C, Second Sunday of Advent - Malachi 3:1-4 "My Messenger"

The text on TikTok, and the notice printed in the local paper read, “Jesus Christ appearing this Sunday morning at such and such a place and at such and such a time.” 

Would you be surprised God might use such a message to announce the coming of his Son to a spot near you?  The advertisement is nothing grand; its text does not stand out from other texts.  What if God chose to send a messenger or a message in this way, how might you react on hearing or reading of his coming?

For the purpose of this exercise let’s say the message is not false, but entirely true and Jesus Christ is coming to a venue near you.  The words of the ad are the preparation for his coming and the way he comes is to your church this Sunday. 

Excited? Scared? Perplexed? Thrilled? Perhaps you’re just a bit apprehensive that he’s coming, “Why’s he coming to my church?” you ask yourself.  “Where’s he comin’ from and how’s he gettin’ here anyway?” Rightly you’d be sceptical!

Malachi receives an oracle from the Lord.  He is a prophet, and this oracle is a word from God; a word of burden on Malachi’s heart if he doesn’t pass it onto the people.  It’s a word or an utterance which has overcome his heart and mind.  Put there by God himself to glorify God and raise the attention of those called to hear it.  This word was given to lift up, stir up, sit up, shake up, shape up!  But also, to ease, to exalt, to forgive, heal and help.

Malachi spoke in a time after some of the exiles returned to rebuild the temple in the days of Nehemiah and Ezra.  However, the messianic age did not occur with the reconstruction of the temple.  What they built was a building which stood in the shadows of the former temple of King Solomon’s day.

This temple lacked the physical appearance of the former temple, and also noted was a spiritual vacancy.  It seemed God no longer spoke as he had in previous times prior to their exile into the custody of the Babylonians. The Israelites and Jews looked back to the days when God spoke through the Judges, the priests like Samuel and Nathan, the prophets like Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, and Jeremiah.  God had spoken, and no one listen, and now God had stopped speaking.

Malachi was the last prophet to speak some 430 years before Christ was born.  He was the last to speak on God’s behalf against the perversions of popular practice. He was a lone voice echoing from the silence of God before God went completely silent for some 400 years. 

Malachi’s name literally means “my messenger”, he was a messenger, and we hear him herald the coming of two messengers, the last prophet, and then a great messenger, who himself would be the message.

“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.  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.  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.  Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years. (Malachi 3:1–4 ESV)

Malachi’s message is harsh and sharp.  They have not been treating the Lord as their God; their righteousness was not acceptable as righteousness before the Lord.  They were not following God in the way he had willed them; in righteousness “to” the Lord.  Their worship of the Lord was a show which God was going to test as a blacksmith would refine metals, and as a fuller would cleanse and whiten fibre for fabric.

To be clear what the washing agent was for a fuller in their day, was human urine.  Not the fresh stuff, but that which was left to sit for a while, so the ammonia content was stronger and better for cleaning and bleaching the fabric. 

So, the show was going to be refined by fire and stood on like fibre worked in ankle deep urine.  But this is only a picture of who is to come.  To whom is the refiner’s and the fuller’s image referring?

The one to come came some 400 years after the fact.  John the Baptist came to prepare the way of the refiner, the fuller.

…during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.  And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (Luke 3:2–3 ESV)

But whom was he preparing and of whom did he proclaim?  He was calling the Jews and the Israelites to repentance for their sins against the Lord.  A preparation for the cleansing which was to come! This was preparation to make the people ready for the refiner, for the fuller.

John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. (Luke 3:16 ESV)

So, Malachi left his fellow Jews with a picture of one coming to wash in the widdle of one’s own waste fluid and made pure with fire to remove the impurities.

And this one is the One and Only Son of God, Jesus Christ.  He has come once, and he is coming again.  Yet he has already put the refinement and washing process into place.  And he is coming again to finish what he has started.  He is coming to gather the gold and the fabric gleaming in God’s glory.

