DATE Monday, December 22, 2008

FROM MY EARLIEST MEMORIES, my father spent every Advent season preparing

to sing in at least one production of Handel’s Messiah. He was a popular soloist,
and to my mind, Handel’s musical setting of this passage from Malachi belonged to
my Dad alone. I had no trouble picturing God in his temple when my silver-haired
father with his booming baritone rose to sing the rumbling eighth notes of “refiner’s
fire.” His voice seemed to shake the very pew in which I was sitting. God was the
awesome Father, preparing to hold the essence of our being to the fire so it could
be judged.

Later on I learned more about how a refiner actually purified silver and gold in
Biblical times. The refiner sits patiently before the fire, carefully holding his precious
bit of metal. He never takes his eyes off it for a second. His implement gently
cradles the silver until all traces of useless impurities are burned away and the
precious metal is as beautiful as the refiner knows it can be. This image certainly
squares more easily for me with my gentle and sensitive father (who still sings at
age 91).

Rather than the fearsome judge, we can also see God as the loving refiner who
never wavers or leaves us as we walk through the fires of life. A God who also knows
how easy it is to become encased in sin – or even in the useless and unnecessary.
This is a God who knows how beautiful we can be, and longs to return us to
righteousness. This God sits with us through the pain of our becoming.

PRAYER Awesome and loving God, be with us during this time of preparation,
so that we may greet your Son with righteous hearts. Amen.
See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord
whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant
in whom you delight – indeed, he is coming says the Lord of Hosts. But who
can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he
is like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of
silver; and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and
silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then the offerings
of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in days of old and as in
former years.
Malachi 3:1-4 Patricia Locke, alumna

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