The Refiner’s Fire December 23 (#300)

Saturday of the Third Week of Advent

But who will endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? For he is like the refiner's fire, or like the fuller's lye. Malachi 3:2

For surely the hand of the Lord was with him. Luke 1:66

Piety

Let us pray: As the cold of winter sets in, we welcome your refining fire, O God. It will warm us like a close friend, it will light the Way, and it will purge all the underbrush that threatens to separate us from you, our God and the life You wants us to lead. Help us go through life with the fortitude of Joseph, leading his young family-to-be down through the mountains, across the river and into the desert in the quest for his hometown of Bethlehem where he would come face-to-face with God. As the Star burns over Bethlehem, help us to look east to the sunrise and prepare for the Son to come into our lives. Amen.

Study

Like the Advent candle ablaze near the end of this season, images of fire burn into today’s readings. The scene has the potential to be a pretty gruesome sight of doom and gloom.

For centuries, the priests have been offering sacrifices in the temple. But these have not been “due sacrifices to God” as in the old days. Christ is sent to purge the world and clean things up. He wants to chase away those who do not believe, those who would put commercialism before faith, those who say one thing and do another. In the refiner’s fire, we will burn to ashes. We will be bleached pure with the fuller’s dye.

Such ritual purification will atone for turning aside and rejecting God’s commandments and giving lip-service to the commandments – espousing values without acting on them.

Yet who can stand such scrutiny? We will not, we can not, survive this fire alone.

That is why God promises to send his Son to be “with us,” to lead us to believe. Like John the Baptist, the hand of the Lord will be with us and save us. Both Malachai and Luke (through Zechariah) remind us on this Eve of Christmas Eve of the entire salvation narrative that traces the Hebrew Bible.

The plot and promise: God loves us. Yet, since the earliest days, we have turned aside from God’s statutes, and have not kept them. Through pride, disobedience and other sins, we have chased God out of our lives. God wants us to return like prodigal daughters and sons to receive his blessing, grace and love. He promises to first send Elijah/John the Baptist to announce the arrival of the LORD of hosts.

Who receives the blessings: God shares his love with those who, like Mary and Elizabeth, believed that what was spoken by the Lord would be fulfilled. He blesses those who fear His name and who trust his name. “And they shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, my own special possession, on the day I take action.” (Malachi 3:16-17). God’s love returns faster than we do.

The result: God loves us again. When we have faith and act on the Word, we will again see the distinction between the just and the wicked; Between those who serve God, and those who do not serve him.

Action

Today, we think almost nothing about taking a 100-mile journey. To celebrate Christmas, many of us or our family members will easily travel 50, 100, or even 250 miles to be with relatives and friends.

Nazareth – site of the Annunciation and starting point for this journey – today is located in a predominantly Arab section of Israel. Last summer, the area was the target of rocket attacks launched from Lebanon. You might have seen it profiled on Nightline. The trek from Nazareth to Bethlehem is about one hundred miles, descending down out of the mountains, over Mount Tabor and following a southerly route along the Jordan River. With no Hummer, Land Cruiser, Ford Explorer or Jeep, the young Jewish family would make the trek on camel, donkey or horseback.

The route along the Jordan River would have required Joseph and Mary to cross into what is now the disputed West Bank, territory which then was unfriendly Samaria and is now part of the Palestinian territory based on the 1967 borders. Today, Joseph and his pregnant wife would have had to wait at numerous checkpoints like the Al Khader checkpoint, when entering the West Bank – to reach his hometown of Bethlehem.

If Joseph was on his way home to register for the census today, he even might discover that the land of his family’s ancestral home was expropriated by Israel to build the separation wall.

Spend some time thinking about the Holy Land. The journey would have taken Joseph and Mary about ten days by some estimates. Where will it take you?