Now depending on how one might look at this we might see the ammonia of urine and the fire of refinement as something to be feared, as hurtful, and void of love!  We lose trust in God because of the trials and tribulations into which we’re subjected and suffer. 

When one falls into this temptation, they are like those who love wearing dross rather than silver or gold, who seek to swim in the proverbial piddle and poop that comes our way in this life rather than those who wear the white garments to come out of God’s cleansing and testing process.

On the other hand, Christ encourages his children, those who trust him, those who look forward in faith, to endure and persevere under the refiners and fullers of this life as a holy preparation for that which is to come.  An eternity of silver and gold, wearing robes of righteousness as white and as bright as our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! 

For we are told… when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.  The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. (Titus 3:4–8 ESV)

Therefore, the refiner’s fire and the fuller’s soap, no matter how crude they may seem are only agents of cleansing and hope to focus you on Jesus Christ.  After all, Jesus has been submerged into the fuller’s fluid and fired with the refiner’s fires in the place of those who trust in him.

The message may not be printed in the paper, or read as a text on TikTok, that Jesus is coming to such and such a place at such and such at time.  But it is written on paper, in the Word of God.  He has been coming and has come amongst us when we gather in the Triune name, and in his Word to hear this teaching and promise of salvation and refinement.  Therefore, those who take their garments soiled in sin can make them as white as snow by washing them in the blood of Jesus.

You see Jesus has been baptised by the Holy Spirit into his ministry of the cross and with the fires of hell itself on Good Friday, so that the trials and temptations in your life might test us so we trust all the more the putrid and pungent plight of Christ being washed and refined for you, cleansing all of you this Sunday and every time the Holy Spirit calls and gathers us into Jesus’ presence. 

Jesus is the messenger!  He is the message!  I pray he is yours too. Amen.

A, Post-Pentecost 14 Proper 17 - Exodus 3:13-15 "The I AM Full Stop"

Exodus 3:13–15 (ESV)  Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?”  God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”  God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.

Our world is full of information!  Everyone wants to tell us something!  Who is it that you listen to?

Social media, YouTube, the internet, broadcast media, talkback radio, the bloke over the back fence, politicians, comedians…  There are so many from which to choose!

Perhaps you choose not to listen to anyone!  You have been hurt by bad advice and look for answers within yourself, your own understanding of things!  What you judge to be good and what you judge to be evil!  There’s so much noise out there, so you withdraw to your thoughts within.

Or further still, maybe you just like not to think about anything.  The noise of society tires you, so you try to retreat into a place of perfect silence.  Like the ten thousand, in Simon and Garfunkel’s song, not wanting to disturb the sound of silence!

Our world is full of information!  To whom do you listen?  What is it that informs you?

The great danger of listening to the many and various sources of information out there, is that more than not, you will be misinformed!  Whereas, listening to what’s within, there’s a danger of being ill-informed!  And not listening to anything or anyone, you will find yourself uninformed.

So, we need information, immediate life without it suffers, and without information we cannot seek eternal life!  But the trick is getting the right information?  But how to get it and from whom?

If we look within for information about life, the answers we get will seem like they give us life, but the life we find will ultimately destroy life elsewhere!  The life of our feelings and mood can destroy the life of our physical being or mental health.  Within the heart one seeks life, but there, one finds, “evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” (Matthew 15:19 ESV)  The information we get from our own good and evil ill-informs us!  It’s information that leads to illness, dying, and eternal death.

Okay, so we don’t want to be uninformed or ill-informed!  But neither do we want to be misinformed either.  There are so many charlatans and con artists out spreading misinformation and causing heartache today.  And it’s growing!  Inside and outside the church!  It’s here there’s the temptation to go scampering back into the self.  But this is not the answer that gives life.

Moses was a Levite living in the court of Pharoah.  But he was on the run after murdering an Egyptian whom he witnessed beating a Hebrew slave.  He thought he had covered up the murder after burying the Egyptian in the sand.

