I recently had a cell phone conversation with Bonnie that I remember vividly. At one point in the conversation I paused and all I heard was silence. I had expected a response. For a moment, I assumed that the cell phone had “dropped” our conversation. That happens sometimes. But this was not the case. In this moment when I was waiting for words Bonnie was simply listening to me. She did not feel the need to fill the space with words. On other occasions I have been on the phone and the connection has actually been interrupted or becomes a little choppy. When this happens I have sometimes gotten a little frustrated. I do not always wait patiently for the person on the other end of the line to be able to speak again. Often the person on the other end of the phone is attempting to answer me but the message is not getting through because of the interference, or the weak signal, or my constant talking. In the book of Micah we read of a situation where some of God’s people have questioned God over and over again and have for some reason assumed that he is not listening or perhaps he is not even speaking. The message is not getting through. Their experience has lead to a faith that is not all that it could be. There is much evidence of God at work at the time. But despite the fact that they have returned from a time of exile, despite being able to worship in a rebuilt temple their conversation with God has degraded over time. They have made assumptions about God and his active, listening, speaking presence with them. And this led them to cynicism and doubt. It caused them to formulate questions about what God was up to…to speculate out loud about the possibility that God has stopped speaking and acting with justice. We join the conversation at the point where God says “enough! It’s time to stop this constant questioning.” In a sense the lines of communication clears and God speaks to his people. He has something to say to his people…to the world. And he is going to send messengers to communicate with them. God is not silent. Through the prophet we get insight into what is on God’s mind. Chapter 2:17 makes it pretty clear. It reads, “You have wearied the Lord with your words.” Like me on the cell phone the people of God have talked and talked and talked. They have questioned him over and over again. And frankly, the prophet says, it is getting a little old. In chapter 1:2: God tells them he has loved them. Their response? “How have you loved us?” In 1:6 they questioned the need to honor and respect him and had had showed disrespect and even contempt for him. In 1:7-8: They questioned the need to bring their best to God. As a result they had insulted him with inferior offerings and worship. And now in 2:17 they questioned his presence and action among them. They looked around them, saw the world was not what it should be and asked, “Where is the God of justice?” “The people were cynical and had stopped taking right and wrong seriously. Practically, if not theoretically they doubted the justice of God.” And all of this occurred in a time of what could be called relative peace…at least compared to the years that they had experienced in exile and persecution. Things were looking up. The temple was rebuilt and they were in their homeland. Things were returning to “normal”. And perhaps that was the problem. Eugene Peterson writes, “during the humdrum times, when things are, as we tend to say, ‘normal’, our interest in God is crowded to the margins of our lives and we become preoccupied with ourselves. Religion during such times is trivialized into asking God-questions-calling God into question or complaining about him, treating the worship of God as a mere hobby or diversion, managing our personal affairs for our own convenience and disregarding what God has to say about them, going about our usual business as if God were not involved in such dailiness.” In their normal, everyday lives God tells his people that their constant questioning is tiring him out. They could not get their head around what they were being told. “How have we wearied God?” they ask. The answer was by assuming too much knowledge about God’s motivation, by imagining they had God all figured out. God was not silent but the people thought he was and they perceived that silence as approval for their actions. It was not. They thought that God had decided not to act. He had not. The question of “where the God of justice was” would be answered. His justice would be shown to all people. Amid the disappointments and cynicism of present reality, Malachi sees, longs for, hopes for, proclaims a world of goodness and purity, where justice finally matters and integrity finally prevails. God is faithful, says Malachi, and will usher in such a world. Eugene Peterson writes, Malachi “keeps us on our toes, listening for God, waiting in anticipation for God, ready to respond to God, who is always coming to us.” And to make his coming into the world crystal clear, he promised to send messengers. Ch 3:1, God speaks, “see, I will send my messenger who will prepare the way before me.” Do those words sound familiar? What was the name of the messenger who came to “prepare the way” for God? Any guesses? It’s John, sometimes called, the Baptist. And John was born to be a messenger, to prepare the world for the coming of God, of Jesus. Turn to Luke 3:1-6 and read with me about John. John’s message was, repent in order to receive forgiveness for sin. He was to prepare the way for the coming of the lord. This mission reflected a common practice among kings in the culture. If they were going to travel to a certain part of their kingdom they would send messengers ahead of them to prepare the roads for their arrival. In John’s case roads were not his only concern. He was concerned that people make their lives ready so that the Lord could come to them. John’s message was to prepare the way because God salvation is going to spread throughout the entire world. It was available to all people. John was a messenger. And his message was clear God was coming into the world. Malachi saw that distant reality clearly and told God’s people about it. But he did not stop there. Look at 3:1-the latter part. Once the messenger had prepared the way then “suddenly the Lord you are seeking”, in other words, the one you keep questioning and looking for evidence of, “will come to his temple, the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire will come.” What Malachi wanted to communicate was this. Not only would a messenger come to prepare the way for God but a messenger who was God himself would enter the world and reveal a whole new way of living. He would explain that the relationship between God and man was going to follow a new pattern. And