“Promises, promises”: a shared Advent sermon series with Pastor Tim Klein from Faith, Warradale and Pastor Tim Ebbs from St Paul’s Glenelg
Week 2: The promise of God’s presence
There were two little boys, Jimmy and Johnny who were notorious for playing pranks. They would constantly dream up different ways to wreak havoc: smearing golden syrup under car door-handles, tipping chilli powder into the sauce bottles of the local take-away, putting whoopee cushions on their teacher’s chairs. Before long, the boys had gained a reputation in the community as trouble-makers. Their exasperated parents asked their minister, Pastor Jones, to have a talk with them.
Pastor Jones was a tall man with a booming voice, a rather imposing figure to little Jimmy who sat nervously in Pastor Jones’ office. Pastor Jones, trying to help Jimmy realise that nothing is hidden from God’s sight, asked him: “Where is God?” Jimmy made no response, simply sitting there with his mouth hanging open. Pastor Jones asked again: “Where is God?” Still, Jimmy sat silent with his mouth open. So Pastor Jones, frustrated, shook his finger and bellowed, “Where is God!?” Jimmy sprang out of the chair, bolted for the front door, ran straight home and jumped into his wardrobe, slamming the door behind him. Shocked to see Jimmy do this, brother Johnny asked: “What happened?”
Jimmy, gasping for breath, replied: “We’re in REAL BIG trouble this time! God’s gone missing—and they think we did it!”
Where is God? Has he gone missing?
They were questions the people wrestled with at the time God spoke through the prophet Malachi.
Last week, as we explored the theme “The promise of safety”, we heard in Jeremiah how God’s people were exiled for their idolatry, which had gone from bad to worse. But God promised to bring them back home, and establish a righteous king from David’s throne.
Malachi prophesied after the exiles had returned and the Temple had been rebuilt. The people had high hopes. They anticipated that all of God’s promises would be fulfilled, especially that Israel would be unified and the promised Messiah would come and rule with great blessing.
However things didn’t go well. After the resettlement, the people were just as unfaithful to God as their ancestors to whom Jeremiah prophesied, and they had fallen straight back in to the same old patterns of idolatrous behaviour.
They were profaning the Temple by their offerings of blind, crippled and diseased animals. It wasn’t just that they disobeyed God’s command: “Do not bring anything with a defect, because it will not be accepted on your behalf” (Leviticus 22:20). But it showed their hearts were far from God, complacent and indifferent to him. They loved him…well…when it suited them. God accused these people of cheating him, by using him to get rid of their unwanted ‘hand-me-downs’ as it were, while keeping the choice animals for themselves.
The priests were at fault too. Instead of setting their hearts on God, they brought dishonour to his name, by teaching falsely and causing many of his people to stumble by turning to other gods and calling on them instead. The people were unfaithful in marriage, covering themselves with violence and divorcing their wives casually, treating them as chattels—a mirror of their covenant unfaithfulness to God.
Hmmm. Where is God?
Some flooded God’s altar with their tears, wondering why God no longer paid attention to their offerings. Others, seeing that evildoers seemed to be unrestrained—and even prospered—doubted God’s justice and accused God of doing nothing.
What about you? Do you ever wonder “where is God?” Does God seem far away, in hiding, complacent and indifferent to our needs? Are you in a situation where it seems as though you are flooding God’s altar with tears, and he is seemingly silent?
And what of all the evil and brokenness in the world? Is God unable to bring an end to it, or is it that he just doesn’t care? What of the sufferings and trials that happen to us, like COVID and all the limitations with it and the devastating impact it has had on society: physically, emotionally and financially, perhaps even for some of you? Has God left us? Or is he punishing us? Where will God be, now our borders have opened, and we feel anxious of increased community transmission in SA?
When the people in Malachi’s day wondered where God was for them, God promised through the prophet that he was going to do something about the situation: “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.
This messenger who would come suddenly to his temple is more than a community leader or notable public figure—this would be a special kind of King. It seems this promise in Malachi parallels Exodus 23:20-23, where an angel goes ahead of God’s people to guard them and prepare the way for entry into the Promised Land. As the passage unfolds, the identity of this angel progressively merges with that of God’s own. Malachi borrows from the Exodus passage to show the messenger God promises who will come to his Temple is God himself. Where is God? Right there with his people!
In response to God’s promise, Malachi poses the question: “But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears?”
The good news is that not only will God come to his Temple and be with his people—Malachi says that God will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then they will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord.
God will not just be near to them—like hanging out in the same neighbourhood—but he will be with them; intentionally and actively be favourably disposed towards them, promising to come to them and refine them, so they may serve him as his righteous people. Therefore they can be sure that God will be present with all his favour and merciful help. This is, then, again a promise of God’s grace and forgiveness for his people. He will be present for them to forgive them, comfort them, bless them, show his divine favour for them—astonishing considering Israel’s repeated failures—but that is what God’s faithfulness to his promises means, and what it looks like in practice.
Where is God, for us, today?
God’s presence with his people promised through Malachi is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus. Jesus is the One God sent all the way from heaven to earth to be God with us. Jesus is the once for all perfect sacrifice for sin, the lamb without defect, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Look to the Cross and see that is where God did something about evil, punishing sin in his own Son. Look to the Cross and see that is precisely why God will always be with you with his favour, and nothing will separate you from his love. For there, Jesus traded places with us, exchanging our sin for his righteousness, and redeemed you by his holy and precious blood.
He will never forsake you, because, for a time, God turned away from his own Son. All the evil we witness, all the brokenness in a world groaning in bondage to decay of which the COVID pandemic is a part, is not a sign that God has abandoned anybody. These things do not show that God has forgotten you, doesn’t care about you, or is punishing you.
Because in baptism “God with us” became “God with you”. That was when God claimed you as his own as he said: “I baptise you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” There he joined you to himself, purified you by water and his word to be his holy priests, and opened the heavens and emptied out all of his divine favour and blessing upon you.
Like Israel of old, we have done nothing to deserve such lavish grace from God. But that is how much he loves all people. That is how much he loves you, and wants to be present for you in a personal relationship where there is fullness of life and blessing through Jesus.
Yes, God is still present with his people, knowing and experiencing with you whatever is in your life, comforting you with his forgiveness, bringing his merciful help to you, praying for you, bearing your burdens, strengthening your faith. He will keep you close to him as he guides you safely through the wilderness of this world, to the homeland in heaven he has promised. That is where, together with all those whom God has purified and kept steadfast in faith, you will see him and share in his glory forever. Amen.
