•        Introduction

We’re preparing for Christmas this year by looking at the Biblical theme: ‘Prepare’, so today we’re heading to the first verse of Malachi 3, which deals with something a bit like the time when you’re going to collect long-lost relatives from the airport.

Maybe, younger relatives.

They were younger yet when you last saw them but they’re coming into the country … student travel, gap year or some such … and now you are putting them up before they go travelling and broadening their horizons.

It’s been a while, but you are really looking forward to seeing them.

There hasn’t been enough contact but now, after a bit of a long drive, you’re going to have the chance to catch up so as the day approaches you prepare a bedroom for them, you get the car ready, you prepare the route, then the day arrives.

I don’t like ‘Arrivals’ at airports, all that standing around waiting while people arrive, land, walk for miles air-side convincing officials they aren’t carrying bombs or contraband, or even exotic diseases, that they ARE the person on their passport, that they really ARE a fit person to be let into the country … and all the while you are standing there waiting while the parking fee ratchets up as the time goes by … waiting, waiting …

And there’s the pressure to make sure you recognise them as they come through the doors onto the arrivals plaza and then …

After a bit the tidal flow of people slows and you are still looking for them and there are still a FEW people who’ve come expectantly through the gate now looking isolated and lonely and starting to play with their mobile phones until there’s only one - young - person left … a young person with purple hair and a bone through their nose, wearing ripped black denim jeans and a leather jacket.

And the realisation creeps coldly upon you that this is your mark.

You are here to collect them … they are the ones you’ve have been longing to see arrive.

But when you clap eyes on them … you have a distinct urge to slope quietly away and LEAVE them there!

That’s what Malachi 3:1 is about.

         •        The unrecognised Messenger, v. 1a

Welcome to Malachi 3:1:

“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me”

Very interesting choice of language: not YOUR messenger, says the Lord; MY messenger.

            •          What is this saying?

There seems to be a reference here back to Malachi 2:7.

There, in the book’s previous chapters the ordinary people in Israel were rebuked for unfaithfulness by not trusting God’s love for them and by making very unsatisfactory sacrifices to Him … giving Him their dregs.

But the book moves on from the failings of the people to directly address the failings of the priests who were put in place by God to help His people to walk with Him.

How had He provided for this to happen?

God had given the people messengers in those priests He had provided for them.

So where were they?

Oh, they were recognised as the office-holders, but actually they were in fact just place holders.

Look:

Malachi 2:1 ff ““And now, you priests, this warning is for you. 2 If you do not listen, and if you do not resolve to honour my name,” says the Lord Almighty, “I will send a curse on you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not resolved to honour me.”

The Word of the Lord through Malachi back there in chapter 2 had gone on like this:

(Malachi 2:7-9) ““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. 9 “So I have caused you to be despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not followed my ways but have shown partiality in matters of the law.”

And now here in chapter three in our short passage the Lord spells out what He is going to do because the institutions He created under the new covenant, here specifically the priesthood, have become corrupted and dysfunctional because they have not recognised Him, not seen Him for Who He is and responded and acted accordingly.

Specifically Malachi 2 identifies covenant breaking and abandoning God (but not the outward observance of religion) by marrying foreign wives, importing their idolatry and forsaking their covenant-giving God.

But there is something even more bothersome in their conduct as it gets described at the end of the chapter in Malachi 2:17 “You have wearied the Lord with your words.

“How have we wearied him?” you ask.

By saying, “All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them” or “Where is the God of justice?”

Look … if THAT isn’t a warning to the public conduct of high-profile, Visible Church organisations of our day, then I don’t know what is.

The institutions God had put in place to preserve the people in living lives of covenant relationship with God, institutions whose servants should have been God’s messengers to those people of His to keep them walking in covenant relationship with Him … they had DROPPED THE BALL!

The priests were utterly spiritually compromised, so the people followed in their wake …

Malachi 3:1a says: ““I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me.’

There was a messenger failure that had occurred … God would therefore step in decisively, after a protracted period of silence on His part, to highlight that His unfaithful messengers had been abandoned by Him for not being HIS messengers … and He would do that with a striking new messenger that He would send.

They have prior notice.

At the end of their long wait, after God’s 400-year silence after the conclusion of this book of Malachi their offspring THINK they are longing for the fresh messenger from God to come to renew their relationship with the Almighty.

