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December 11

Malachi 3: 1

“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.

There are books in the Bible it’s very difficult to find.  The very short book of the Prophet Malachi is one such one,  even though it should be easy to turn to, as the very last book of the Old Testament,  the Hebrew Scriptures.

Here we have a prophet who had the last word before everything changed.  After his time,  God went silent for a time,  or at least seemed to,  but not before Malachi had declared in his name that new messengers were to come.  In these words. We hear echoes of John the Baptist,  whose birth was still centuries into the future.

It amazes me how many times in the Old Testament we read of God’s intent,  long before things happen.  What amazes me even more is that that intent is always good.  God is always offering the next chance – not just the second or the third of the 70 times seventh,  but infinitely offering a chance for humanity to start again.

Tomorrow we will begin looking at some of the New Testament characters populating the Christmas story,  some of them well know, others not, and yet all in the right place at the right time to be of use to good in the unfolding of His plan for Salvation.

That Plan is still going on,  and just as He chose the ordinary of ancient days,  so,  in our ordinariness now we too have our place and our use.