his coming into the world would change everything. The message he would bring would shift history. Have you ever had a message like that? One that relayed a diagnosis of an illness that would change your whole world? Or the news of a death of a loved one? I have. On May 11, 1985 at 6:00 am the phone rang at my house. I was a teenager at the time and I was not out of bed. But I heard the phone. I heard my Dad answer it. And I heard him crying. My mom had died overnight, finally succumbing to her cancer. It was a message that we did not want to hear. And for me, as a teenager it changed my world. The days that followed my mom’s death were days of change for me. I realized that life was tenuous. It could end any moment. They were refining days for me when I got serious with God. I dealt with issues had I left simmering. I began to allow God to refine me and change me and clean my life up. That one message had a profound effect on me. In a similar way the coming of the messenger who was God himself, Malachi said, was to provide a wake up call for God’s people…just the way the way the phone call changed my life. His coming would change the world forever. The Lord was coming. And in that time it would be God’s turn to ask questions. Look at 3:2-4, “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 launderers soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like Gold and silver.” The question for God’s people was, “Can you stand and endure in the day of his coming?” The answer was that no one could stand before him and claim a righteous life. They had all failed. We have all failed. They needed and we need cleansing. And only God could and can provide it. They were to be refined. In real terms refining involved the heating of raw metal until the impurities rise to the surface and are skimmed off. And this concept provided a picture of what God would do. He would turn up the heat in their lives so that the impurities of their lives could be skimmed off and removed by his own hand. The result would be people who are pure and clean. But just like grass stains on a 11 year olds knees the stains in their souls went deep and were ground into their being. Therefore God promised not just refining but complete cleansing. Launderer’s soap that would whiten the cloth was used as a symbol of the purifying process. God would scrub his people clean. He would make them pure! The process would be costly. And sometimes people in need of cleaning resist. Ever try to wipe the face of a baby. They move their head, side-to-side to avoid the dreaded washcloth…at least my boys did. ? But to be in the presence of God makes cleansing not optional. And because God is God, to be in God’s presence is always a bit dangerous. No impurity, no sin, no wrong can survive in the presence of God. God will burn away our faults and make us pure—but our sins and faults are part of us. We want to be pure, but we are not sure we want to be changed. Yet when God’s fire burns, all those personal sins that make us harm our families and our neighbors and ourselves are burned away. Being clean is an up close and personal process God is touching us and making us clean. Why does God even care? Malachi explores what God is looking for as a result of his coming and his cleansing. In 3:3-the latter part we read that after cleansing has taken place, “then the Lord will have men (and women) who will bring offerings in righteousness and the gift offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable.” God’s goal in sending the messenger into the world was this. Righteous and transformed people. He wanted to see people who are set free (including leaders) through purifying in order to fulfill their service and worship of God in a way that reflects God’s righteousness. God wanted to see people who have found acceptance in the eyes of God and worship him appropriately. The answer to the question the people had asked earlier is almost answered now. Where is the God of justice? He is coming close to them. To change them forever. Look at 3:5. God was coming close to them to judge. (to point out the areas of their lives that needed to change) He was coming to address injustice in the world: He would act in regards to:
God was going to act and his messenger would turn the world upside down. I think that we can clearly see the fulfillment of these promises in the life of the messenger who came. Jesus made it clear that he had come at the urging of God. He entered the world and his message revealed that the God of justice was not distant but immanent. Flip over to Luke 4:16-21 In this passage Jesus made it clear why he had come. He said the Spirit was upon him. He was active in his life, empowering it for mission and filling it with purpose. He said he was set apart to bring a message of good news for the poor. There was hope for those who were spiritually and resource poor. He had been set apart to proclaim freedom for those captive. For those caught in a downward spiral into sin Jesus would be a rescuer. For those trapped in a lifestyle without hope Jesus would bring hope. Jesus was set apart to bring vision to blind people (spiritual and physical) He came to open eyes to new realities, a new message from God, a new understanding of how relationship with God worked. Jesus was set apart to bring release to those oppressed. For those pushed to the ground by struggle and pain and by injustice Jesus was to bring hope. He would cut the ropes that kept them tied to sin. Jesus was set apart to bring a message of hope, freedom, and the availability of the grace of God. And that message is what we have been given by Jesus. It’s a clear message of hope and transformation. Malachi saw this reality coming at a distance. It filled his message to God’s people with hope. John saw the reality of a coming savior close up. He prepared his listeners so that they would make their lives ready to receive God. And in the end Jesus came into our world, and changed everything with the message of his word, his life, and his actions.
So what do we do in the light of this amazing truth? What kind of response will we make to the message of both John and Jesus?
But in order to live life, fulfilling the mission of God in the world we will need to be changed. And the promise of our passage today is that this is possible. We need to ask God to show us: In what ways we need purifying and cleansing?
What will it mean for us to cooperate with Jesus in:
Will people around us assume that our silence reflects the silence of God?
We are called to take up the challenge of being one of many messengers who trace their purpose in life to the surrendered and God focused lives of John and Jesus.
Let’s pray for that to happen in our lives beginning today.