CHRISTMAS: THE PLAN

Malachi 3:1-4

When I was in college a zealous friend kept wanting to present what her Campus Crusade ministry called “The Four Spiritual Laws.” At the time I had not felt called to the ministry but had grown up in the church, worked actively in a congregation, had been baptized and confirmed and had professed Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Nevertheless she felt the need to read through the booklet with me. “Okay,” I relented. And she beamed. We sat down and this was the sentence on the first page: “God has a wonderful plan for your life.” I had heard that phrase before she shared it and countless times after she shared it. “God has a wonderful plan for your life.” Do you believe that? Campus Crusade wanted to make the statement personal; but what if God were looking at all the children of the world and saying to them, “I have a wonderful plan for your life?” What if God were addressing the world with the knowledge that some would accept his offer and some would not? What if God has been waiting to carry out the plan for redemption until every one on earth is ready for his Son’s return, to accept him or to reject him? The Bible contains a number of warnings about getting ready for the return of the Lord. What would it take to get ready?

Well, at the end of what we call the Old Testament is a little book with just 55 verses that we call Malachi. We think of the author as a prophet, a preacher, but we don’t know exactly who he was. The name Malachi just means “the messenger,” and that is the heart of what he preached. Historian Tertullian called Malachi “the skirt and boundary of Christianity.” In Jewish “Bibles” it is the final book of the prophets before going on to what are called “The writings.” The book was clearly written after weary Jews had returned to Jerusalem from their exile in foreign lands. Malachi was a God- fearing patriot who was concerned about the moral decay in society. Do you join Malachi, as I do, concerned about the moral decay of society in our day as well? Listen to the topics about which this author pounded his pulpit: priests (and ministers) had been caught in scandals; tax money and tithes had been mishandled, people had been having extra marital affairs, and the government refused to properly support widows and orphans. Doesn’t that list make you sick? It does me. It has been said that those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it. Somewhere around 475 B.C.E. a Jewish prophet gathered an audience in Jerusalem who were not very bothered about their moral slump. Mixed marriages between believers and non-believers brought about families that worshipped more than one god, breaking the first commandment. The homes to which they had returned had been pillaged by others, and, as happened in Gulf States after Katrina, government waste and human fraud hampered any recovery efforts. Sadly, in many ways our world has the red flags that Malachi’s had ages ago. For example: when worship leaders compromise true worship of God with ways to get more people or more money- some institutions in our time are like some in his time. When government officials fail to listen to people’s needs and move ahead only using the agendas of leaders- some in our time are like some in his time. When huge numbers of marriages are hurt because of infidelity, some in our time are like some in his time. And when we fail to properly educate our children or care for our widows, the elderly or those who are sick, some in our time are like some in his time. Malachi’s prophesy is a call to do the right thing for God and for others once again.

When Handel wrote his masterpiece, “Messiah,” he included a selection with these words: “And he shall purify the sons of Levi.” It came right from our text today. These people were part of the tribe of Levi, a proud part of Israel that had been compromised by lethargy and ethical breaches. Upon their return from captivity in other lands, they found Jerusalem in shambles, perhaps not unlike Baghdad in our day: walls breached, statues smashed, graffiti on walls, holy sites desecrated. Instead of working to repair the Temple and to begin to worship there again, they carried on as they had in the Diaspora- living in complacent squalor or anarchy or worshiping the gods of their foreign land. Malachi would have none of that: In a message from heaven he got a clear picture of what would happen if sinners were put into the hands of an angry God. He decided it was time to shake up the complacent hearts of the citizens and hear the word of the Lord: “Behold,” he said in a tone that sent a chill into people’s hearts and a shiver down their spineless backsides: “I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me.” “Will it be Elijah?” some wondered. “Will it be John the Baptist?” some Christians wondered, or will it be Christ himself? “Then the Lord will return to his Temple,” reclaiming his rightful home. “The messenger of the covenant- he is coming.” “Is it Moses?” some wondered. Whoever it was, the response was crystal clear: before the Lord returned, the people of Jerusalem had to clean up the mess in their lives and homes! They had to get their compromised hearts pure, begin to care again, and get ready! For if the Lord returned and found their lives still stained with sin, he would be like a refiner’s fire, purifying the tainted hearts of men and women. Fire purifies gold, fire purifies silver, and fire purifies sin. Even water can be pure or not pure; fire allows pure water to condense and collect leaving the impurities behind. The messenger long ago was urgently working to make fear sweat the impurities out of the lives, governments, and religious institutions or his day. No one, in their impure state, can endure the day of his coming. He will be like a refiner’s fire that burns sin into an ash heap of corruption. But the Lord’s plan is to return to the cleansed and rededicated temples of human hearts and not to enter those that are corrupted, filthy or self-serving. Advent is a time to get ready, and to wait, and to pray. What do you think; are you ready? Will you endure the day of his coming? The same Campus Crusade friend reminded me that fateful college year of a song I had learned in high school. It made me do a rugged self-evaluation of my life. Contemporary Christian artists D.C. Talk have made it popular once again. One of the song’s verses is filled with regret and it went like this: “Children died, the days grew cold, a piece of bread could buy a bag of gold- I wish we’d all been ready: There’s no time to change your mind, how could you have been so blind, the Father spoke, the demons dined, the Son has come, and you’ve been left behind.” Read Malachi; it’s just 55 verses. See if you would pass the test of that powerful prophet. The plan is for the Lord to return. My house is not yet ready for Christmas, but my heart is ready for Christ. How about yours? Let us join in prayer to him using this hymn:

(O Lord How Shall I Meet You?)

Jeffrey A. Sumner December 10, 2006