Second Sunday in Advent –
December 6, 2009
Malachi 3:1 -3 - “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. 2 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;”
Preparation,
we all do it! Perhaps some of us more
than others, but we all do it. For
example, imagine that you were planning a long vacation trip. Before you leave, you would probably have the
car serviced, spend a good portion of a day packing, and make sure arrangements
have been made for places to spend the night.
Before going shopping, many people prepare by making lists and checking
sales ads. We even prepare for work,
whether it is packing a lunch, having the agenda for the day laid out the night
before, or putting food in the crock pot so supper is ready when we get
home. In fact, I can well imagine that many
of you have already begun preparations for Christmas.
Yet
in all of our preparations, how are we doing in our preparation for Jesus’
coming? That was a question the prophet Malachi
wanted the people of Judah to consider.
It is a question God still wants us to consider. And it is a question we will consider this
morning as we study the words before us under the very simple theme: The Lord
Will Come – Prepare!
As
one reads the book of Malachi, it is easy to become somewhat discouraged as the
prophet sketches out a tragic picture of the little company of Jews who returned
to Jerusalem from Babylon. If you
recall, the people of Judah had been conquered and deported by Babylonia. But God had promised that a remnant would again
return to Canaan to wait for the Messiah.
They did, about 100 years before Malachi, and those years between their
return and Malachi’s ministry saw a time of religious enthusiasm and
revival. But now that had passed, and
the Jews again had become indifferent to the Lord. Sadly, the pattern of indifference and sin
that had brought the captivity in the first place had not been purged from
their hearts, and now Malachi’s words expose the attitude of those whose love
for God had grown cold.
Malachi’s
charge was that Judah had “wearied the
LORD with [their] words” (Malachi 2:17).
But his charge was met with a sarcastic question, “How have we wearied him?” (Malachi 2:17) Malachi’s answer exposed their spiritual
sickness, “By saying, ‘All who do evil
are good in the eyes of the Lord,
and he is pleased with them’ or ‘Where is the God of justice?’” (Malachi 2:17) The people were guilty of complaining and
whining against God. They were guilty of
having lost interest in the Lord. They accused
Him of acting unjustly. They even had
the nerve to mockingly ask, “Where is this God.” You can almost hear in their voice, “Keep on
talk’n preacher, sure the Lord is
going to come!?! (Ha)”
But
the promised Messiah was nearer than any of the skeptics imagined, and the
words of the LORD Almighty stress that when he says, “See (better BEHOLD!), 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.” The
word “behold” suggests something shocking, yet certain, will happen. The first thing to happen is that the LORD
would send his messenger. The New
Testament identifies this messenger as John the Baptist. This messenger would prepare the way. From our gospel lesson this morning we hear
just how John did that. He prepared the
way by preaching repentance and by proclaiming that the sin which stood between
God and his people needed to be removed.
Following the work of John, we hear that the Lord you are seeking will
suddenly come; the messenger of the covenant; this is a reference to
Jesus. Malachi’s audience had asked,
“Where is this God of judgment?” Malachi tells them, be prepared, because he’s
coming, and it will be sudden.
To
stress even further the need for preparation, the Lord says, “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.” You see, Malachi’s audience
had developed a bitter attitude toward God.
They had grown discontent because they felt like God wasn’t doing what
they thought he should, the “kingdom” he promised was not coming according to
their time table, and he wasn’t blessing them the way they wanted. So they became indifferent. They reasoned, “If God is going to act this
way, then why should I act the way he wants me to? Why not just eat drink and be merry?” But the Lord tells them that with such
attitudes of the heart, they could not stand before him. They would not endure the day when Jesus
comes. They would not be prepared. That’s why Malachi, that’s why John would
make them think of sin again. That’s why
they needed to hear the strong call to repentance, because then, and only then,
would they be ready for the Savior who would come to take those sins away.
And
this is the reason these words have been appointed for the second Sunday in
Advent. You see, the word Advent means
“coming.” During this season of the
Church year we prepare outwardly to celebrate the first coming of Christ. At the same time, our services prepare our
hearts for the return of Christ that is just around the corner on the last day. With the words of our lesson we are reminded
that our Lord, who came so suddenly to his temple almost 2,000 years ago, is
going to come again. His Second Advent
is just as certain and sure as the first.
It will be just as sudden and just as unexpected. He is on his way. He is coming again in judgment. He will appear when we least expect it. Will we be prepared?
