Sermon Audio

“’And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,’ Says the LORD of hosts. ‘But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears?’”

The prophet Malachi, the prophet who closed the Old Testament, at which time there was about 400 years of silence—no prophet appeared among the people of Israel (cf. 1 Maccabees 9:27) until the new Elijah, John the Baptist (cf. Malachi 4:5)—first tells of the coming of the Lord. YHWH would appear suddenly among His people, whom they seek and in whom they delight. He will come to his temple.

YHWH’s coming, though, sounds like something other than the gracious presence that they would expect. After all, YHWH dwelt among His people in the temple. Day and night, He is the central person in all of Israel and He sat upon the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant in the Most Holy Place. Once a year, the high priest would enter into the Most Holy Place to offer oblations on behalf of the people of Israel. He had to first be purified so that He could stand before the throne of God on earth blameless. There, he pleaded on behalf of the people with the blood of a sacrificed lamb. Legend tells of the ritual, that a rope was tied to the priest such that should he not have been purified perfectly or completely and killed in the presence of the Almighty, his body could be pulled out. However, legend never says that a body was ever pulled out of the Most Holy Place. It can be rightly deduced that YHWH was gracious to the priest, accepting the blood sacrifice for the people, cleansing them from their sins.

But of the coming of the LORD of hosts, Malachi asks, “[W]ho can endure the day of His coming? [W]ho can stand when He appears?” If YHWH’s appearance is to be sudden, then there is no time for the high priest, let alone anyone else, to purify himself to stand before the Almighty and Most Holy. Suddenly, the world is the Most Holy Place of the temple as YHWH Sabaoth stands among the people. Who, because He is sinful, can endure that day? Who, because she is impure, can stand when He appears? No one!

“O Lord, how shall I meet Thee, / How welcome Thee aright? / Thy people long to greet Thee, / My Hope, my heart’s Delight!”

This should be cause for alarm, dear hearers. For the YHWH Sabaoth comes to you. He whom you seek and in whom you delight is here among you. Oh, who can endure the day of His coming? Oh, who can stand at His appearing? [pause to look over the congregation] It appears as if you are. No one is dropping dead where they sit. What is going on?

Your faults are many; your sins grievous. In that, they do injury to God. Recount them as you like, make confession of as many as you can, but you are unable to count them all. As the Psalmist writes, “Who can understand his errors?” (Psalm 19:12a) God’s wrath against you must be great! Indeed it is so! So, what prevents Him from exacting that wrath upon you?

It is the Day of the Lord! YHWH has come...in the flesh. He takes on a mortal body, flesh of your flesh, bone of your bone, blood of your blood. His coming, sudden as it is, is in the flesh, born of a lowly maiden in a lowly stall and placed in a lowly manger for a bed. In that infant’s body is the joy of the world, the one whom you seek and the delight of the people. There in the trough is the Father’s delight, the One whom the Father loves, the One to whom we should listen (cf. Luke 9:35), because He is the Son of God and Word of God—in a name, Jesus!

What does He say?

My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father. (John 10:17-18)

The command He received from the Father was to give His life as a ransom for many: “[T]he Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:28) And in that, He serves you, dear baptized! For this, the Father loves the Son (and you), because Jesus loves you to death.

“Love caused Thy incarnation, / Love brought Thee down to me; / Thy thirst for my salvation / Procured my liberty. / O love beyond all telling, / That led Thee to embrace, / In love all love excelling, / Our lost and fallen race!”

He has come and is come, appearing in the flesh, and has given that flesh over to die, spilling His blood as the propitiation for your sins. So, the flesh-and-blood God, the infant in the manger named Jesus—Y’shua, YHWH saves—is the satisfaction of the wrath of God. In Jesus, you are pure that you may endure His coming to you here and now; in Jesus, you are made pure that you may stand in His presence here and now—and this is because the full wrath of the Father was leveled against His Son, His joy and yours, as He lay hanging on the cross, dying. And in His death is your victory over death and the gateway into the merciful and glorious presence of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost forever!

By way of your Baptisms, and the Baptismal life into which you have been placed, you are made pure. For at the font, you were washed in a most blessed flood—the same water that flowed from the pierced side of Jesus Christ crucified for you. In that flood, you were placed into His side, placed there for your keeping, safe within His wounds. By that Baptism, you daily die as you confess your sins—those known and unknown; done in thought, word, and deed; omission and commission—which were taken from you and destroyed in Christ’s death, and you rise again to newness of life to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.

This, dear hearers is the good work begun in you by Jesus Christ our Lord. In Him you have been placed; you are His and He is yours. He is your delight because He is the propitiation for your sins. Because of the satisfaction of the Father’s wrath in the Son on your behalf, the Father is satisfied with you—He rejoices over you as a dear father rejoices over his dear son. You are a child of God, a son and fellow heir of righteousness with Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ is your righteousness; therefore, the Father is pleased with you for the sake of the Son.

“Sin’s debt, that fearful burden, / Let not your souls distress; / Your guilt the Lord will pardon / And cover by His grace. / He comes, for men procuring / The peace of sin forgiven, / For all God’s sons securing / Their heritage in heaven.”

And because of you are made right with the Father, you will be able to stand and endure when Jesus returns to judge the quick and the dead. For on that great and dreadful day—on the day of the sudden coming of the Lord in power in the clouds, when He returns in His piercèd flesh—your Baptisms will be consummated, your faith will be completed, just as your salvation was completed when Jesus cried out as much from the cross. “It is finished!” (John 19:30)

For now, however, as you struggle in this mortal coil, as you endure this vale of tears, you bear on your brows the seal of Him who died in your place. You are signed upon forehead and breast with the sign of the cross, marking you as one redeemed—bought back from death into life—by Jesus Christ the crucified. The the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh accuse you. They speak rightly in that regard. But they do not condemn you, because you are filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God—because you are forgiven for all of your sins.

“He comes to judge the nations, / A terror to His foes, / A Light of consolations / And blessèd Hope to those / Who love the Lord’s appearing. / O glorious Sun, now come, / Send forth Thy beams so cheering, / And guide us safely home.”