2^nd Sabbath of Advent

December 7/9, 2007

Victor H. Nixon

NEED BLESSING?

Malachi 3:1-12

I chose Malachi for today because the prophet is one of the traditional readings for the second Sabbath in Advent. Malachi tells us how to receive "overflowing blessing."(3:10)

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What do you want for Christmas? Remember the first time you heard Santa Claus ask that question? I’m not sure exactly how old I was, maybe six or so. I do remember that Mom, with my little brother and me in tow, was Christmas shopping in a department store on Garrison Avenue in Ft. Smith. My primary interest was the toy section where I had looked longingly at an electric train set with an engine that made "real" smoke and genuine Roy Rogers cap pistols and leather holsters, just like ones he wore in the movies, as did all the "good" cowboys.

"Do you want to see Santa Claus?" Mom asked. There he sat in front of a Christmas tree surrounded by beautifully wrapped packages with a line of children waiting. My younger brother was a bit uncertain about the round man in a red suit and black boots, but I wasn’t. So, when my turn came I eagerly crawled on his lap. He peered at me through spectacles and said, "Ho, ho, ho! Little fella’, what do you want for Christmas?" I told him about the train and guns. He wished me a Merry Christmas and gave me a large peppermint candy cane that lasted for days.

What do you want for Christmas? Maybe you haven’t been asked that question in a while. I’m asking you this year. Forget the traditional toys, clothes, electronic gadgets, jewelry and perfume. Don’t be superficial. Go beyond the crowded stores and online shopping, the packages under the tree. Think outside the box a bit, go beyond the parties and fundraisers, food and drink and family gatherings. Consider something more profound, something you can’t live very well without. Let go of your lesser wants and dig deeper. Ask yourself: What do I really want for Christmas? Time away. Health and healing. Reconciliation in my marriage. Comfort in grief. A better job. A safe neighborhood. World peace. Those are very good!

But go deeper still, inside your very soul where you keep all the personal stuff stored away that you don’t look at very often, the box where you keep unrealized dreams, disappointments, troubling doubts, secrets you’d never tell anyone. Open up that box of significant questions that may disturb or fascinate, for which you have no answers or incomplete answers. Who am I really? What do I want to become? Could anyone love me? Do I love myself? Am I a good person, spouse, friend, parent, son or daughter? What are my values? What do I believe in? Is there really a God? If so, do I stand a chance? With fifteen shopping days remaining, it’s time to sort through the routine and clutter of this season, find that box, and open it so you’ll know what you really want this year.

So much gets in the way of discovering our deepest needs and longings. We don’t intend it, but it happens to all of us. Somewhere along the way, life can become routine, mechanistic, busy and joyless. We tend to lose touch with the most important part of ourselves. We buy into the cultural notion that happiness comes from the number of packages under the tree with our name on them, or the balance in our savings account, or the position we occupy, or the opinions folks hold about us. Nothing wrong with any of those, it’s just that pursuing them can become more important than anything else—and we lose ourselves in the pursuit.

It happens often. Some 2,500 years ago the deepest convictions and concerns of people in Jerusalem were buried under indifference and disbelief. They had lost focus that once was strong. One hundred years earlier, former exiles had excitedly rebuilt the temple and grasped Isaiah’s vision, "nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn."(60:3) But as time passed, they lost that strength of purpose and vision.

By the time Malachi was written, the rebuilding of the Temple was taken for granted and worship was lackluster. Faith faltered. People had stopped giving their best to God and started bringing the leftovers. The tithe was neglected. Priests were second-rate and bored with their work.(1:13) The smell of moral decay was in the air. They dishonored God as well as one another. Deception, dishonesty, abuse of the poor and violation of hospitality laws were routine. People lost sight of what was most important: their covenant relationship with God and with one another, resulting in degeneration of life itself. A wake-up call was clearly needed. A message that would be heard. A message from God. A message from a God who loved them, loves us.(1:2)

The name "Malachi" means "my messenger" in Hebrew. "My messenger" writes for God. The message from Malachi comes at the very end of the Old Testament and points toward the New. Malachi has some harsh words for those who had let their covenant relationship with God dissolve. What he says to the people, to us, is that you’ve been neglecting your responsibilities and you’ve cluttered up your life with other stuff. You’ve become complacent about your faith and you can no longer tell the difference between good and evil. You’ve accepted cultural norms as the standard for your behavior, blinding you to those who are begging in the street.

