Advent 2

 

Preparation

    Please begin by reading Malachi 3:1-4 and Luke 12:49-53 in your Bible.  If you do not have one at hand, we have provided that text for you at the end of this reflection.

Reflection--The Fire Bringer

    It’s time to set out on the second week of our Advent journey, preparing for the celebration of Jesus’ arrival into the world.  Last week reminded us of how Jesus coming into the world brings love and hope that can get us through rough times and of how God’s presence brings people together to gain strength in community.


    But I would mislead you if I said that walking with Jesus means that the road we travel will always be smooth.  The second Sunday of Advent introduces an element of tension.  Jesus is about more than the sweetness of a baby in a manger.  Yes, Jesus brings hope, love, and peace, but he sometimes also brings the fire of conflict.

   
Two figures loom on the horizon in Malachi’s prophecy, written long before Jesus’ birth.  The first is a messenger who is coming to prepare the way for the second.  The people long for the arrival of the second, but God warns that the arrival of this second figure will be hard for many to endure, for he will sort out evil from good the way the hot fire of a refiner burns the impurities out to leave pure gold or silver and the way soap removes impurities from fabric.

   
    Most Christians see the first person that Malachi saw coming in the future as the strange, wild John the Baptist.  John, the last of the great biblical prophets, went out into the wilderness roughly dressed, living off the land, warning people of “the wrath to come,” and inviting them to be baptized and turn their lives around so that they would be ready for the coming of One who would change the world forever.  When asked if he was the messiah to come, he said this:  “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”  (Luke 3:16-17)

   
    The second figure Malachi foretold we see as none other than Jesus.  Malachi and John clearly pointed to an aspect of Jesus’ coming we don’t often think about.  We usually think of Jesus as the baby in the manger; the humble, gentle carpenter; the one who forgave and comforted the woman about to be executed for adultery;  the One who taught through word and deed about God’s compassion and deep, abiding love for humanity.  All those are true images, but there is more.  As Malachi and John foretold and as Jesus clearly said himself, Jesus also came to bring fire and division.  It is a disturbing thought.  It is intended to be.

    But then I remembered.  God’s love stirs things up.  As much as I dislike conflict, it is to be expected where God is at work in the world.  “I came to bring fire to the earth,” Jesus said.  A world in which we were not challenged and remolded in our beliefs and actions to become more like Jesus would be a world in which Jesus was not present.

             O come, O come Emmanuel!


          revclay

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Malachi 3:1-4  

    See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.  The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight - indeed, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.

   
    But 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; 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.  Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD as in the days of old and as in former years.

Luke 12:49-53 

    [Jesus said] "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!  I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!  Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division!  From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three;  they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."