The messenger - 3 December 2024
By Ben Fourie
Um(Imi)bhalo weBhayibheli
UMalaki 3
Isithunywa sikaJehova
U-Isaya 1
When you have been looking forward to something very much, you would have experienced the feeling of time standing still. As a child, I was usually very excited about the beginning of the school holidays, my birthday and especially the wonderful time of Christmas. I would literally count the days, but it felt as if it would never come. Even as adults, when we look forward to something very special, time seems to drag on very slowly. This must have been how God’s people felt about the promised Messiah.
The prophet Malachi operated shortly after the return from Babylon. The country was in shambles with corrupt office-bearers, people who did not heed the holiness of marriage and others who did not care about the less privileged. The people of God even had the audacity to blame him for all the problems they suffered.
Then, amidst all these problems, came the message they were looking for. God’s messenger was coming to prepare the way for the Anointed One – “the Lord you are looking for will suddenly come to his Temple”. The New Testament pointed to John the Baptist as the messenger who was destined to prepare the way. He did this by preaching about Jesus, the one who was to save his people. John was the most important of the messengers, but he was preceded by others.
Those that we do not even read about in the Bible are very interesting. Between the time of Malachi and the time of the New Testament, four hundred years were to pass. We read about it in the so-called Deuterocanonical Books, also called Apocrypha. The most prominent of these was the family of the Maccabeus, with Judas Maccabeus the outstanding one. He was the leader in the Jewish uprising against King Antiochus Epiphanus who desecrated the temple. By overthrowing the reign of Epiphanes, they made sure that the religion of the Jewish people, from whom the Messiah was to be born, would stay pure. In this sense, they were important “messengers” who paved they way for the coming of the Christ.
I am sure all of us are looking forward to this coming Christmas, but what do we really expect from this day? Am I really looking to find the Lord whom Malachi promised would come? Will I let him come into my “temple”?
Prayer: Thank you Lord, for wanting to come into my life. Thank you that we can really look forward to meet you this Christmas. Amen
