The Bible teaches us that God has used a variety of ways to speak with humanity. God spoke directly to some people like Adam, Eve, and even their son, Cain. For other people, God spoke with an angel such as Abraham, Hagar, and Moses. And still others, God spoke through humans, men and women called out by God to be prophets. And a prophet was charged to speak to God’s people the words God would give them. Usually, the words God gave the prophets were a call for the people to repent from their sinful ways. Prophets did not have many friends.
Today, our Scripture reading is from the prophet, Malachi. Malachi in Hebrew means “My Messenger,” or “My Angel.” Much of the book of Malachi is an indictment against the priesthood of Israel. Immoral behavior, adultery, divorce, falsehood, fraud, and sorcery were rampant with much of the sinfulness coming from the priests themselves. Intermarriage between the Jews and the pagans, something prohibited under the Laws of Moses was regularly occurring. And the traditions of the people were becoming more important than the commands of God. In Malachi, Chapter 2, verses 7 and 8 speak to the problem, “7 “For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty and people seek instruction from his mouth. 8 But you have turned from the way and by your teaching have caused many to stumble; you have violated the covenant with Levi,” says the Lord Almighty” (Malachi 2:7-8).
We can well understand that a serious moral problem with the religious leadership, here the priests, does significant harm to the spiritual life of the people. We know that is true from modern day experiences that have become public. The sexual perversions of Roman Catholic priests have caused unimaginable pain to their victims and enormous harm to the church and its teachings. Just this year, a dozen high profile pastors of megachurches in Texas alone, were forced to resign due to improper behaviors leaving behind more incalculable harm to their victims and more damage to the message of the church.
The key message of Malachi was that the religious heart of the nation of Israel had become indistinguishable from the sinful world around it. In a word, the priesthood and religious life of Israel, had become corrupt. Once again, we see that when it comes to corruption, no one should say of people, an organization, or a thing that it is only “a little corrupt.” Something is either corrupt or it is not. This is why the Bible teaches that if we break one part of the Law, we have broken the whole Law.
Let me give you an illustration of this point about corruption. Let’s suppose you say to me, “I am thirsty.” And let’s suppose I have a cold bottle of water. And let’s suppose in response to you saying, “I am thirsty,” I say to you, “Here is a nice cold bottle of water. Please take it.” So far, this seems like a reasonable solution to the current conditions. But. There is always a but. But as you begin turning the top of the bottle, you become aware that the bottle, although full, had already been opened. And so, you ask me, “Pastor, did you already open this bottle?” And I reply, “Yes, I did. The bottle was sealed when I received it but the bottle was not quite as full as it could be so I added just a tablespoon of water to make the bottle full.” Seems a bit odd. But then I add, “And the only water I had available was just a tablespoon that came from the toilet.” So, you are thirsty, and you have a 16-ounce bottle of water that has a tablespoon of corrupted water from the toilet. Are you going to drink it? Of course, not. Why not? Because once corruption entered the clean water, none of the clean water was clean any longer. The entire bottle became corrupted, and it is no longer fit to drink. This was the point of charge in the Book of Malachi against the priests. The priests were corrupt and were corrupting everything they touched.
In many ways, the situation painted by Malachi seemed hopeless. When something becomes corrupt, it cannot change itself, it cannot clean itself up, because it is corrupt. What can be done?
God revealed through Malachi His plan for redemption. Malachi wrote, “3I 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” (Malachi 3:1). God promised that the pathway to righteousness would be marked by two specific events. First, God would send a messenger. This messenger would bring forward the news that a new covenant of God was announced. And once that message had been announced then the Lord Himself would come to His Temple. In Chapter 4, Malachi explained, “5 “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes” (Malachi 4:5). Elijah was a prophet of great importance to the people of Israel. The only other place in the Bible where this Hebrew phrase means to “prepare” or “clear obstacles” is in Isaiah 40:3-5: “3 A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. 5 And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken” (Isaiah 40:3-5). The imagery being conveyed here is that a roadway has been made level and straight for a majestic king to travel. And so, God promised a prophet, a messenger, to come to announce the arrival of God Himself.
The arrival of God Himself would be the second event in the restoration of Israel. But the coming of the Lord was not without a warning. Malachi spoke, “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” (Malachi 3:2-3a).
The arrival of the Lord was expected to be indeed a great event because it would usher in a new covenant and new era with God. But the arrival of the Lord would not be without chastisement, not without removal of corruption, especially for the priesthood. The priesthood would be refined to remove the impurities from it. Malachi likened it to putting fire to silver to cause that which is not silver to separate or using a very strong soap to remove the stains from a garment. Continuing with our illustration of the bottle of water, it would be a time when the water and not just the bottle itself would be subjected to treatment to remove the contaminants or the corruption. Sin, the corruption of all life, would be addressed.
