H. Michael Brewer
Crescent Springs Presbyterian
7 December 2003
THE REFINER’S FIRE
Malachi 3:1-4
“You better watch out, you better not cry; you better not pout, I’m telling you why—because the Lord is coming to town!”
Okay, that’s not the way you learned the song and the meter’s not quite right, but it’s a fair summary of the message preached by Malachi the prophet.
Malachi lived in cynical times. This was after the exile, after the return from exile, after the rebuilding of the Temple, and faith had grown jaded. It’s not that
people didn’t believe in God; it’s just that they didn’t believe God cared all that much. They didn’t see any justice in the world, and they had given up on the
heavenly Judge.
Here are a few lines from Malachi, from a contemporary translation: “You have tired the Lord out with your talk. But you ask, ‘How have we tired him?’
By saying, ‘The Lord Almighty thinks all evildoers are good; in fact he likes them.’ Or by asking, ‘Where is the God who is supposed to be just?’” (Malachi
2:17 TEV).
Malachi has a message for these cynical, jaded, 5th Century B.C. people who remind me so much of 21st Century people. “The Lord you’re looking for is
definitely coming. The Lord will appear in the Temple when no one expects it, and when the Lord appears maybe your own righteousness won’t seem so
shiny then. The Lord’s arrival will be laundry day, and it will take a whole box of extra-strong soap with bleach to get things clean. The Lord’s coming will be
like the fiery furnace at the silversmith’s workshop, the fire that melts and scalds the silver until the dross and the impurities all burn away.”
Malachi has two remarkable and unique images of God. First, God is a washwoman. Washing was woman’s work, and it was done the hard way: soaking
the garments, lathering them with soap, beating and scrubbing them against stones, rinsing and wringing by hand, and then repeating the process until the dirt
and stains are gone.
According to Malachi, God is also a silversmith. Both images have to do with cleansing, one with soap and bleach, the other with fire. For silver to achieve
its best appearance, the contaminations have to be burned out. The smith would melt the silver and skim the impurities. Then the smith would do the whole
thing again. The psalmist mentions first-quality silver that has been melted and refined seven times. Heated and re-heated, burned and purified over and over.
It’s a funny thing about fire. Flame is a comforting image—in your gas furnace, in your fireplace, dancing on the Christmas candles in your dining room. But
we never entirely tame the fire, do we? Just last week in the service we prayed for a man whose house burned. Fire demands our respect and our awe.
As does God. Try as we might, we never domesticate God. Malachi’s people were wrong. God does care about justice. God cares fervently about right and
wrong, good and evil. Unlike jolly old Saint Nicholas, God will not chuckle over our sins or wink away our transgressions. Malachi give us a sense of just
how seriously God views our conduct—a washwoman pounding and pounding until the dirt is utterly washed away, and a refiner plunging the silver into the
furnace again and again until all dross is gone.
Frankly, it’s scary how deeply sin offends our holy God. That’s why we need to be careful to get the prophet’s full message. At least one reason sin angers
God is because sin comes between God and God’s precious treasure. Sin bruises and batters the apple of God’s eye. That’s you! You are God’s treasure and
the apple of God’s eye! God hates sin because God loves you. Sin dirties, decays and devalues that which God loves.
The washerwoman is a humble likeness of God, but there’s so much love there. I remember my mother lugging baskets of dirty clothing to the Laundromat
when I was young, dragging the heavy baskets of wet clothing back home to dry on the line (because it made the clothes more fresh), and then the hours spent
over the ironing board—only to repeat the whole cycle all too soon when the hamper was full again.
It was long years before I understood all that washing and ironing was my mother’s way of saying, “I love you. I want you to look your best. I want you
be as proud of yourself as I am proud of you. I scrubbed the grass-stain out of your pants and I starched that shirt collar so that you can put your best foot
forward—because I love you.”
The silversmith may seem merciless when he plunges the metal into the fire, but all his effort is aimed at making the silver as lustrous and beautiful as it can
possibly be so that someday when the purified silver takes its final form in a necklace or a pin, eyes will widen and breath will catch at the sheer glory of it.
Love always seeks the best for the beloved, and true love never begrudges the effort or counts the cost on the way.
As is often the case with Old Testament prophets, Malachi glimpsed the outlines of the future, but missed the subtleties. The Lords arrival did indeed
surprise Israel, and no wonder. Who expected God to arrive in the guise of a Galilean carpenter/rabbi overturning the tables of the moneychangers and driving
out the animal sellers and condemning the crooked, self-serving priesthood? Oh, yes, Malachi saw the whole thing. Malachi saw the Lord arriving among a
dirty people worshipping in a defiled Temple. Malachi saw the day coming when there’d be hell to pay, but he could not see that Jesus himself would
provide the payment.
Do you sometimes feel like giving up on yourself? You feel you’re never going to get yourself pulled together, never going to get your life on track, never
going to scrub away the stains of regret and remorse? If so, you need to hear some good news. God has not given up on you. Jesus Christ came into the world
because God refuses to give up on you and me. Christ beckons us to the baptismal waters so he can wash us clean and make us presentable to God. Christ
puts his Holy Spirit in us like a flame that shines away the darkness and burns away the dross. And what Christ has begun, Christ will also finish.
The silversmith works until all the impurities are gone. Maybe the silver needs to be refined seven times. Seven is the biblical number for completeness and
fullness. You matter more to God than all the silver in the world, and God’s Spirit will burn in you as long as it takes, even if it takes a lifetime.
Malachi said that the coming of the Lord would be a surprise. Well, even prophets can be surprised. Malachi saw God’s judgment, but not God’s mercy.
Malachi saw the justice, but not the love. After all, love is almost always a surprise. We are surprised when God’s love turns up unexpectedly in a stable or a
Temple or in your life and mine. In fact, if there’s anything more surprising than God’s love, it is what that love can make of you and me.
Soli Deo Gloria!