But would this new authentic messenger of God be recognised?

Let’s see …

            •          How was it fulfilled?

The NET helpfully translates Malachi 3:1 ““I am about to send my messenger, who will clear the way before me.“

In Hebrew the phrase “my messenger” is מַלְאָכִי (malʾakhi).

Does that sound familiar?

It is the same form of language as the prophet’s name. 

But it is not the prophet Malachi who is in mind here.

Not at all.

The messenger in mind here appears to be an eschatological figure who is about to appear, as the following context suggests. 

According to 4:5, this messenger is “Elijah the prophet,” whom the NT identifies as John the Baptist (Matt 11:10; Mark 1:2).

How could this be John the Baptist?

Because in the unfolding plan of God it was John the Baptist who came in the “spirit and power” of Elijah (Matt 11:14; 17:11-12; Lk 1:17).

And it was through John that the Lord broke His 400 year silence imposed because those who were TECHNICALLY His covenant people had stopped listening to Him … but not stopped talking about Him.

(What a warning is that?!)

Not least because of how history was playing out, but because when this one they’d longed for came, they STILL didn’t recognise Him.

In Luke 7:30-35 Luke tells us:

“The Pharisees and the experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.)

31 Jesus went on to say, “To what, then, can I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? 32 They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other:

“‘We played the pipe for you,

    and you did not dance;

we sang a dirge,

    and you did not cry.’

33 For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ 34 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ 35 But wisdom is proved right by all her children.”

They were NOT prepared to accept the One they THOUGHT they longed for when He came.

And there was more of that to come … not only did the religious institutions of the day that were looking for the Messenger miss the Messenger Who they said they were so eagerly anticipating …

Malachi 3:1b “Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple”

And they didn’t recognise Him either.

         •        The unrecognised Lord, v. 1b

            •          What is this saying?

V. 1b “Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple”.

You may have noticed that the word ‘Lord’ in your translation there is NOT in capital letters.

That’s because the Hebrew term הָאָדוֹן (haʾadon) is used, not יְהוָה (yhvah, which is the word typically rendered LORD in capital letters. 

So the focus in v. 1b is not on the Lord as the covenant God (YHWH or Jehovah or however we try to say it in English), but on his role as Lord and master.

Now, as we saw just now in chapters 1 & 2, the question of just who was to be master was very much the issue in what Malachi tells us had been going wrong in the people’s and the priests’ relationship with the Lord.

And that is VERY much the issue with the people of our culture and generation.

Who IS the Boss?

That’s the big question.

This verse is emphasising that it is the Lord, the Master, the Boss Who would come suddenly to His Temple.

All this while they’d been LONGING for their King Messiah to come.

And in the fullness of time, the fullness of time was fully come.

So Jesus walked into their Temple.

            •          How was it fulfilled?

How WAS this prophecy of Malachi fulfilled?

Well, after 400 years or so of silence from God after Malachi the prophet, guess what?

SOMEBODY came suddenly to the brick-and-block-built Temple in Jerusalem.

Mark 11:12-17: “The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. 13 Seeing in the distance a fig-tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. 14 Then he said to the tree, ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again.’ And his disciples heard him say it.

15 On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money-changers and the benches of those selling doves, 16 and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. 17 And as he taught them, he said, ‘Is it not written: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations”? But you have made it “a den of robbers”.’”

The Olive tree was a symbol for Israel, which was supposed to bear fruit for God by faithfulness to Him and His covenant with them.

We saw in earlier chapters of Malachi that they hadn’t been doing that.

So the Lord cursed the fig-tree that had no fruit on it, symbolising God’s attitude to fruitless Israel.

And then Jesus took to driving out those who i) maintained the institutions of God’s covenant but ii) rather than using the Temple for its purpose which was to bless them by their relationship to God …

were misusing that blessing for private pecuniary benefit … profiteering from the institutions of the faith and from the faithful.

So … understanding precisely what was going on and refusing to recognise their authoritative Lord and Master because they didn’t like what He was saying, 

Mark 11:18 “The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.”

Their Lord had come.

The ordinary people were amazed by it.

And you might have thought He would be thororughly recognisable because He had done exactly what the prophets had described:

While clearing the Temple Jesus quoted Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11 at them to show they were violating their Master’s will for His Temple at Jerusalem.

