Malachi 3 1-4 eSerms

Preparing The Way
Sermon by RON LAVIN

Frank kept the strangest of Christmas lists. He called it "My Refinement List." He first made one out when he was 45 years old. He worked at it faithfully for 29 years. He was 74 and a grandfather. In all that time it had remained a secret, but now his youngest grandchild, with the piece of paper clutched in hand, looked Frank dead in the eye, and said, "What's this?" "A special Christmas list," answered Frank, a bit vaguely. "Is it what you want?" asked the boy. "It's not that kind of a list," answered Frank. "Is it what you're going to give other people?" the boy asked, wishing he could read. "Well, no, it's not that kind of a list either." Then groping for words to explain something he felt was important and wanted to pass on, Frank lifted the boy into his lap. "A few weeks before Christmas I just write down the things I'd like God to help me get rid of, like selfishness, or being impatient with your grandmother, or wanting too many things for myself. I figure the more I get rid of things like that, the more I'll be able to rejoice in the good things God gives us all." Grandpa Frank's list is a way of preparing for God's coming. This Advent list provided Frank with a way to do a spiritual housecleaning for a special guest. Frank's special preparation had to do with selfishness, impatience and inordinately desiring things. That's a special kind of preparing the way for the advent of the Lord. Do any of these maladies make your refinement list? It is that kind of preparation which Malachi and John the Baptist (the messenger of Malachi 3:1) have in mind as they think of the coming of God. Both of these prophets, one in the Old Testament and one in the New Testament, speak of cleansing of sin in preparation for the coming of the Lord. Both are messengers of Yahweh, pointing to one greater than themselves who is on his way and is about to arrive. If God were on his way to your house, what clean-up would you want to do? Frank had his list; Malachi had his list; John the Baptist had his list; and we should have our lists. Malachi's List Malachi2 was the last of the minor prophets from the fifth century B.C. As we study the last book of the Old Testament which bears his name, three areas of clean-up jump out at us. Malachi cries out for faithfulness in worship, morality and speech. The three human maladies here addressed are (1) religious slackness, (2) moral erosion and (3) the complaining of the people. First of all, due to the economic depression of the times, the people of God became slack in their worship practices. "Why go to temple?" they asked. "Why pray?" they asked. "Yahweh doesn't care for us. Why should we care about him and his laws?" Lean harvests, droughts, and locusts swarming on crops resulted in most of the people staying away from worship services. The people also stopped giving their tithes and offerings and were thus robbing God (Malachi 3:8-12). It isn't much different today. The biggest reason for faithlessness in worship and giving to the Lord's work is personal crises. Cheating God by not giving offerings often comes from not coping with personal crises through faith. Do any of these areas make your refinement list? Secondly, personal crises can also produce immorality. Five sins of immorality are listed in Malachi 3:5: (1) the practice of magic (astrology); (2) adultery (sexual deviations); (3) lying (telling distortions or half-truths and hurting people with words); (4) cheating (especially cheating one's employees); and (5) not helping widows, orphans and foreigners (those with special needs or of a different skin, color and national background than us). Do any of these five maladies make your refinement list? Correcting immorality is a major way of preparing to meet God. Looking at our behavior in the light of the ten commandments is a good way to get ready for the special visitor who is coming. Malachi, speaking for Yahweh, says, "You, like your ancestors before you, have turned away from my laws and have not kept them (Malachi 3:7, TEV)." Does breaking the commandments of God make your refinement list? Thirdly, let's look at complaining against God. Is murmuring a problem for you? Is cynicism on your sin list? How about complaining against God? "Your words have been stout against me, says the Lord (Malachi 3:13, RSV)." The TEV puts it this way: "You have said terrible things about me," says the Lord. "But you ask, 'What have we said about you?' You have said, 'It is useless to serve God. What's the use of doing what he says or of trying to show the Lord Almighty that we are sorry for what