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Malachi 3:1-4 Philippians 1:3-11 Luke 3:1-6
Last week we began the Advent season, which at its core, is a season about hope. Today’s readings from Malachi, Philippians, and Luke are all consistent with this theme of hope, although not necessarily in the ways you might expect. And I guess you could sum up the message of all three of these passages in one phrase that is both hopeful, but also a little bit scary. God is not finished yet. Keep these words in mind throughout today’s sermon. As many of you know, I used to work at a church camp throughout high school and college. The Lutheran camp I was a counselor at is in the middle of Kansas and it has over 800 acres of pretty much untouched forest on it. With that much space, one our my favorite things to do with the kids was to take them hiking. There were miles of trails throughout the camp, but I kind of always thought that the trails were for weanies, so every week, my group of campers would always go on a big, huge trailblaze. We’d travel along the trail until we were in the middle of the woods and then we’d just all the sudden take off in a random direction, go off of the trail, often getting lost, yet miraculously, most of the time we found our way back to the dining hall in time for lunch. Most of the time. Anyway, this one time, we were doing some major trailblazing, trying to cut through some pretty tough underbrush, and I was letting one of the children lead the way. There were about 8 of us, most of them about 10 years old, and I was in the back of the line. We hadn’t been off of the trail that long, when I heard a yelp from the child who was in front and she started running back in the general direction of the trail. The second person in line all the sudden screamed and started running too. Before I knew it, our entire group was covered in bees – we had walked right into a beehive – and we had to run for our lives. I pointed the kids back toward the trail and I tried to brush as many bees off of them as I could as we ran. Of course, there was no trail so kids were falling down and hitting branches and crying and screaming and getting stung all at once. It was a disaster. We finally made it back to the trail and the bees were still with us, so we ran down the trail a ways and we finally stopped so I could finish brushing all the bees away. When it was all said and done, the most stings anybody had was 7, and unfortunately, I had the least with only 1 sting. Needless to say, my kids were done hiking for the rest of the day, so we went back to the dining hall to nurse our wounds and make friendship bracelets. Life is often best described as a journey, and hiking is an accurate metaphor for this. God has a future for all of us. He has hopes and dreams that we will all be with him in heaven someday. And in order for all of us to make it to this heavenly dining hall, God has given us a trail to follow – it may not always seem like the straightest or flattest path, but it is a trail nonetheless. This trail leads us through dark valleys and up to the top of mountains and through thick jungles and through barren wastelands – it’s a very exciting journey to say the least. Unfortunately, because we are human, we don’t always stay on the path however. We tend to go our own way. Sometimes it is because trailblazing sounds like a lot more fun, and sometimes its just because we honestly get lost. Either way, we rarely stay on the path that God has laid out for us. This was Israel’s problem in the book of Malachi. God had laid out this wonderful trail for them, he had freed them from slavery to the Babylonians, and he had helped them rebuild the Temple, yet they had gone off the trail again. Malachi, who’s name means “God’s Messenger”, was sent to lead them back to the trail. Like me and the beehive, it was going to take a painful jolt to get their attention because they were intentionally going the wrong way. Malachi says, “For God is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he 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.” Folks, it is not fun or easy to be refined – a refiner’s fire has to be hot enough to melt away the impurities and the slag – yet we all get to take our turn in the fire. Each of us has our own impurities that need to be painfully removed because we won’t willingly let go of them. There are sins that we love more than God himself. It’s important to realize that not all of the pain in our lives is of this variety, but there is a good chunk of it that is of our own making. Although its scary and painful to go through the refiner’s process or to be attacked by bees, these things bring us back to the path that God wants us to be on. So if this is you and you feel like life is heating up and you have a hunch that your own actions and decisions may have something to do with it, realize that there is hope within the pain. God is shaping you into who he wants you to be. God is not finished with you yet. Now, sometimes we wander off of the path unintentionally or our paths get interrupted by things we can’t control – cancer, death, illness, family problems, whatever. Sometimes it is our own ignorance that gets us into trouble. Sometimes were bound by things and just can’t escape, even though we want to. Situations like these don’t call for a refiner’s fire, but rather we need to be molded and transformed by the loving, careful touch of a sculptor. Michelango was once asked how he took such rough stone and made such beauty out of it. He replied, “I just carve away anything that isn’t art.” If this is you, and you just feel lost and helpless right now, you’re not alone. The Philippians were in that same boat and Paul comforted them by saying, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” If you don’t need any more pain, but rather someone to remove the painful parts, there is also hope for you. God is a careful artist, removing everything in you that is not art. God is not finished with you yet. Because we all struggle to stay on the right path, are there things we can do to stay on the path, to make it easier to get where God wants us to go? Here’s a great little Calvin & Hobbes cartoon that illustrates this:
During our life journeys, we’re all brave sometimes, and we’re all scared sometimes. In every instance – on the trail or off of it – there is a name that we can call on to help us find that path – his name is Jesus. When we call his name, either through prayer or worship or just out of sheer panic, we’ll realize that he is actually right there beside us the entire time. The other thing that we can do to help ourselves stay on the path is very appropriate for this Advent season. One of the assignments I gave our confirmation students a couple weeks ago was to interview a family member as to why they think special meals and holidays are so important. One of the answers struck me as very profound. One of the dads replied that special meals are important to him because everyone can stick together and not be in a hurry. Wouldn’t it be nice to not be in a hurry? Guess what, the only one who can control that is you. One of the Advent disciplines that generates hope is simply to rest, and you’ll never get time to rest until you take time to rest. By slowing down, intentionally setting aside time for prayer, meditation, lighting advent candles, or reading the Bible, you will find it much easier to stay on the path and realize that there is hope in the statement that God isn’t finished with you yet. So, I guess the final question this morning is this - why isn’t God done with us yet? Several of you are over 80 years old, you’d think that’d be enough time for God to get it right. Why does God need to be constantly working on us, shaping us and molding us, sometimes painfully so? Aren’t we okay just the way we are? God isn’t finished with us yet, because as we learn from John the Baptist, God isn’t finished with the world yet. There’s a whole lot of world out there left to be saved, a lot of mountains to be brought down, a lot of valleys to be lifted up, a lot of rough ways to be smoothed out. And God needs us to be the voices in the wilderness. God needs us to help prepare the way for that day when Jesus will come again. God needs us to get back on the trail so that we can help others find that same path – the one that leads to heaven. We are all called to be little John the Baptist’s or little Malachis, speaking out against injustice, bringing good news to the poor, holding each other accountable, standing up for what’s right, tilling the soil, planting the seeds, preparing the way for when our Savior will come again to judge the world in righteousness. There is hope for the world and if we don’t share that hope with the world, who will? God is not finished with us yet, because God is not finished with the world yet. And this means that there is always hope.
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