However, “When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?”  He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.”  When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian.”  (Exodus 2:13–15 ESV)

The information Moses had from within and from without, told him to run.  And it’s after running and settling in Midian he has a strange encounter with a burning bush that burned without being burnt.  Curiosity got the better of him, so he stopped to see what was going on.

God speaks to Moses out of the bush.  God informs Moses that he has heard the cry of his people in Egypt and, through Moses, was going to deliver them from the hand of Pharoah and the Egyptian taskmasters.

But like us today, all the information known to Moses makes him question what God says to him.  God says, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings,  and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey… Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” (Exodus 3:8-9a, 10 ESV)

Moses is hesitant to go back into the melting pot that’s Egypt.  But God’s call does not leave Moses ill-informed, despite the death sentence that loomed if Moses returned to Egypt. 

Nor is Moses uninformed!   He’s promised, God will be with him, and informs him he will bring him with the Israelites, back to the mountain, to serve God. 

Neither was this misinformation!  Moses’ credibility before his fellow Israelites would be backstopped by God.  Moses was given God’s name!  Not just a name of an unknown God, but the name of the God of Israel’s Fathers; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

God’s name is beautifully simple, but profoundly complete!  This name comes from the simplest of verbs, in any language, the verb “to be”, “I AM”. 

His name captures the eternity of his existence.  What God and his name tells us is that back in the past, “I AM”, right now “I AM”, and in the future “I AM”.  In other words, God was, is, and will be, present in name, word, being, and promise! 

God’s being to Moses was a full-stop.  He is the source, middle, and end of all information.  The be all and end all of all existence!  Moses was completely informed by God in the simplicity of his name.  The great I AM in Hebrew, is from the verb, to be, hâyâh, from where we get the name Yahweh, or Jehovah.  In most English bibles when this name used, it’s usually printed as Lord (capital “L” with small capitals “ord”).

The name of our Great I AM is our full stop.  So simple, pure, complete, and eternal is God’s name that God calls Moses to take off his shoes and not come too close to the burning bush, from which God spoke.  Not only is his name pure, complete, and eternal but so too is the presence of God whose name most perfectly defines him.  Our God who says, “I AM” is holy in presence so in the presence of Moses and in the burning bush that did not get burnt, Moses is called to the most holy full stop in Almighty God.

God and his name are so holy that the Israelites feared saying his name for fear of desecrating it.  Matthew’s Gospel being a catechism for Jewish believers of Jesus Christ differs from the other Gospel in that “the kingdom of God” is referred to as “the kingdom of Heaven”, so as not to offend Jewish ears.

Jesus offended Jewish leaders when he came not denying himself as the Son of God.   John’s Gospel account gives testimony to Jesus as the “I AM”.

He says, “I am the bread of life, that came down from heaven.” (John 6:35, 41, 48, 51)  “I am the light of the world.” (John 8:12, 9:5)  “I am the door of the sheep.” (John 10:7, 9)  “I am the good shepherd.” (John 10:11, 14) “I am the resurrection and the life.” (John 11:25) “I am the way the truth and the life.” (John 14:6)  “I am the vine.” (John 15:1, 5)

John also records Jesus’s direct reference to God and himself as the “I AM”, making the Jews want to stone him for blasphemy. 

Jesus says to the Jews, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”  So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”  Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”    (John 8:56–57 ESV)

Jesus is our I AM!  “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.”  (Hebrews 13:8 ESV) He is eternally present with God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit.  Three persons in the one I AM full stop!   This is our God, your God!  The I AM, who is, who was, and who will be. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1:8 ESV)

God is the I AM of your being, your soul!  Because he is your full stop you can deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow him, the I AM!  You will lose your being carrying your cross, but you have received a new being, you are receiving a new being, and you will receive a new being, a new existence in the I AM, Full stop!

