Malachi 3: 1-5; 4: 1-6
Sermon: A Refiner’s Fire
Topics: advent, repentance, fire, joy, change
Preached: Dec. 23, 2012
Rev. Mike Abma
Malachi 3: 1-5
3See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me,
(messenger referred to is John the Baptist)
and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.
(arrival of the Messiah)
The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. 2But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?
For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; 3he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.
*4Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.
5 Then I will draw near to you for judgement; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers,
against the adulterers,
against those who swear falsely,
against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow, and the orphan,
against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.
4:1-6
4*See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.
2But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. 3And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.
4 Remember the teaching of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.
5 Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes (fulfilled in the coming of John the Baptist).
6He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse.
THIS IS THE WORD OF THE LORD
THANKS BE TO GOD
INTRODUCTION
When I was around 11 or 12 years old, I belonged to a church boys club called Cadets – I know many of you know about, and may even remember Cadets.
The Cadets have a Code:
A Cadet must be reverent, obedient
compassionate, consecrated
trustworthy, pure
grateful, loyal,
industrial and cheerful.
Now, I am pretty sure that second-last word is supposed to be “industrious”
but hey,
my counselors were never big on grammar.
One of the big winter events was what was called the Snow Derby.
Some fiendish adult thought it would be
a grand, character-building idea
to release a bunch of boys
into the freezing cold forests of Ontario
in the dead of winter
to practice things like
orienteering,
reading a compass,
tying knots,
and building your own shelter.
Tying some of these complicated knots is hard enough
in the best of conditions.
But trying to tie them when your fingers are freezing off
is nigh unto impossible.
My memory of the Cadet Snow Derby
was basically getting frost-bite in my fingers and toes,
and turning into a human icicle.
There was one redeeming moment of the Snow Derby.
It was finally arriving at the roaring bonfire.
It was finally feeling my fingers warm as they held a mug of hot chocolate
and finally feeling my toes begin to thaw
as I held my boats as close to the flames without them melting or catching fire.
FIREPLACE
I can see why, next to the Christmas Tree,
a crackling fireplace,
with stockings hanging from the mantel
is probably the most common Christmas scene.
In our family, the one time of year we actually get a fire going in the fireplace is Christmas.
And even if your home or apartment does not have a fireplace,
there are all kinds of ways you can pretend to have one.
You can buy an electric fireplace — all the warmth without real flames.
Or, you can get a DVD like this one – the Christmas Yule Log DVD.
Stick it in your DVD player and presto – you get a blazing crackling fire on your TV.
Don’t own a DVD player?
No problem.
Netflix has a fireplace download for your home.
Don’t subscribe to Netflix?
No problem. There are 100’s of fireplaces to choose from on YouTube.
Why a blazing fireplace?
Because nothing says “Welcome home out of the cold, harsh world”,
as a blazing fireplace.
Welcome to its warmth.
Welcome to its cozy and comfortable embrace.
REFINER’S FIRE
This passage in Malachi would be easier to understand if it read:
For He, the Lord, is like a blazing fireplace on a cold winter’s day.
That would communicate
the warmth of God
the welcome of God
the hospitality of God.
But that is not the type of fire mentioned in this passage.
The passage says in chapter 3:2
For he is like a refiner’s fire,
And at the beginning of chapter 4 it says the day of his coming
Is like a burning oven.
What does a refiner’s fire do?
It burns hot, very hot.
So hot that when gold or silver is put into it,
the fire consumes everything that is not pure gold or silver:
it consumes the “dross”
the slag
the scoria
it consumes everything that is impure.
I’ve been thinking about these two types of fires this week –
the fireplace and the refiner’s fire –
and I think there are some theological analogies here.
The fireplace seems akin to Grace —
God’s warmth, God’s welcome, God’s acceptance of us.
The refiner’s fire seems akin to Holiness —
God’s purity, his perfection, his righteousness.
This is a fire with a job to do,
the job of burning off whatever is worst in us
and leaving whatever is best;
the job of purging the things of temporary value
and leaving the things of eternal value.
According to the words of Malachi 3:5, this refiner’s fire
burns off all the ways
we are unfaithful,
or twist the truth,
or take advantage of the weak,
or remain indifferent to the needy,
or refuse to treat everyone as an image-bearer of God.
We like the fireplace.
We are not so sure of the refiner’s fire.