We’d
love to say, “Absolutely, one-hundred percent yes, we’re prepared.” But sometimes I wonder, sometimes I fear that
the attitudes and problems that infected the people of Malachi’s time still
sneak up and contaminate us too! I’m
afraid that the circumstances and surroundings that caused many at the time of Jesus
to be caught off guard are circumstances and surroundings that we face too.
For
example: Malachi’s audience looked at the heathen world around them, saw their
prosperity and life, and concluded, “If this is how the ungodly live, God must
approve of evil. Where is the God of
justice?” What about us? Are there not times that we look at the world
around us and say, “The ungodly prosper, the immoral get their way, why should
we patiently bear the cross for Christ if this is how it’s going to be?” Isn’t that an echo of Judah’s whining? Or what about God’s patience? It has been close to 2,000 years since Jesus
ascended into heaven. The signs of the
end of the world have been fulfilled.
Still, Christ hasn’t come. Has
his delay led to indifference on our part?
At times I think it does! How
else do explain our lackadaisical approach to worship? How else do you explain our indifference to
Christian education? How else to you
explain our poor Sunday School attendance?
How else do you explain this overwhelming attitude of parents that lets
their children decide what they want to do when it comes to God’s Word? How else do you explain that false sense of
security which allows us to continue in our pet sins while convinced we can
escape God’s righteous wrath and judgment?
How else do you explain the willingness to just turn heads and say
nothing to family and friends living in sin?
In fact, would our lives and attitudes look or be any different if we
didn’t know Jesus was coming again. If
not, doesn’t that signal a very serious problem. Just answer this: how many times (except
Sunday’s) have you thought about judgment day over the past six weeks? And that’s after six Sunday’s where Christ’s
second coming has been the focus. All
this gives the impression that we think we can stand on our own before our
righteous Judge!
My
dear friends, it’s time for us to prepare our hearts, because Christ is
coming. And that preparation begins by
looking carefully into the mirror of the law.
The mirror of the law stares back at us and says, “How can whining,
indifferent, apathetic, unconcerned, unholy people like you possibly stand
before the almighty Lord, who is absolute perfection and holiness, and endure
his coming? And the mirror of the law
says, “You can’t. Have fun trying.” This was the message of John the Baptist, who
was to prepare the way for the Lord.
Repent! This is part of the
refining process of the messenger of the covenant – Jesus Christ. He seeks to rip open our hearts and force us
to look at the ugly, black thing it is.
He seeks to expose our wretchedness for what it is, open rebellion and
violence to our Master. He seeks to
crush the human heart and squeeze from it every hope that is not in God
alone…and then, he drives his people back to his grace, forgiveness and
righteousness.
That’s
the other part of his refining process. You
see, after the law has brought souls to such despair, they are ready for the
Lord to cleanse them with his promises of love and grace. When Christ, by the power of his Law, has
made us to see our true condition, when he has bulldozed away the mountains,
leveled out the valleys, and straightened the crookedness of our nature, then
we can be properly prepared for his second coming. Then we can celebrate Christmas with
meaning. Then we are prepared to hear
what it’s all about.
That
Jesus Christ, true God from true God, lowered himself to such depths as to take
on human flesh and enter the world as that baby boy born of Mary. It’s unthinkable! But it’s true! And that Christ, by whom all things were
created, came into this world to suffer at the hands of his creation. To give his life - which was, and is, and
always will be perfect, holy and blameless – as the ransom price for a world of
dirty rotten sinners. So that, as a
refiner and purifier, he might remove all impurities from you and me so that what
is left will be valuable. So that his
blood could wash us clean and declare us not guilty.
That
is what he did, my friends, when he came the first time. He won our perfect salvation. But at that time many were not prepared, and
they missed why he came and the blessings he won. As we prepare to celebrate again his first
coming, let us not miss why he came. He
came to win our forgiveness because we couldn’t. He came to reconcile us to God again. He came to take away our sins, and he did -
once and for all. On the cross he made
the one sacrifice that satisfied God’s justice.
With his blood he has cleansed us from our sin. By his death he paid our debt. That baby in the manger is our Savior, our
Lord, our one and only way to a right relationship with God. Let us not miss this truth because we are too
preoccupied with ourselves or this world.
Do not let this become old, stuffy news.
Instead, properly prepared to celebrate the meaning of our Savior’s
birth, we can be properly prepared to meet our Lord when he comes again.
And
then, with hearts truly prepared, our faith will not whither with the discarded
trees, and our interest will not be boxed up with the ornaments. Instead, we will continue to be “confident of this, that he who began a good
work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus”
(Philippians 1:6). Amen.