These are the promises of God spoken through his prophet Malachi. A messenger would come in advance of the Lord, a voice calling in the wilderness, “Make way for the Lord.” Then would come the Lord Himself to refine the priesthood, deal with the spiritual corruption, and draw the people to God. These were God’s words. And then God went silent.
There were no more prophets bringing God’s word. Just silence. There were no signs from heaven. Just silence. There was no voice calling in the wilderness. Just silence. A year passed. Then two years passed. Then ten years passed. Just silence. Then 40 years passed. Then 100 years passed. Just silence. Then 200 years passed, then 300 years passed, and then 400 years passed. No prophets. No voices. Just silence.
Most people dislike silence because it can feel unsettling. Silence forces us to confront our own thoughts and emotions without the distraction of background noise. Silence can lead to feelings of anxiety, discomfort, or even boredom, especially in social situations where silence might be interpreted as a negative sign or lack of connection. Whenever there is silence in a situation, most people tend to fill that gap believing the worst of the one who has suddenly become silent. But here is the truth. Silence can also refine us. Silence can cause us to examine ourselves and see what is wrong with us.
For 400 years, God remained silent. For context, it was about 400 years ago that the Pilgrims landed in what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts and would later celebrate their Thanksgiving Day feast of which we too will participate in on Thursday. Four hundred years is quite a long time. There are different ways to calculate how many generations there are in 400 years. In general, we would be talking about 14 generations in 400 years. That would mean your (11) great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents were alive when the Pilgrims landed. Do you know anything about your people from 400 years ago? Of course we don’t know these people. Of course, we don’t know what our people looked like or what they sounded like.
In the 400 years of silence, the people and nation of Israel experienced many things. Of course, there were wars. Of course, there were dynasties of kings. There were high priests. The Pharisees and Sadducees we read about so much in the Gospels came into existence during those 400 years. The two groups fought with each other and at times killed each other in great numbers seeking to gain some advantage. But through all this tumult and chaos, through all 14 generations spanning 400 years, one thing remained the same, God’s Word. The whole story of God and His promise of sending a messenger and the Lord Himself coming to refine and set things straight and true remained the same.
This coming of the messenger and the Lord we now call Advent, awaiting the arrival, is what we will celebrate over the next 4 weeks. We who are now 86 generations removed from God’s promises still have them before us in the Bible. The promises of God have not changed except that God broke his silence and sent His Son, called Emmanuel, God with us, as He had promised.
What then do we take away from this encounter with Malachi and all that has transpired since he served as God’s prophet?
I want to begin with this thought. In spending some time of silence, I concluded that I was fortune enough to know both of my parents. Some people are not so fortunate. Of my grandparents, I only ever met one of them, my maternal grandfather. The other three grandparents had died before I was born, as was the case with all my great grandparents. I have only one or two items in my possession once used by my grandfather and nothing from any generation earlier than him, or from any other grandparent, except for one thing. They all had a belief in God, and they all raised their children to know the God of the Bible, the God of Malachi, the God of the promised Messiah. Was their faith extraordinarily deep or remarkable? I would not know. But their belief and faith were strong enough, were vital enough, to want their legacy, the inheritance for their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren whom they would never meet to have the knowledge of the promises of God. To have the knowledge of God that leads to faith in God, to salvation through Christ whose coming we will celebrate in the weeks ahead. That is generational wealth, a generational inheritance, of untold riches. Perhaps the passing on of our faith is the only real inheritance that we can hope will be gifted to our unborn generations. So, I want to encourage parents, grandparents, and great grandparents here today, to think about the opportunities you have to gift your children and grandchildren. We all will certainly want to give them something they will enjoy this coming season. But are we also gifting them our joy in God’s promises? Is there anything about our faith, our testimony, that we are gifting them that breaks through the noise and chaos of this world and causes them to wonder and be in awe of God? Are we giving them anything from the promises of this season that they can also gift to their children and grandchildren? It is popular for Christians to say, “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.” But is He?
Not everyone been so blessed with generational wealth of belief in God handed down to them. There are many spiritual orphans. A couple of years ago, a man, not of my family, whom I have known for many years said to me, “I consider you one of my spiritual sons.” Why did he say that? He said that because he had gifted me, had invested in me his faith experience in the hope that I would be enriched by it and that I would pass it on to others, whether the others were my children or not. Everyone here, whether you are a parent or not, can have spiritual daughters and sons. You can invest and enriched others with your testimony, with your knowledge of God’s faithfulness and promises. To do that, we have to make Jesus genuinely the reason for the season.
For the final point, I want to return one last time to our bottle of water, the bottle cannot redeem itself and become pure again. And we know we are like this bottle because we cannot redeem ourselves either. We cannot wish for or will away the sin in our life. Removing sin, removing corruption from our life, can only be done by the promised one of God, Jesus. And the knowledge of those promises can only be found in God’s Word and made real to others in the living testimony of God’s people. We have a great opportunity before us to gift others with the joy of the Jesus, the reason for the coming season. Shall we who have been redeemed do that? Amen and Amen.