It sounds dangerous.
And, truthfully, it is.
Read the Old Testament and you quickly realize
that proximity to God, the Holy One, is a dangerous thing.
His holiness is too much for us.
His purity is too powerful for us.
Even Moses and Elijah kept their distance.
JESUS — FIREPLACE AND REFINER’S FIRE
So is it any wonder that Malachi asks,
When the messenger of the covenant comes
When the Lord appears
Who will be able to endure his coming?
Who will be able to stand when he appears?
Who indeed?
But here is the shocker.
When the Lord comes,
when he arrives
in all his holiness
in all his purity
he appears as a newborn infant,
he arrives as a seemingly harmless baby.
As he grows,
his brilliance is veiled in his humility;
his radiance is wrapped in his gentleness.
People mistook his meekness for weakness.
They mistook the brilliance of his teachings for blasphemy.
But for those with eyes to see,
he began to blaze, and burn
and shine with a light they had not seen before.
By the time Jesus is carrying his cross up the hill,
those with eyes to see
cannot help but be struck
by how brightly,
how brilliantly,
how intensely
God’s love was burning, blazing.
Here is the truth of the matter.
We are called Children of the Light
We are called people who belong to Jesus Christ,
because it is only Christ’s holiness
that prevents us from being fully consumed.
It is only his purity keeps us from being incinerated
by God’s perfection.
When we are united to Christ,
when we are baptized in his death, his resurrection,
when we are wearing his clothes
we are safe.
Christ’s love is both like a fireplace and a refiner’s fire:
he calls us out of the cold world,
he welcomes us to stand safely beside the fire of his love –
he loves us just as we are.
But his love is also like a refiner’s fire.
He does not want us to stay just as we are.
His love has a job to do:
to burn off what is worst in us
and refine what is best;
to put to death the slag of our old selves,
and bring to life and refine our new selves.
And sometimes that purifying process
is painful,
is tough.
Sometimes it hurts.
CHRISTMAS REPENTANCE & JOY
This is the season for Christmas movies.
I tend to like the old classics
like
A Christmas Carol
It’s a Wonderful Life
The Sound of Music.
Why do we love these movies so much?
In each of these movies,
there is some kind of trial, some kind of testing,
let’s call it some kind of fire these people have to live through:
* Ebenezer Scrooge has to face the ghosts of past, present and future;
* the depressed and desperate George Bailey has to face the true importance of his life;
* and when love comes knocking at their door
Sister Maria has to reconsider the safety of life in a convent
while Captain VonTrapp has to reconsider the safety of
his life of military discipline.
All these characters have to face things about themselves,
some harsh things,
cold things,
painful things,
fearful things.
And the truth is
the old burns away
and a new person is born.
One of the reasons we love these movies is because of the change,
and lets give this change a theological title –
this is what we call repentance
and in each of these movies the repentance results in joy, joy, joy.
I’m not sure if the life of the French philosopher, Blaise Pascal, has ever been made into a movie.
But here was this brilliant mathematician,
trying to make sense of his life in the mid 1600’s.
Things were going poorly.
His father had just died.
His sister decided to become a nun – something he regretted.
And he had money problems.
Apparently he thought his mathematical genius would win him some money in gambling – but it did not.
Pascal was left cold, alone, and feeling lost in his life and his world.
Then on a dark, cold night in the winter of 1654,
Pascal was sitting home alone wondering where God was.
And suddenly, he had a vision – a surprising vision.
He writes that between half-past ten and midnight
he had a vision of God.
All he could write was FIRE in capital letters,
and then GOD in capital letters.
FIRE….GOD
And then joy …..joy, joy, tears of joy.
And Pascal was never the same again.
He carried the account of that night in his pocket until the day he died.
CONCLUSION
Everyone faces Christmas season in their own way:
some with great and eager expectation;
others with more worry and care.
Whether this season is happy or hard,
spend some time near the fire of God’s love.
Allow that love not only to warm you,
but to burn away what most hinders you to enjoy life.
Allow the Sun of Righteousness to rise with
healing in his wings
to overshadow and protect you.
For it is only in the fire of his love
that we can go leaping with joy:
leaping like calves just coming from the stall;
leaping like the children bounding down these aisles to hear the Children’s Message.
Leaping because of
FIRE….GOD….. and joy, joy, joy.
Amen
*
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