they missed him. But understand this: Jesus will return, suddenly, and there are those among us who will miss him. You won’t be prepared for his return. And his return might just not look like what you are expecting.

Listen to Malachi 3:2-4. 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. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. 

We sometimes fool ourselves into thinking that Jesus’ return will be simple and easy, but that’s not what the Bible tells us. I don’t know if any of you have seen the process of refining silver or gold, but it’s not simple, and it’s not comfortable. The silver or gold is exposed to extreme heat and chemicals and thus the impurities are removed.

The starting point of the refining process is that there is a rock with potential. Turn to someone near you and tell them: “You may be a rock, but you have potential!”

We are made in God’s image – we are already precious precisely because of who God is and who he made us to be, but we haven’t lived up to that potential. And because God cares, he will either allow us to be refined or he will do it himself. You are already precious, but God will purify you.

But if our churches are full of members who desire our own comfort first and foremost, we will never survive the purification process. We seek our own comfort and personal preferences to the detriment of others’. You have to look no farther than Christmas to see this - we give Christmas gifts because it’s the culturally accepted way to celebrate the holiday. Then we complain about secularists who push Christ out of Christmas while it is we who have done it by exchanging a celebration of Jesus’ birth into Giftmas, which is all about us. Those who have no relationship with Jesus shouldn’t be expected to celebrate him – sure, the holiday is really supposed to be all about him, but you can’t expect a culture who doesn’t know him to celebrate him! Yet we still throw up the smokescreen, complaining about “those people” who want to kick Christ out of Christmas, while we go on without him. We become more worried about the placement of Christmas decorations than about sharing Jesus with people who don’t know him. If you don’t agree, then let’s take down some of the decorations in the church and see who complains. What might refining look for us?

Here’s the thing – we often don’t recognize refining when it is happening.  We feel uncomfortable or even in pain. But when we look back, we can take it for what it was: refining.

And how will we know we are refined? Malachi defines it this way: Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years.

When we have been refined, God will accept our offerings as given in right relationship with him. Wouldn’t this be a good thing to give to Christ for Christmas? Being in right relationship with him? Is there anything better? So prepare…