In an age of misinformed, uninformed, and ill-informed information, inside and outside the church, do not just hear and believe what someone says, what I say, or any pastor says!  Open your bible, and confirm what is said, is what the I AM says! 

Pray, the Holy Spirit leads you in submission to what is written in its pages, so you do not mishear the knowledge of Jesus Christ.  Pray, so the word of God is not corrupted into a piece of ill-informed knowledge of good and evil within.  

Let the full stop of the I AM, be not a passing comma in your life!  Rather stop, be still and know that I AM is your God!  Let the full conjunction of your being be infused with the I AM.  Give thanks and call on his name!  Make known the deeds of the Great I AM; sing to him and praise his name!

God “is”, so you “are”!  Call on his name, and he “will”!  Into every situation you enter, the I AM is there waiting for you to call on his name!  Amen. 

A, The First Sunday after Christmas - Matthew 2:14-16 "The New Israel"

Matthew 2:14–16 (ESV)  And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt  and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”  Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. 

The Christmastide infanticide at Bethlehem is a gruesome and horrible picture against the blessed nativity of Jesus.  Herod the Great, the illegal king of Israel, ruthlessly but unsuccessfully seeks to weed out the infant King of Israel threat. 

As Mary and Joseph escape to Egypt, in their wake Herod’s anger and rage brings death to all baby boys born in Bethlehem up to the age of two.  On the twenty-eighth of December, the church commemorates “Holy Innocents”, the children who died at the hand of Herod.  They are martyrs, not because they confessed the name of Jesus and died, but they are the most holy of martyrs because they were murdered in innocence and weakness, suspected as being Jesus the Christ Child, the true King of Israel.

Jesus was born into the danger of weakness and death.  But God protects the Christ-child through Joseph, and they escape to Egypt.  Years later Jesus’ Heavenly Father would allow his innocent Son to be handed over to death on the cross outside Jerusalem at the Passover, Easter.

There is a sense of irony in Jesus’ escape to Egypt, as sixteen hundred years beforehand Egypt is the oppressive place Pharoah had ordered midwives to murder Hebrew children by throwing them into the Nile River.  In that very river baby Moses survives.  The Moses story then comes to a climax sometime later in the tenth plague.  This is when God destroys all first born whose houses do not display Lamb’s blood on the doorposts. 

This would be the first Passover and Pharoah would grant the nation of Israel release from slavery.  Now the King of Israel was being carried by Mary and Joseph back to the land of slavery to escape from Herod’s murderous anger.  It was only after the death of Herod that Jesus and his parents made an exodus out of Egypt.  It was only after the death of Egypt’s firstborn that Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and the twelve tribes of Israel were freed to make that first exodus, sixteen hundred years earlier.

One might think Jesus is a new type of Moses coming out of Egypt.  But Jesus is not just a prophetic leader like Moses, he is not just a priest like Aaron, nor does he just bear the Greek name of the Hebrew, Joshua, which means “Yahweh frees, makes safe, saves”, in that he will save his people as a fighting saviour!

Jesus comes out of Egypt as the New Israel to save Israel.  Not as Moses as prophet, Aaron as priest, or Joshua as a strong and courageous warrior.  Death threatened this fragile human, and death continued to destroy innocence around him. 

Why did Jesus have to be the new Israel?  Why did God allow the death of the innocent?  And for that matter, why does he allow dreadful death to continue today?

This all has to do with anger and time.  The anger of God as a result of humanity’s, and Israel’s inability to follow God.  Secondly, the anger of humanity, collectively and individually, as a result of their refusal to follow God, then its subsequent fear because failure continues through the pursuit of pleasure.  Thirdly, God had to allow for the right time to fulfil his faithful plan of salvation.  We need to wait and trust him for the completion of his plans, the fullness of time!

