The Refiner's Fire

2nd Sunday in Advent – C                                                     LSB #’s 332:1, 5-7; 344; 357:1-2, 6-7
Text – Malachi 3:2
 
But who can endure the day of His coming, & who can stand when He appears?  For He is like a refiner’s fire & like a launderer’s soap.
 
THE REFINER’S FIRE
 
 
At this time of year, all around us, we notice that the commercial success of Christmas has, at its core, a secular heart.  Happy Holidays has, in many ways, replaced Merry Christmas.  Santa Claus has largely taken the place of Jesus. 
Major movie studios used to gear up for this time of year with themes like: The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.  Even the Postal Service hooked up with that movie to market merchandise.  This past week, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever was #11 on the chart grossing a mere $347,000 in one night.   Wicked pulled anywhere from $5 to $29 million per night. 
Christmas is still one of the top movie going seasons of the year, but the money making movies no longer have anything to do with even a secular version of Christmas.  And the secular heart of a commercial Christmas does nothing in the way of motivating us to love our neighbor. 
Adults may complain about how much stuff everyone has, especially all the stuff that children have.  Still, they are often just as guilty as the rest when it comes to overspending on gifts.  Every child near & dear to them must receive a present or 3. 
When I told people that I buy no gifts for my god children, I often got a look like I was some kind of criminal.  But my sister & her husband made it clear, when they asked me to be a sponsor, that they did not want their children to see me as just than another Santa Claus. 
To be honest, my niece & nephew weren’t in need of any more presents.  The house was already littered with toys. How about your home? No, I’m not concerned with how littered it is.  But I am concerned with how many toys you have, & so is God. You’ve heard of the saying, “He who dies with the most toys wins!” It’s meant to be joke, but there’s often more truth in humor than we recognize.   Boats, cabins by the lake, cars, snowmobiles & four-wheelers, campers & RV’s. Fishing gear & golf clubs, televisions, living room furniture, poofy draperies around the windows & a surround sound entertainment system with a sub-woofer.  
Are things the focal point of your existence? If not, then you are a strange duck in American society.   Even if you’d rather give than receive, when the focal point is still things, then your heart too has gone astray.  Commercialization has succeeded in taking Christ out of Christmas, & He’s been replaced with an emphasis upon the toys that a person has.   
That emphasis on acquiring things is at the root of how little we actually value what we do possess.   What we have is never good enough.  We always want & need more.  Like a child who’s not content with the toy that he has, but is only concerned with the toy that his playmate has; you & I struggle to be content with the blessings that God has given us.  
They get old, we take them for granted, & we put them aside. Certainly those toys, those external things, are not the most important area of our lives that God seeks to purify.  The prophet Malachi wrote:
“…who can endure the day of His coming, & who can stand when He appears?  For He is like a refiner’s fire & like a launderer’s soap.”  …He will purify the sons of Levi & refine them like gold & silver, & they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord.” (3:2-3) God is concerned with purifying people, not things. 
God’s Son came into the world in order that hearts might be refined, not our possessions, because it’s in the heart that the sins of greed & coveting thrive.  Jesus instructed the Pharisees with these words: “…from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.  All these evil things come from within, & they defile a person..”  (Mark 7:21-23 ESV)     Jesus was born in order to absorb that uncleanness.  It is Christ’s coming that the prophet Malachi wonders if anyone can endure.  There is no middle ground.  It is belief or unbelief. 
In Malachi’s day the people had no respect for their church building, their leaders were teaching lies, divorce was widespread, & the people were even accusing God of aiding & abetting the evil doers.  Christ would come to be the refiner’s fire & the launderer’s soap in order to remove the impurities of thought, word & deed from the hearts of men & women everywhere. 
Are you ready to endure His coming?  Can you endure having removed from you all the things which distract you from keeping your eyes on the author & perfector of your faith?  After all, that’s what Christians long for; being drawn ever closer to their Savior so that nothing keeps them away from Him. 
Christian freedom is a very radical type of freedom.   It’s freedom because it needs nothing of this world.  Try as we might, none of us can free ourselves from this world.   We may be able to give up smoking or drinking.  We might not have a television set in our home or give far too many gifts at Christmas.  We can live a simpler life or move to a monastery.
Yet, none of that provides, what we as Christians long for, freedom from our desire to sin.  That desire is only removed by drastic action like that of a fire.  The impurities in us must be burned away through the trials & the testing of this life – because none of us will ever voluntarily give up our selfish desires.  They are too deeply ingrained in the heart. 
Christ became one of us – He became human – that He might enter our lives & patiently refine away the impurities in our hearts.  Through baptism, Christ takes residence in your heart & lives there.  Like a surgeon’s scalpel, His law cuts away pride & indifference.  He cuts away the desire to find safety & comfort in the things we possess. He burns away our desire to find self-worth in the presents we give.  Jesus’ Words of forgiveness & love for the sinner cut away the self from our self-righteousness. They cut out the self from our self-centeredness. 
At that point, the love Jesus demonstrated on the cross is able to heal by centering your worth in the fact that God Himself was willing to die for you. At that point, we have no need for finding security in our possessions, because our security is centered in the Almighty God. Nothing can harm us when we are His children. 
Malachi predicted that there would be a messenger to prepare the way into our hearts for Christ.  John the Baptist reminds us that the most important “getting ready” we do is on the inside. He knew that the way to really get ready for the coming Savior was to turn away from sin, to repent & to look to the Lamb of God for forgiveness & for new life. 
John is still calling us to get ready for Jesus’ birth, but not by decorating or through buying gifts.  We get ready John’s way when we remember that we’ve been baptized & made children of God.  On that day Jesus Christ was born into our own personal lives.  He was born to live in the manger of your heart. 
There, Jesus fills in the low spots of your life. There, Christ smooths & levels out the obstacles in your path to eternal life.  He removes the sins. He dissolves the bitterness & anger.  He fills the loneliness with acceptance & with peace.  And He does none of this for profit.  There is no commercialism involved. 
Jesus comes in order to embrace all of life – our joys & our difficulties.  He is God-with-us in good times   & in bad. What sadness or struggle can you offer to God right now?    What low spot in your life needs filling? What rough spot needs smoothing? What impurity needs refining? Your Savior is waiting to satisfy your needs – to prepare the way for His love. 
“On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry announces that the Lord is nigh; awake & hearken
for he brings glad tidings of the King of Kings!”  LSB 344:1. 
Who can endure the day of His coming?  Who can stand when He appears? By the love of our Lord Jesus Christ it is we who shall endure. It is we who shall stand, for He has called us to be His own. He has prepared our hearts to receive Him as King. May the grace, mercy & peace of our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ, prepare you for the final resurrection.  Amen.
 
 
 
Then cleansed be every life from sin; make straight the way for God within, & let us all our hearts prepare for Christ to come & enter there. We hail Thee as our Savior, Lord, our refuge & our great reward; without Thy grace we waste away like flowers that wither & decay. All praise, eternal Son, to Thee whose advent sets Thy people free, whom with the Father we adore & Holy Spirit evermore.  Amen.  LSB 344:2-3, 5.