(Isaiah 40:1-11, Malachi 2:17-3:6; Mark 1:1-8)
I learned something this week: preaching on waiting can be just as dangerous as praying for patience. I’ve spent the week waiting on the folks who don’t turn right on reds, and the ones who don’t go when the light turns green, and the drivers who are afraid to get within five miles an hour of the speed limit. But you know what? I’m going to keep talking about this anyway, because it’s important for us to understand why we’re waiting, and not let ourselves be tempted into finding something else to do. In our society in which the most-pressed button in the elevator is the “door close” button, because we can’t wait ten seconds for it to close by itself, we need to understand who and what we’re waiting for, and that the waiting is necessary to prepare us for his coming.
We have a tendency to miss that, because the images we have of Christmas are such beautiful and non-threatening ones—“mother and child, holy infant so tender and mild,” with the animals watching cutely nearby. In our imaginations, even the shepherds are sanitized. Christmas is a joyous celebration, so our natural instinct is to make it safe and happy and fun, with no sharp edges anywhere in sight. The thing is, though, the coming of Jesus wasn’t like that, and his second coming won’t be either. One of the things I most appreciate about Narnia is the way in which C. S. Lewis captures this—when Aslan appears, it’s always a wonderful thing, but it’s never easy or merely pleasant, even for those who love him best; as Mr. Beaver says of him, he’s good, but he isn’t safe.
Indeed, he isn’t safe precisely because he’s good; this is why, as is so often said of him, he isn’t a tame lion. True goodness, true joy, true holiness, true love—anything which is an aspect of the character of God—these are all wonderful things, but also very perilous, because they’re powerful and deeply real; the petty parts of us, our shameful little desires and our selfish whims, cannot endure their presence. There’s a real pain that comes with any sort of intense encounter with God, or with someone who is very close to God, as those parts of ourselves are burned away or driven into hiding—or roused to fight back. This is what the judgment and wrath of God really mean: not that he picks people out and punishes them because he doesn’t like them, but simply that to our sinful natures, the goodness and holiness and love and joy and peace of God, all of his character, are intolerably painful; we can either choose to draw close to him, and allow his presence to purge us of our sin, or we can cling to our sin, and be purged of his presence.
This means that for God to be born in the world as a human being was a wonderful thing, yes, but also a terrible thing. John the Baptizer understood this, and the writers of the Scripture understood this, even if we too often don’t. That’s why we have this curious little thing here in Mark, something which you probably noticed: he says, “As it is written in Isaiah,” and then he doesn’t quote Isaiah, he quotes Malachi. It’s only after he’s thrown Malachi in there that he gets to Isaiah. The folks who like to look for errors and contradictions in Scripture jump all over this one, but the truth is, this is no mistake.
What you have to understand is that Mark has this habit of making what we call “sandwiches” in his gospel (sorry for the technical terminology), and this is a classic example. You can find another in Mark 11. Jesus curses the fig tree, it withers, and he uses that to teach the disciples a lesson. But Mark doesn’t tell that story straight through; instead, he separates it, and in between, he puts the story of the cleansing of the temple. The cursing of the fig tree “sandwiches” this story. Mark does this to give added emphasis to the cleansing of the temple, and to tell us that these two events belong together—we can’t really understand one of them without understanding the other one. It’s the same thing here. Mark says, “As it is written in Isaiah . . . the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord.’” But he doesn’t leave this in one piece—he separates it, and in between the two halves, he puts Malachi 3:1.
To see what he’s doing here, let’s look first at Isaiah 40. To really understand Isaiah 40, you have to know what comes immediately before it. In Isaiah 39:6-7, the prophet gives this word to King Hezekiah: “The time is coming when everything you have—all the treasures stored up by your ancestors—will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD. Some of your own descendants will be taken away into exile, and they will be made eunuchs who will serve in the palace of Babylon’s king.” It was a prophecy of complete disaster, and it fell on Judah early in the 6th century BC; the country was conquered by Babylon, Jerusalem left in ruins, most of the population carried off in exile, and its kings imprisoned for their pathetic attempts to rebel.
But that bad news could not be the last word. What of the promise God had made to David that his descendants would rule Israel forever? What of Isaiah’s own prophecies of hope? And so God gave Isaiah a great word of hope and deliverance, to be sealed up until the proper time had come. God would judge his people, but in time he would relent. “Comfort, comfort my people,” he declares. “Encourage Jerusalem; my people are afraid of me now, but tell them that their time of hardship is over. Their sins have been paid for, and I have given them a full pardon.” You will note that this text doesn’t say that they have suffered long enough to pay the price for their sins themselves; rather, someone else has paid the price for their sins, and in response God has lifted their sentence.
Next, another voice calls out: one of God’s angels announcing a road to be built for God through the wilderness. This is to be a mighty road, a freeway through the desert, and nothing will stand in its way: the Lord is going to Babylon to bring his people home. The valley floors will be raised, the great peaks flattened; hilly areas will be turned into plains, and great passes opened through the mountains. When he led his people out of Egypt, God reached down and parted the sea to make a road for his people; now, in going to bring his people back out of Babylon, he will do the same to the wilderness, turning all its danger and chaos into a safe, wide road for his deliverance. The glory of the Lord will be revealed to Israel and the world as he brings his people home.