Were they prepared for that? 

They were not.

… so they began looking for a way to kill Him.

He was the Lord but He wasn’t the Lord they were looking for so they REJECTED Him.

Now, there’s a little bit more than the Jerusalem Temple involved here …

You see, what was the Temple?

We need to go back here to the original initiative of David to build the Temple … here’s how he addressed his son Solomon on the matter in 1 Chronicles 22:7-11

“David said to Solomon: ‘My son, I had it in my heart to build a house for the Name of the Lord my God. 8 But this word of the Lord came to me: “You have shed much blood and have fought many wars. You are not to build a house for my Name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in my sight. 9 But you will have a son who will be a man of peace and rest, and I will give him rest from all his enemies on every side. His name will be Solomon, and I will grant Israel peace and quiet during his reign. 10 He is the one who will build a house for my Name. He will be my son, and I will be his father. And I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever.”

11 ‘Now, my son, the Lord be with you, and may you have success and build the house of the Lord your God, as he said you would.”

The project was to build a house for the Name of the Lord God, but v. 11 make clear this was actually to be a house for God amongst His people.

The place where God would dwell amongst them.

NOW we’re getting there!

In John 2 as John describes the SIGNIFICANCE (John is big on significance) of Jesus driving out the moneychangers from the Temple, he writes this:

“The Jews then responded to him, ‘What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?’

19 Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.’

20 They replied, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?’ 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.”

You see, in the theology of the New Testament, the incarnate Lord (Jesus) is the Temple of God’s Holy Spirit.

Furthermore, in Pauline theology, those who are united to Christ by His grace through faith, become the Temple of God’s Holy Spirit … but the point here is this: the authoritative Lord did come to His Temple, both the bricks and mortar one in Jerusalem and the people in Whom His Spirit dwelt – His church. 

He cleared the corruption of the Jerusalem Temple by the institutional religious leaders.

And He also came into His bodily temple at the incarnation.

On NEITHER occasion did the institutions of the religion of the day acknowledge Him, but they refused to recognise Him BECAUSE HE DID NOT LOOK LIKE WHAT THEY EXPECTED HIM AND WANTED HIM TO BE.

But there’s one more thing to notice here in Malachi 1 in connection with this preparation for the One long-expected.,

         •        The unrecognised Covenant Mediator, v. 1c

In Malachi here the non-recognition of the Messenger leads on to the appearance of the unrecognised Lord they won’t have ruling over them (but Whom they wish to over-rule) when He says and does things they find uncomfortable, and so these people who made such as fuss about the covenant God had made with them refuse to recognise (v. 1c) God’s Covenant Mediator …

Malachi 3:1 “‘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.”

            •          What is this saying?

“the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,’ says the Lord Almighty.”

You have been waiting these four centuries WAITING for God to renew His covenant with you, fully aware that His awfully uncomfortable silence is due to your abandonment of His covenant.

Longing for Him to send His covenant messenger and Mediator to ease your situation.

He WILL come, says Malachi.

What exactly is Malachi saying?

This messenger of the covenant may be equated with ‘my messenger’ (that is, Elijah) mentioned earlier in the verse, or with the Lord himself. 

In either case the messenger functions as an enforcer of the covenant. 

Note the following verses, which depict purifying judgment falling on a people that has violated the Lord’s covenant, so it does look a bit more as if the Lord Himself is the One intended by this description of Messenger of the Covenant.

And then the Lord Jesus comes, enacts this prophetic judgement up at the Temple with His whip of cords driving out the livestock, turning over the tables … and is within a short period of time delivering the ‘new covenant in my blood’ to His disciple in the Upper Room and then dying on the Cross to make the sacrifice of sins to empower the covenant of grace, and constitute a new basis for atonement … not now by the blood of bulls and goats, but … in His blood.

So there’s Malachi, a long time previously, spelling out that (Malachi 3:1c) “the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,’ says the Lord Almighty.”

And then He did.

With a NEW covenant that addressed the heart of the problem, which is the problem of the human heart.

Are we prepared for THAT this Christmas? 

Or whilst singing about this covenant of grace and heralding it to a watching world, will we be living as if the covenant of works were still in place?