we have done? As we see it, proud people are the ones who are happy. Evil men not only prosper, but they test God's patience with their evil deeds and get away with it' (Malachi 3:13-15, TEV)." Murmuring against God may very well be on our Advent preparation lists. Getting ready for God's coming means turning away from self-centered complaints. That's not an easy task, but we don't have to do it by some super-human effort. The task of cleaning up our complaints and other sins is the work of the Holy Spirit. In other words, the cleanup task we are told to do is really the work of God with which we just cooperate. God is at work in our lives helping us to do what needs to be done to prepare for his coming. If we just appropriate what has already been given, we can see murmuring for what it really is: a sin against our Lord. How is this possible? Malachi says God works like a refiner and a fuller to make us ready for his arrival. A refiner's fire is very hot, so hot that metallic substances are melted and purified. In God's foundry people are purified by fire. Repentance isn't easy, but it is needed. In God's fullers' field people are cleansed. Repentance is like clothing being scrubbed and rubbed clean in the fullers' field outside the walls of Jerusalem. A fuller is one who cleans and whitens cloth. The specific reference in our text is to the coarse soap which a fuller must use to do his job. Oil and grease must go. The clothing must be steeped in soapy water and trodden (beaten) clean. Malachi is not done with us as he speaks of the harsh ways of the fiery furnace and the fullers' soap. He also speaks to us of God's sending of the prophet Elijah. "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a curse (Malachi 4:5-6)." John's List John the Baptist is that Elijah who fulfills Malachi's prophecy. Jesus himself says so: "He (John) is Elijah who is to come (Matthew 11:14)~." John comes as a fiery prophet in the wilderness, seeking to cleanse the lives of his listeners, thus fulfilling Malachi's words about fire refining and fullers' soap. John speaks of preparing the way of the Lord in three ways, (1) straightening crooked paths and roads, (2) by raising valleys, and (3) by lowering mountains (Luke 3:1-6), thus fulfilling Isaiah's prophecy of the coming Messiah. First of all, your Advent list might include straightening out some pathway which is crooked. Crooked means distorted, dishonest or deformed. "You brood of vipors," John called some of the people who came to see him at the Jordan River, "who told you that you could escape from God's punishment (Luke 3:7)?" These snakes were the unrepentant sinners who refused to acknowledge their distorted, dishonest and deformed ways. Secondly, raising valleys is different than straightening crooked places. The symbolic meaning of this highway construction imagery is that many people are kept from proper preparation for meeting God by their depression and feelings of inferiority. "God will raise up valleys," John says. God seeks to help the lowly by reconstructing their minds. The afflicted will be raised and comforted. One man put it this way:"The purpose of preaching is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." Valleys are raised. Mountains are lowered. Thirdly, the mountains and hills of this prophecy are those elements of pride which keep us from repentance. Repentance is John's ultimate theme. Metanoia, the Greek word we translate as repentance, means turning around or turning back to God. That's the most important item on our refinement list. A dear friend, Dr. Vic Pearson, a retired Lutheran theologian, died when he was 96 years old. While receiving private communion shortly before his death, Vic listened intently to the confessional service which precedes the communion. As we shared our confession of sins, he interrupted, "Oh, yes, Pastor. How true that is!" It isn't that he had sinned so terribly by actions at the nursing home where he lived. Vic just knew that all of us are "turned in on self," as Luther described sin. "Selfishness, impatience and materialism are all on my list," grandfather Frank said to his grandson. Religious slackness, moral erosion and complaining were on Malachi's list. Crookedness, inferiority and pride made John's list. What items belong on our lists that we may be made ready for the coming of our special guest? God is coming! 1. Stephen V. Daughty Emphasis magazine, C.S.S. Publishers, Lima, Ohio, December 1988, page 6. 2. Malachi means messenger. We do not know whether this was a man named Malachi or an unknown person who was God's messenger. 3. Also see Mark 9:12-13 and Luke 1:17.