So, Jesus in the fullness of time, is the completion of Israel.  In Jesus’ exodus out of Egypt he fulfils a faithful exodus, not into freedom but into death and suffering as the Son of Man.  The Son of Salvation, the Servant of Man, the Servant of Salvation, your salvation, Israel’s salvation, and humanity’s salvation!

Why is Jesus the New Israel?  To understand we need to know what the old Israel is to God and to us humans, and how Jesus fulfills his role as the Suffering Servant, the Son of Man.

We now look at God’s anger, humanity’s anger, and time.

Humanity proved they were unable to follow God.  After Adam and eve turned away, Cain, through his parents’ favouritism, also turned away from God, and in jealous anger killed Abel. 

Humanity became completely corrupt in the days of Noah, resulting in God rebirthing the world through the flood.  But even after the flood, humanity continued to challenge God at Babel, from where he dispersed them with the confusion of language.

God then chose to work through one man, Abraham, the father of Israel.  Israel went into slavery in Egypt.  After four hundred years God redeemed them through Moses.  In the wilderness and then in the promised land of Canaan, Israel continued to turn away from God.  God forgave, but the kings, priests, and Israelite people could not keep the Law to the glory of God.  Not even King David, God’s chosen one, was without sin.

Through this period God poured out his anger on Israel when they turned from him.  There was no one righteous, not one.  Only by God’s grace did Israel survive.  The Israelites continued to anger God using the Law to justify and glorify themselves.

The prophet Hosea, after years of corruption in a split kingdom, prophecies a faithful son, a faithful Israel, saying, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” (Hosea 11:1 ESV) We hear, today in Matthew’s Gospel, this was fulfilled when Jesus came out of Egypt. 

But Hosea also laments, “The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols.  My people are bent on turning away from me, and though they call out to the Most High, he shall not raise them up at all.” (Hosea 11:2, 7 ESV)

God exiles the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel and Judah and then falls silent for another period of four hundred years.  The anger of the Israelite people festers within.  Its people become more influenced by pagan doctrines.  God’s people had become so turned in on themselves that murder and deception became a regular occurrence within the temple and kingdom authorities.

The people of God became so diabolical, no king was able to be led by God, no priest sought to glorify God, and no prophet spoke on behalf of God.  It was here that the time was right for the New Israel to come out of Egypt.  Israel, embodied in one person, in God the Son, Jesus Christ, the Son and Servant of Man!

We hear, “after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem,  saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?  For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”  When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him;  and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.”  (Matthew 2:1–4 ESV)

It sounds as though they were caught off guard!  Such is always the case when we are turned in on ourselves.  We fail to realise the reality around us.  Nevertheless, Herod the Great, loathed by the people of Judah because he was not a Jew, was angered and sought to use the Wise Men to find and kill his competition.

This is the world Jesus was born into, and this is the world in which we live today.  In the fulness of time the Son of God became a human,  so that humanity could come to God.  There was no way a king, a prophet, or a priest could raise up Israel or humanity to participate with God to glorify him. 

Jesus became the New Israel to please God but also to bear the brunt of God’s anger against you, me, and humanity.  The anger that we hear so much about in the Old Testament, has now been poured out on the Christ child, in Jesus’ servanthood suffering on the cross.

The anger of humanity that fell, as deathly sin, on those baby boys at Bethlehem suspected as being the New King of Israel, is also carried and set free by Jesus Christ.

We are told of Jesus Christ, the New Israel, that, “For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.  For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers”.  (Hebrews 2:10–11 ESV)

And the author of the letter to the Hebrews continues, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,  and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.  For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.  Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.  For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”   (Hebrews 2:14–18 ESV)

Jesus is your brother, he bears the wrath of God for you, and frees you into innocence and holiness, by his life, death, and resurrection. 

In 2023, life and death will continue, but for those who continue remaining and abiding in Jesus Christ, there is no anger from God, just opportunity for repentance and forgiveness.  And despite the anger of humanity, death, and the devil, God is continuing and will continue to make those holy who suffer and endure by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.