After this great declaration, another voice commands, “Call out!” The Lord has promised to deliver his people—spread the news! Shout it from the rooftops! But the reply comes back cynical and bitter: “Why bother? This is never going to happen. People are nothing but grass in the desert; all their love, mercy, loyalty, commitment are as fragile as flowers in the field. The first hot wind comes along, and they shrivel up and die.” The word translated “mercy” there is the Hebrew word hesed, which is one of those great Old Testament words that is just too big for any English word; it gets variously translated as “mercy,” “covenant mercy,” “lovingkindness,” “covenant loyalty,” etc. It is the word used of the love of God in his covenant faithfulness to his people, and carries the idea of his unchanging reliability; it is love in action, steadfast love that always keeps its promises, and unswerving loyalty and faithfulness. The idea is that our own attempts at hesed last only until the first challenge comes, and then they wither.
This bitter, cynical word had to be spoken because it had to be answered—and it is; the first voice replies, “Yes, everything you say is true, but that doesn’t matter. This is God’s word, he has promised, and his word will not fail; his word endures forever.” Deliverance, you see, isn’t based on our ability to earn it; it comes because God is faithful to keep his promises. Of course, everyone needs to know this is happening, and so the command comes to Jerusalem, Mt. Zion, to spread the word. Jerusalem had heard the news that God was bringing his people home, and her responsibility now was to pass it on to all the cities of Judah: “Look, God is coming!” The Lord returns to Jerusalem in power, bringing his people back with him as his reward, and caring for them as a good shepherd cares for his sheep.
What Isaiah’s talking about is, obviously, a wonderful and joyful moment: the Lord is coming to reveal his glory to the world by delivering his people from exile, and all will be well again. In Malachi, however, the picture is much less joyful. The Lord will send a messenger to prepare his way, and then he himself will appear; but rather than celebrating, the prophet asks, “Who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears?” God will come to cleanse and refine his people, washing and burning away all their impurities. He will judge the wicked, those who do not fear him; and even for those who do, his coming will not be easy—it will be overwhelming.
There are certainly aspects to this passage that are clearly positive. For one, there is the assurance that the Lord does not change. Just as in Isaiah, it is made clear that God’s people will be preserved and can trust him to do what he says he will do, because he is faithful even if his people aren’t. He will purify his people so that their offerings are acceptable to him, and in the end, all things will be as they should be. His coming, however, will be a time of judgment as well as of rejoicing, and thus his herald will bring a message of warning and judgment as well as of promise and deliverance.
This is what we see in John the Baptizer, who came preaching a message that has been summarized as “Repent or else!” That’s probably an oversimplification, but it does go to the core of what John had to say; the gospel writers’ one-sentence version of John’s ministry is that he came “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” He called his hearers to radical repentance, to rebuild their lives from the ground up on the will of God, and challenged them to give away whatever they could to those in need. John’s central theme was that the Lord was coming as he had promised, and that people had better get ready; like Malachi, he emphasized that the coming of the Lord would bring judgment as well as joy. Those who repented of their sins and sought to follow him would be blessed, but those who refused would be destroyed.
The thing is, though, as Malachi points out, that even for the faithful, even for those who longed for the Lord’s coming, it would not be easy, and it will not be easy when he comes again, because he is coming to purify us—to complete the work of smelting away all the slag and the dross in our lives. “Who can stand?” the prophet asks? None of us. Not even one. The truth is in a line written by the singer-songwriter Sarah Masen: “The fool stands only to fall, but the wise trip on grace.” All we can do is cast ourselves on the grace of God, on the price paid for us by Christ on the cross; all we can do is lay all of ourselves at his feet and let him refine us and purify us until we can bear his joy, his love, his goodness, his holiness, his peace.
That’s not an easy thing to think about; but as you think about it, remember that he seeks to refine us like silver. Why is that significant? Well, it’s captured best by a story that’s told—I don’t know where it comes from, but I’ve done some research and verified the details—about a group of women who were doing a Bible study on Malachi, of whom one made an appointment with a silversmith to watch him work. As she watched, he held a piece of silver over the fire to heat up, and he explained that in refining silver, it’s necessary to hold it in the middle of the fire, where it is hottest, in order to burn away the impurities. The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot, and remembered that Malachi says that the Lord will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. She asked the silversmith if he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. He said yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver in place, he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver were left in the flames even a moment too long, it would be ruined. The woman was silent for a moment, then asked, “How do you know when the silver is fully refined?” The silversmith smiled at her and said, “I know it’s done when I see my face reflected in it.”
This, you see, is what Christ is doing in us; it’s the process we’re waiting for him to complete in our lives, and in the life of our world, when he returns, and it’s what he’s doing in us now as we wait, and through our waiting.