Hope in the Not Yet.
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What’s led up to this point
What’s led up to this point
The Jews have been back from the exile for a while, the temple has been built for a while. This has come after the priest Ezra established temple worship again and this is during the time when Nehemiah had returned to the persian king and during his absence he found that the Jews fell back into their complaciant ways.
There have been prophacies form the likes of Zechariah and Haggai proclaiming that in the future everyone will turn to the
creator Zechariah 9
Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Then the Lord will appear over them; his arrow will flash like lightning. The Sovereign Lord will sound the trumpet; he will march in the storms of the south,
Yet their nation remand a small back water town with in the Persian Empire,
God has not returned to His temple
Through their discouragemnt in their situations they become discouraged, they doubt Gods covanant love and no longer trust and believe in God’s ways and justice.
So Malachi is rebuking the Jews as the jews and the priest have stopped obeying God in their worship and laws. Accusing God of doing them wrong.
Malachi says just before our reading toaday
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?”
Though the Jews and the levites who were the Priest disobeyed God not learning their mistakes through the exile, god speaks to them to reveal His grace and to bring Hope and tranformation. God speaks through Malachi and reafirms His plans
“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.
Confrming that the prophets were indeed correct.
The messengers in that time was to go ahead of the emporerer or king and to remove any things in the way and to proclaim the coming of the king. The role of God’s messenger is to prepeare the way for the Lord as we read in Isaiah 40:3, to clear any obsticle that are in the way, preparing hearts, calling people into the covenant of repentance, turning away from idols and facing God and obeying His will, to proclaim that He will be here soon warning those around us so they have an opportunity to prepare.
We know that the old testament is like a mirror of things to come. The old testaments prepare Gods people for what is to come and Christ fullfills it all. In the new testamnet we know that John the baptist fullfils this prophecy as he was the one in the wilderness preparing people by calling them into repentance.
Here the hebrew word for messenger in hebrew is m(a)-la-chi.
Malachi form chapter 1 has tried to reafirm God’s love for his people, tried to encourage them to keep their covenant with God and is trying to rebuke them from their disobediance and false accusasion towards God.
He goes on and tells them that the Lord will come but it wont be like you expect.
Theres almost likean expectation that all because they are called God’s people they have a free ticket but the prophets warn that God’s wrath and judgement will come upon God’s enemies, those who do evil in His sight, those who disoey God’s instructions.
As Malachi says Malachi 3:2
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.
Yet, though we like the jews at this time are disobedient we all fall short, we will all face final judgment there is God’s grace the Lord is not comming to condemn the world but to save it as only he can.
He will be like launders soap, Launderer’s soap was used to remove impurities and unclean elements from clothing and other items. and like a rifiners fire and purifier, which again was a process to remove impuritees.
He will purify the levites he will purify us, through His rightouness we will be made righteous in order to be made right with God and to be restored so that we can offer ourselves as suitable offerings. not by anything we have done but by His coming and drawing near to us, through His death and Resurection. Through His great mercies and grace.
He is making us Holy as he is holy so that when it coms to the day of judgement Malachi 3:5
“So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty.
We can stand there blamess before God because of Christ.
After Malachi there was a period of silence of approx 400years.
But in that silence of waiting for the not yet there was a message of hope. This hope that should have encouraged the Jews to be steadfast in their worship of God. Alas people again went their own way, following idols and their own understandings and desires. Yet there were a few devout believers as we read in Luke Luke 2:25-26
Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him.
It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah.
There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage,
and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.
Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.
What was pointed towards in Malachi and the old testament came to fullfilment now. God here among us not to condemn but to save. God’s love incarnet which moved Simeon to say Luke 2:29-32
“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.”
There were two responses to the promises we have in God, we can turn our own way and do what we want or we can turn and face God, and become obedient unto Him.
As Paul says a slave to sin which leads to death or a Slave to Christ which leads to life eternal.
Christ came and he will come again, we live in the now and not yet, in this period we to are called to be messengers, i wonder what is your message? Is your faith dependent upon your feelings and circumstances like the Jews in Malachi or is your faith in the word of God that never changes like Simeon and Anna?