Sunday, November 13, 2022  

Today’s Scripture Reading  |
Malachi 4:1–2a

See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. (NRSV)

Reflection

Good, I was hoping to write a devotion on the last six verses of the Hebrew scriptures. Well, two of them, anyway. OK, one and a half, which is plenty for me given the burning involved.

The day that Malachi says is coming is the day of the Lord, a prophetic signal for a future time of divine judgment. It’s not hard to understand, as the scriptures are filled with imagery about a separation of good and evil at the end of time. Most of this language is parabolic, like Jesus’ story about the sheep and the goats, or prophetic, like Malachi’s words here. The latter speak to a situation for the faithful in which our hearts are divided between devotion to God and loyalty to the reigning political power structure. Malachi writes to a situation in which Israelites are living under the reign of the powerful Persians and are torn between practices of justice commanded by their scriptures and pragmatic compromises for the sake of getting along.

Does that light illumine the criteria for the prophet’s association of one group of people with burning and another with preservation? It’s arrogance and the doing of evil he denounces while lifting up the revering of God’s name. This division occurs elsewhere in Malachi, where those who revere and meditate on God’s name are described over against the arrogant and those doing evil. In neither case are specific practices described.

But in our reading from chapter 4, verses 1–2a, the subject of God’s foretold action changes, and the change feels meaningful. The arrogant and evildoers left rootless and branchless are a “they,” whereas the ones who revere God’s name and so will receive God’s healing are a “you.” What God intends for the “them” who make a mockery of justice and truth is God’s business; what God promises us is ours. And that’s nothing less than healing.

Thanks be to God.

Prayer

God of all, we long to receive the healing of your righteousness. Remove from us all of our pride and arrogance and our doing of evil, so that we may know you fully, and in knowing you revere you in all we do. Amen.

Written by Rocky Supinger, Associate Pastor for Youth Ministry and Worship

Reflection and prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church

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