Still in place where everyone else in our Christmas is concerned (all those noisy kids and annoying relatives … or those who have left us to our own devices, all alone …) whilst expecting grace to be showered on ourselves?

Well, the New Covenant mediator came in the Lord Jesus … are we ready to have our minds rearranged by that? 

Or will we deal with Him the way He was dealt with when He came?

That’s what this is saying, but …

            •          How was it fulfilled?

Jesus … hailed by hairy (unclean) shepherds and oddly-dressed religious weirdos from the East … and yet also by faithful Simeon and Anna at the Jerusalem Temple.

But He wasn’t their type.

Not our type?

Quite possibly.

But will you look at the response of the ruler of Israel-Palestine at the time, Herod the Great?

He perceived a threat to the settled state of his thinking, did Herod for sure!

Now, Herod WAS NOT unaware of what he was doing.

Matthew 2 tells us:

“After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.’

3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 ‘In Bethlehem in Judea,’ they replied, ‘for this is what the prophet has written:

6 ‘“But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for out of you will come a ruler

    who will shepherd my people Israel.”

If Herod was going to move against this baby the Magi were looking for there was Biblical prophecy and Mantic Wisdom from the East stacked against him!

And yet:

Matthew 2:16-18 “When Herod realised that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

18 ‘A voice is heard in Ramah,

    weeping and great mourning,

Rachel weeping for her children

    and refusing to be comforted,

    because they are no more.’”

Herod was not prepared and would NOT prepare his heart for God’s prophesied and delivered Messenger of the Covenant … and in all honesty that didn’t work out well for him.

So this all raises our final concluding question.

         •        Conclusion

Why were people unprepared to recognise the One they longed for when He came?

Many reasons that boil down to one very persistent root.

Prior expectations.

Comfort in their current circumstances.

Inflexibility under God.

Unwillingness to trust God for outcome that they hadn’t designed themselves … you know, this isn’t IKEA where you go to a warehouse, pick the bits you want and take them home to make a salvation of your own design with a God of your very own creation!

Why aren’t people prepared to accept the God Who comes to fulfil their long-held and deepest longings?

Refusal to repent … there’s the root it all boils down to.

Refusal to honour the God not made in your own image

And it matters because vv. 2-6 speak of His coming a second time, both to heal and to judge, and He’ll be judging according to whether He was recognised genuinely for Who He is and what He was doing and saying … recognised by sincerely prepared hearts at the first call from Nazareth to Calvary and by His grace throughout the post-Pentecost era of His Church.

OK

So then.

How are you preparing for Christmas?

Are you prepared to be surprised, shocked by the Christ of Christmas and the unexpected, initially disturbing and uncomfortable things about Him and what He might be saying to and doing with you when you ARE prepared to recognise Him as God’s messenger to you, God’s Boss for you and God’s covenant maker and mediator with you?

Or is He more like the visitor you’ve been longing for but when He turns up He really isn’t cast in the image you’d imagined for Him, with plans you’d reckoned He’d have for you, so you’d rather slope away and leave Him in the Arrivals lounge?

You see, you prepare for Him by readying yourself to accept Him as He is with a message that He determines.

You prepare for Him by recognising His authority and turning from playing the role of Sovereign of your destiny to following Him as the captain of your confusingly bobbing ship.

We saw last time that ‘prepare’ in Scripture is a call to turn from choosing our own way to choosing to follow God’s.

So you prepare for His coming by recognising Him as the One Who sets the terms for your relationship to God and the author of the terms on which you benefit from His grace and goodness, without interpreting and re-interpreting what He has plainly said in order to re-cast it in a pattern you like the sound of.

In ch. 6 of Alice Through the Looking Glass we read this thought-provoking interaction between Alice and Humpty Dumpty about Humpty’s TOTALLY unreasonable interpretation of the word ‘Glory’ … which Alice challenged. 

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.’

           ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean different things–that’s all.’

           ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master–that’s all’

Quite.

That’s very much the issue with preparing for Christ to be Christ at Christmas.

It’s very much about recognising Him as Who He is and not as we’d like to re-interpret Him to be.

Preparedness for Christmas is in many ways a question of which is to be Master.

Will it be His interpretation of life and liberty or ours?

Really … that’s all.

As John write at the very outset of his Gospel: John 1:11-12 “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.