Advent 2c,           December 10, 2006

While waiting in a lobby, I was gazing at an old magazine. Then I noticed the young man sitting next to me pulled out his cell phone, and started working the keys with his thumbs. I could help but notice how fast he was typing on his cell phone. I didn’t means to stare, but he noticed me looking at him, and I sheepishly smiled. I said, “I was just wondering what your doing.”

“Text messaging,” he said. “I’m texting with my friend.”

I smiled back. “Text messaging .... hum. That’s something I haven’t used.” We didn’t say anything more. I silently wondered why he didn’t just call his friend on the phone, but I didn’t ask. Today, there are all kinds of ways to communicate messages. We have land phones, cell phones, emails, fax machines, and snail mail. (That’s what they call letters with a stamp.) I still like a hand- written letter and Christmas card. I don’t think I’ll start sending text messages. Then we have radio, television and the internet. All of these are just different ways of getting out a message. In a way, the Bible is similar.

In the Old Testament book of Malachi sends it message this way. “Who can endure the day of God’s coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire.” This messenger says God will be like a refiner and purifier of gold or silver.

The image is striking as we wait for the coming of Christ. Look at any typical wedding ring or other gold jewelry. When we went to Nevada on vacation, we visited Virginia City. Virginia City was the site of a gold rush. Where the gold mines were once thriving, there are now huge piles of discarded rocks and dirt. The ore was extracted from those rocks, and made into gold bars, which made jewelry.

When we look at gold jewelry, and it was refined from combination of gold ore, and previously used gold pieces. It is melted down, refined, and reshaped into place. The goldsmiths take the refined gold and heat it, bent it, hammer it, and mold it until it reached its desired shape and size. The same gold could be refined over and over again, making something completely different and new. A small part of the gold in my ring may have originally come from Carson City!

Like a goldsmith, God is going to refine and reshape the whole creation, and all people to his own desired shape and size for the purpose Jesus gave us. I think that’s an awesome message. Malichi asked, “How can we endure the day of God’s coming? What do we need to do, believe, and say?”

Malichi gets to the answer in chapter 6, verse eight. “God has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

The word is requirement, a change of action. God requires us to do justice, for all people. Justice is doing what is fair and best for all concerned in matters of business, employment, education, and government. Our ELCA does this by calling those in authority to be effective in doing justice. As a congregation, we can do that by supporting our soldiers, our police and our leaders to administer justice fairly.

The second requirement is loving kindness. It means the same as mercy. For those who suffer injustice, sickness, poverty or the discrimination, the Lord requires us exercise loving kindness and mercy. That’s why we help those who suffer injustice, the poor and the sick everyday.

Malichi tells us the third requirement is that we walk humbly with our God. Whatever we do is to be done only to the glory of God, not for our own glorification. The problem is that many people who say they are doing what God requires only to gain power over others. This was true in ancient Israel, and it is just as true today. Many people will do good things so that they can meet their own needs and call attention to themselves, but that is not walking humbly with our God.

I heard Pastor Nancy Fisher from our synod’s staff as she reflected about her own mother. As a young child, she watched her mother work hard and did everything in the congregation. She ran the Sunday School, took charge of the kitchen, and many other activities. As Nancy grew in her own wisdom, she noticed that the reason her mother was doing this was to get recognition from others in her church family, while not paying very much attention to herself or her own family.

Walking humbly with our God is living everyday to the glory of God, waiting for our Lord to return. Those who lead a humble life live each day to fulfill God’s will and purpose for them. Getting ready for the day the Lord comes is about doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God.

Now in our gospel reading, we get another message that compares in many ways to the first message. A few centuries later, just before Jesus was born, there was even less justice and mercy, and the leaders were lining their own pockets with Roman money. So God sent John the Baptist to give a similar message to Malichi’s, but presented in a very different way. He’s calling each person to repent from their sinful and be baptized into God’s way. Repentance is a change in direction and attitude. The Lord was coming to the world soon!

Earlier this week I was driving down a four lane road and a man in an SUV with his family was trying to pass me going too fast. I could see he had his wife and children with him. I was going along at about the speed limit in the right lane, and there was a truck in the left lane going about the same speed. He was right on my bumper trying to get around. Finally the truck pulled over, and he jumped into the passing lane, giving me an un-Christian gesture as he drove by, when suddenly he slammed on his brakes. There in the median was a state trooper. Now that’s an example of one who quickly changed his behavior when he finally got the message he needed. Justice is great when it happens. It can lead people like him to loving mercy and humility.

John uses a different metaphor, a road construction project. We’ve all seen lots of highways being built. To get ready for the coming of the Lord, the high places must be brought down, the valleys must be brought up.

You don’t have to look far to find a new road under construction. Even as I wrote this sermon, I can hear the diesel engines of dump trucks and front end tractors. They are putting in a new road just about 300 yards from my house. The whole landscape is changing, knocking down the hills, filling in the low spots. Soon there will be new ways to get around, new traffic patterns.

Now the question for us is, what can we do to prepare for the coming of our Lord? First, we can learn and remember what John and Jesus taught us and did for us. In a way, Jesus began the construction project John was talking about. Jesus came and gave a new covenant for the forgiveness of all sin for all people. Let us live in that new covenant.

Like any new highways this will not come cheap or easy. It’s hard to repent. Even Jesus closest disciples ran away from him when he was scourged and crucified. Like John the Baptist and God’s earlier prophets, people killed him, too. Why? Because the kind of changes that God has planned were rejected. People don’t like it when God’s highway is built in their back yard!

But God would not let the death of his Son stand in the way. The empty tomb means God has begun building the highway so that Jesus can come to us. In spite of all the death, poverty, sickness, and sin, God is coming. The creation will be like a new piece of fine jewelry, shaped perfectly according to God’s will.

The good news is that when Jesus comes again and establishes his kingdom, we won’t need any special devices to communicate. We won’t need cell phones, televisions, or radios. All will hear God’s word of love, and be made new. We will all love justice, mercy, and we’ll be glad to walk humbly with our God. Let us follow Jesus and be ready for his coming.

May the peace of God which passes all human understanding, keep your hearts and mind in Christ Jesus, Our Lord.

Amen