FROM THE PASTOR
It’s Time to Get Cleaning
As a child, I always enjoyed a holiday – any holiday. It meant that we would decorate the house with appropriate garb and it always looked festive whether it was spring blooms or fall leaves. The one thing I did not like, however, was the cleaning that went into the preparation of the arrival of holiday guests.
There was the general pick up and vacuuming to be done but there were also special projects like dusting all the spindles on the backs of the chairs or polishing the silver. The final step before people arrived was to bathe and put on nice clothes. The house had to sparkle and so did we. While I understood that the house should be picked up for guests, I never really understood why how shiny a fork was – really mattered. That was until I met those ‘white glove test’ people in my life.
In the reading of Malachi, we hear that a messenger is coming. A messenger that tells us that the Lord is coming to his temple. Are you ready? The Lord is about to arrive, the one we desire is coming and we wait in anticipation. The Lord will be cleansing and purifying with the harshest of equipment in order to refine the temple.
The Lord will be cleaning? That is tough to consider. Shouldn’t we be the ones that are cleaning for the arrival? Was the temple not making preparations and cleaning for this said guest? Were the Levites, the priestly class, not polishing the silver and doing as they were supposed to in preparation for the Lord? Malachi says that this guest that is coming will be appearing and coming with the refiner’s fire – a fire so hot that it brings every blemish and inequity to the surface and melts it away. And he is coming with soap – similar to lye or pumice that would scrub and clean one until they were red and raw. This seems rather harsh, yet with all this cleaning, would we pass the white glove test? I guess that depends on who is judging…
For months after having a new baby, I was constantly told by doctors to have visitors wash their hands before holding the new baby because of the germs they may carry and the very fragile immune system of a newborn. While my friends and family learned the routine, the toughest were the polite strangers who wanted to see the new baby, which for them meant touching the baby. No, not touching their shoes, or bodies or even face, but they wanted to hold their hands. If you’ve ever been around a baby, you may have noticed they love to put their hands in their mouth. Their hands become the dirtiest places because everyone loves to touch them.
There is a baby coming. Are you ready? Have you washed and scrubbed? Are you clean enough to visit the manger and hold the newborn baby? If you’re like me, probably not. Good thing that the newborn baby in the manger reaches out his hand to touch our dirtiest parts and cleanses them for us so we can be drawn closer and closer to the light he brings into a dark world.
Blessings,
Pastor Sally
