Have a wash for advent!

Sunday 5th December 2021 Second Sunday of Advent

On the journey of Advent, we light the first candle, and we read biblical passages that propel us into the future to consider the end of time - the apocalypse. Today, our reading sends us in the opposite direction. On the second Sunday of Advent, we are pulled into the distant past to hear the words of the ancient prophet, Malachi.

I, the Lord All-Powerful,
will send my messenger
    to prepare the way for me.
Then suddenly the Lord
you are looking for
    will appear in his temple.
The messenger you desire
is coming with my promise,
    and he is on his way. Malachi 3:1 CEV

A messenger who will purify people's hearts. A messenger who will “be like a furnace that purifies silver or like strong soap in a washbasin.” Malachi 3:2 CEV

In the midst of our pre-Christmas hustle and bustle, the church trots out some primitive prophet who promises us an Advent scrub-down. Is that really what we need right now? You would think that the lectionary could come up with a few encouraging words at this time, assuring us that we will make it through another Christmas, instead of cheekily suggesting that before God arrives, we need a bath!

 

What does this mean? How are we to be refined? How are we to be purified? How are we to be washed with strong soap? And when God’s promise, spoken through the prophet Malachi, is finally fulfilled, what will look different in our world, in our churches and in our own lives?

 

Now I should add a word of caution. It would be easy when thinking about the second coming of Christ, to be talking about judgment and repentance and how all the wrong things of the world will be put right. How the wicked will be punished and so on. Yes, we are told those things will happen at that time, whenever that time is. But it’s not for us to draw up a list of those we think deserve to be punished.

 

IN fact, the prophesy we’re thinking about this morning, and indeed John the Baptist’s message in Luke 3, is not about judgment for the world. It is more about the followers of Christ being ready, being prepared, for what will happen when Christ comes again.

 

We can see that Malachi’s prophesy was foretelling the coming of Christ into the world. And in a few weeks, we will of course celebrate the wonderful event. But Malachi was giving his prophesy to God’s people many years before Christ’s birth.

 

Malachi’s prophecy was given after the Jewish people has returned from their exile in Babylon. Around 400 years before Jesus’ birth. Although the Jews had returned from exile and had been allowed to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, they were still subject to Babylonian rule. The glorious future that had been announced by other prophets such as Haggai and Zechariah, had not yet been realised and as yet God had not yet returned to the Temple. (It was central to Jewish belief that God resided in the Temple.)

 

These things combined to make the Jewish people doubt God’s covenant of love with them and made them no longer trust his promise of justice. They were going through the motions of their faith.

 

I think this is where the prophet Malachi has something to say to the church today. We followers of Christ need to be refined, we need to be washed in strong soap, just as Malachi said needed to happen to the Jewish people in their apathy.

 

What will this refining look like? What will it be like? I don’t know. But a starting point for each one of us is to look inside ourselves, to look inside our churches. Are there things we know need putting right? Things we wish to repent of? Things we wish to change or do differently? All in anticipation that one day Christ will come again.

 

Revd Sharon Rhodes – Wickett is an American Methodist minister who has spent time working in Africa. She relates the following story:

 

“At the Annual Conference of the Methodist Church in Sierra Leone, West Africa, meetings were held in a large church in the capital city, Freetown. Each day as we entered the large doors into the church there was a young girl, maybe about the age of 8, who begged at the door. She looked ragged, dirty, her hair was matted and knotted, and she had on tattered clothes. No one seemed to know her, and people brushed her aside upon entering. Some of the pastors tried to tell her to go away. We were busy doing the work of the church. She was a bother. This went on for several days.

As I sat in the pew observing the Conference one day, my peripheral vision caught some motion outside. I looked out of the window, and there on the patio, outside the sanctuary was a woman, a lay member of the conference. She found a bucket and some soap. Although dressed in a beautiful traditional tie-dye gown, she pushed up her sleeves, and she was giving that 8-year-old girl a bath. She soaped up her hair and was tenderly making her all clean and new. She washed the clothes the child had been wearing, and they were spread out on the bushes in the sun drying. The woman went out and got another dress for her to wear, too.

Hundreds of pastors and devoted laypersons poured into the Methodist Church of Freetown to do the work of the church. But outside, on the edges, quietly and without notice, the work of redemption - the work of Jesus Christ was being done. It was not the work of committees and reports and programs. It was the work of soap and water and human touch and being able to see the face of Jesus in that of an abandoned 8-year-old girl.”

 

I relate this story as it serves as a good example I think of where the Church has sometimes got its priorities wrong. Certainly, in the Methodist Church I feel we are very good at talking about things and having lots of rules and regulations – and these can serve an important purpose. But all too often we are in danger of overlooking those 8-year-old girls sat outside the church door needing a wash while we focus on whether or not each church should have a first aider!

 

At Advent we are reminded that the promise of Christ’s coming again into the world is true. He will come again. It will happen under God’s control and in God’s time. There will be a refining and a cleansing. But it will be worth it. After all, if metal is refined it becomes purer and stronger. If something is washed it is better than something dirty.

 

God is sending his messenger Jesus. Why would he do that? The mes­senger comes from a heart of love. Love tempers judgment. The Old and New Testaments are filled with stories, illustrations, quotes, and messages of God’s eternal love. The one verse that typifies the essence of redemption is John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (NIV). The writer, John, goes further “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:17 NIV).