God says in Malachi, "I am sending a messenger to prepare the way before me and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to the his temple. . . . But who can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears?"(3:1-2) When you’ve been unfaithful you don’t want to meet God even in church.

Malachi employs two images to describe the Lord’s coming. The first is that of a refiner’s fire.(3:2) God will burn away all complacency, self-satisfaction and spiritual laziness. God "will purify the descendents of Levi and refine them like gold and silver.(3:3) Malachi sounds like another messenger in the New Testament, John the Baptist, who came to prepare the way for Jesus, who would baptize, not with water, but with the Holy Spirit and with fire.(Luke 3:7-18)

For many years there was an iron ore smelter that ran twenty-four hours a day near my childhood home. At night you could see the hot flame for miles. A smelter separates iron from other materials in the ore by melting the iron and burning away the impurities. It was a dirty, smelly place that seemed like a very unpleasant place to work. Yet it performed the necessary task of stripping away everything unnecessary, leaving only pure metal. The purer the metal, the stronger it is.

The message from Malachi is that when God comes into your life it’s going to be like a refiner’s fire. God is going to strip away the unfaithfulness, the dishonesty and deceit, the neglect and abuse that you heap on undeserving people, the inhospitable behavior you foist on strangers.(3:5) Malachi says if you are going to get right with God this Christmas then you should expect to lose some of the clutter that’s messing up your character and weakening your faith. He says if you really want the Savior to be born in your life this year then you’re going to have to deal with some of the impurities that are staining your religion as well as your reputation. God isn’t just dropping in for a visit; God is coming to change lives, says Malachi, so you better get ready.

The second image that Malachi uses to describe the Lord’s coming is that of fuller’s soap.(3:2) One of my earliest memories is watching Grannie Nick make lye soap in a large black kettle over a wood fire in the back yard. It was quite a process. Ashes saved from her wood cook stove produced potash or lye. Rendered lard was mixed with lye, heated and stirred together in the kettle, then poured into wooden molds and allowed to cool. The soap was cut into bars for bathing and laundry, washing dishes and pans, scrubbing floors. Some of Grannie Nick’s "special" lye soap smelled of lilac. It would get you really clean.

Malachi gets very personal, implies that it’s hard to have a relationship with someone who smells bad because they don’t bathe regularly. God’s coming will be like a bath with lye soap, washing away all the grime that keeps you separated from God and others. Malachi says to us, if you want the Savior to be born in your home this Christmas, then you’d better expect some housecleaning because he’s going to be emptying your personal trash, wiping off the dust and mopping up the crud that you’ve let accumulate in your life. You can expect a regular cleaning if God takes up residence in you because God doesn’t tolerate dirt, deception, mistreatment, or indifference to the plight of others.

Though difficult to hear, Malachi’s message is very much like the message of John the Baptist and Jesus. It’s the good news about God who deeply loves us despite our unfaithfulness, who doesn’t give up on us, but who comes to save us and restore us to covenant relationship, who opens "the windows of heaven" and pours down "an overflowing blessing."(3:10)

What do you want for Christmas? I admit it: mostly the wrong stuff, until I hear Malachi’s message of refining fire, fullers’ soap and overflowing blessing. Then I revise my list:

I want to be closer to God, even if it means ridding myself of stuff that messes up my life and gets in the way of my faith;

I want to be a person who keeps covenants, someone God and others can depend upon to do what is just and right;

I want to make room in my life for strangers as well as friends, for those who need a warm smile and a helping hand;

I want to be generous, giving God the first and the best I have to offer—my time, my effort, my money, my love;

I want to experience the great joy that comes from the good news that God loves me with all my faults and failures, who has blessed me with the gift of a Savior.

That’s what I really want for Christmas. Thanks be to God!

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