Sending My Messenger

Before dawn, the sky is dark grey. Then a thin line of gold appears on the horizon. The sun is coming. And the last prophet of the Old Testament says: that is what God is about to do.

It is perhaps a century after the exiles came home. The temple has been rebuilt. Sacrifices are being offered again. But something has gone stale. Priests are bringing blind and sick animals to the altar, as if God would not notice. People are breaking their promises in marriage. They are cheating workers of their wages and holding back their gifts to God. And they grumble: where is the God of justice? Into this tired, cynical world comes a prophet called Malachi. His name in Hebrew means, my messenger.

Malachi's book is a kind of argument between God and his people. God says, I have loved you. And they answer, how have you loved us? God says, you have despised my name. And they say, how have we despised it? Again and again, they act surprised. Then God answers their question about justice with a promise. “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple.” You want to know where God is? He is coming. And before he comes, he will send someone ahead to get the road ready, the way servants would go ahead of a king.

But Malachi asks a sobering question. Who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire, and like the strong soap used by people who washed cloth. Picture a metalworker sitting by a hot furnace, watching silver melt, skimming away everything that spoils it. That is how the Lord will purify the priests, says Malachi, until they bring offerings in righteousness. Then the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will please the Lord as in days of old. God's coming is good news, but it is not comfortable news. He comes to make his people clean.

In the final chapter, Malachi speaks of a day that burns like an oven for the proud. But for those who honour God's name, a different picture. “Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings.” You will go out, he says, and leap like calves let out of the stall. And then the very last words of the prophets. Remember the law of Moses. And look: I will send you Elijah the prophet before that great day comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers. Then the prophets fall silent. And the people wait.

Hundreds of years later, an angel stands in the temple and speaks to an old priest named Zechariah about the son he will have. The angel says this child will go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. Those are Malachi's last words, almost exactly. The Gospel of Mark opens by quoting Malachi's promise of a messenger, and Jesus himself said that John the Baptist was the messenger Malachi wrote about.

You'll find these promises in Malachi chapter three, verses one to four, and chapter four, verses two to six. The messenger came, and then the Lord himself, like the sun rising after a long night. So here is a question to carry with you. If God is preparing a way into your life, what might he want to clear away to make the road ready?