The Season of Advent (2)

Good Morning. Glad we can be here this morning. It is the second week of advent and we draw one week closer to celebrating the coming of our Lord.

The other day I was thinking about one of the unique joys though of the holiday season.

Travel

We all love it. You have to drive different places to see family and to enjoy parts of the holidays.

For Thanksgiving we had to make the drive to Pittsburgh and I was reminded of one of the unique joys of being a parent and traveling.

We left Tuesday and decided to stop early for dinner in Bloomington before we traveled to the hotel we were planning on staying at.

We get back in the car and start heading down the road. We hadn’t reached Indianapolis yet when out of the back seat the question comes.

“Are we still in Indiana?”

It is in that moment you know as a parent its going to be a long trip because if they are already struggling with the short amount of time we had been in the car we were in for a long one.

It made me realize that sometimes we have to have an incredible amount of patience and there are times that it gets tough to have any kind of peace when people start asking the question.

Are we there yet?

This morning Passage opens with a moment that God had to be experiencing that are we there yet moment.

Let’s turn to Malachi Chapter 2 and read what it has to say.

Malachi 2:17 NIV

17 You have wearied the Lord with your words. “How have we wearied him?” you ask. 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?”

Wearied the Lord

The wearied parent. Humanity wearing down God and bringing a whole new level of frustration

The question that the people keep asking “Where is the God of Justice?”

What they are really asking,

“Why aren’t you helping me out God?”

“Why do I have to go through all this bad stuff?”

Aren’t I one of your children?

Malachi uses this metaphor of God as wearied because he is tired of hearing the same complaints from his children over and over.

Is it the same questions that really bother God or is it the fact that his people don’t have a heart and trust in who he is?

This is the problem. It is not that we can’t ever feel like this or have moments we ask God why.

It is when we struggle with accepting and knowing that God is faithful no matte what is happening to us.

The Attitude the people of God are displaying in this passage is the enemy of Peace.

It is the attitude that creates a human made wedge between us and true peace with God and the state we find ourselves in the world.

So how does God Respond Let’s find out.

Malachi 3:1 NIV

1 “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 Will Send...

He will send his messengers. It is easy to read this passage and think that the messenger who will prepare the way and the Messenger of the Covenant are the same people but they are not.

The First one the messenger who will prepare the way before me. This is a unique person who helps prepare the way removing the obstacles that may be in front of the coming of the next messenger.

They are the one who prepares the way.

It reminded me of one of the mission trips from this fall on the district. One of the groups had to go in and stay in a very rustic and rough situation so that they could build the sleeping quarters of the next group.

They had to come in to remove the obstacles so that the other group could do a different Job and share the Gospel with the people around the area.

This messenger is coming to prepare hearts to hear the message that the Messenger of the Covenant has to share.

The messenger of the Covenant is a unique role and position.

Traditionally this is the person who would enforce the covenant relationship. They would hold people accountable to the covenant relationship that existed between two people.

They would also distribute the blessings and the curses associated with the covenant.

Who are these People?

Have they come to us?

Let’s answer those questions.

Matthew 3:1–3 NIV

1 In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea 2 and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’ ”

The Messenger of Preparation

The New Testament writers point us to John the Baptist as the one who was to prepare the way for the Lord. He was the forerunner for us of the good news that is to come. He was the voice calling people to repent and to clear their hearts fro the one who would follow him who was far greater.

The Messenger of the Covenant

Which naturally leads us to recognize that Jesus is the messenger of the Covenant. He came to draw back and to remind people what the covenant was that existed between Israel and God.

More importantly he came to open the promise to the whole world. To reveal that this was to be a blessing to the whole world.

He came not as judge in his first coming but as the one to reveal and share the good news. He came to die on the cross to free us from the bonds of sin.

The coming of the messengers though isn’t the end of the promise or goal that God was trying to achieve in the Malachi Passage lets continue on.

Malachi 3:2–4 NIV

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; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, 4 and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years.

God responds to the frustrations and impatience of the people not with anger or frustration but a reminder that he doesn’t want to punish but he wants to transform his People.

He wants a Holy People who have been washed clean and refined.

Transformed Community

This image of the refiners fire is a powerful one. It is the idea that God wants to purify us not destroy us that hangs with me when I read these passages.

This starts first with the leaders of of the community.

The Levites were the spiritual leaders of the people of Israel and they were to be the example set forth for them.

They didn’t always live up to this responsibility. I won’t lie often Pastors and other spiritual leaders in the church also don’t live us to this responsibility.

It is difficult and it is not an easy thing to be in this position. Spiritual leaders are also placed in a position that we must face stiffer judgement.

I will have to answer for the work that I was entrusted and that can at times be a challenging prospect.

Yet, God is not only looking for good spiritual leaders he is looking for the whole community to be transformed.

It is in this heart and attitude that we see that the messenger of the covenant has come to not destroy us but to refine us.

We are called in this Advent season to be reminded that Jesus came and performed his ministry and changed the worlds understanding of what it meant to have a relationship with God.

He showed us that the Law while necessary was summed up in a simple manner and we are to be a people who pursue a life after God.

The Passage asks the question.

Malachi 3:2 NIV

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.

Who can endure? Who can stand?

It is here that I realized something. Without Christ we have no peace because we can’t stand before God.

Without Christ our peace is gone.

Instead we recognize that the bringer of peace in Jesus changes us and puts us into the fire to make it so we can stand before God.

The only way we can endure the flame and the pain and hardship is through the love of Jesus.

We can stand before God because Christ is standing there with us.

We can be at peace because we know that he was willing to die for us.

That is why this advent season we are going to celebrate the Lord’s supper each week. To draw us back to him.

Communion.