The last words of the Book of Malachi carried some of the greatest prophetic weight in all the Old Testament:
“See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.” (Malachi 4:5-6)
And what happened next? Pastor Josh asked and answered that question in his sermon yesterday.
Nothing.
Imagine hearing that Elijah was coming back, the day of the Lord was at hand ... then dying without seeing any evidence of it. Another generation comes and goes, followed by another, and another.
There were 400 years between the final words of Malachi and the call of John the Baptist (the embodiment of Elijah) to follow Jesus. Because humans are not patient, the Jewish people did not wait well. They did all they could to hasten the coming of the kingdom of God.
They tried fixing their world with money and power.
They tried controlling hearts through religiosity.
They tried taking up arms to control governments.
They tried withdrawing from the broader culture to make a utopia of their own.
All God's people are again waiting today, this time for the second coming of Christ. We are no better than the Israelites were two millennia ago.
Our eyes are drawn to predictions about the end times that sell lots of books. We tend to believe religious practices will save us. We have, at various times throughout history, believed the wars we wage are holy and will affect the Lord's timing.
And we have certainly all been tempted to retreat. Not just for a weekend of prayer and reflection, but a lifestyle of escape from the culture with which we are called to interact in love.
Fear is so often what drives us to think and act this way. We are afraid that if the Lord has not come, perhaps he never will. Not until we do something, change something, be something different than what we are, inhabitants of a fallen world.
Jesus says, in Luke 21:33, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away."
This is a promise for us to keep close to our hearts this first week of Advent. All the prophecies in the Book of Revelation will happen. But we have no reason to fear them.
We do not know when. Scripture says not even Jesus himself knew, because he chose to keep that knowledge from himself. But it does not matter to those to love the Lord.
The coming of the Lord will be like a trap that catches those who profit from the pain of others, from starvation, lack of water, sickness and death. Those sinful machines will be going at full steam when Jesus returns, and it will be their own momentum that ensnares them.
But for you who love the Lord?
"It will be a time for you to hold your head high, for you to know the Lord fully, and to be fully known by him," Pastor Josh said. "Doesn't that sound pretty good?"
It does.
Happy Advent. We look forward to continuing to celebrate the season together!
