Refined Identity of Peace
Scripture Reading: Malachi 3: 1 - 4 (NIV)
“I 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.
2But 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. 3He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, 4and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years.
Message: Refined Identity of Peace
God’s interventions
Malachi is a prophet of God in the city of Jerusalem - the rebuilt city
It is the time after God’s people have returned from exile
They are still finding their feet after the inter-generational trauma of the exile
Their existence as a people were shaken by what happened
In this setting, God says through the prophet: “I 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,”
These comes with the inherent question: Will you be ready for it?
Who can endure the day of his coming?
Who can stand when he appears?
Perhaps today we can ask - who can walk away unchanged when God intervenes?
You see, there are many theories and opinions and resentments going around about God’s interventions in our lives
And even others who have pious suggestions of how we are supposed to think of or respond to God’s interventions
But Malachi reminds us that when God intervenes, it is God at work in the lives of people
It is not a noble idea of every story with a happy ending, no matter how hard the challenges before is
It is about God being active in our lives, where we find ourselves - in the good times and the tough times…
The action of refining
That brings us to the metaphors of the refiner’s fire and the launderer’s soap
Both metaphors of improvement
God’s interventions in our lives comes from his love for us
God’s interventions in our lives are not always easy to understand
And it is meant to affect change in our lives
We will walk away different when God intervenes in our lives
And that’s why Malachi is prophesying - to make us aware
God uses this prophet to create an awareness of God’s interventions in our lives
And if we fight it, we will not endure
And even if we do fight God, He will work with us… the refiner’s fire and the launderer’s soap…
Identity
The people of Jerusalem needed God intervene
Things were going sideways for them
They had a history of building their identity around things they thought mattered, but then later discovered that it doesn’t
The idea of Zion and the idea of the temple - being destroyed and rebuilt, but there was that feeling that something is amiss
And now were grappling with the idea of what it means to be called the people of God
Their struggle with their identity made them ripe for God’s intervention
And the struggle to find our identity by ourselves will always be messy
Like swimming in syrup…
Peace
The messenger Malachi was prophesying about, was to heighten the senses
Something is about to happen…
In this time of Advent, our senses are meant to be heightened today listening to the prophesy of Malachi
We are yearning for peace in our hearts
We are yearning to find our true identity in Christ
We hear the story of the angelic proclamation: “peace on earth”
And we get a sense that God is at work in us
The refiner’s fire, the launderer’s soap…
Working peace in our lives in ways we cannot imagine
Shaping our identity to find peace with God and ourselves
In this time of Advent, I pray that you will be shaped to find peace in who you are before our loving God!
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