Blog 2 February 2024 Malachi 3:1-4.  See also Luke 2, 22-40

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Please read this passage before reading this homily.

We await the redemption of Israel and the Temple.  The Lord is coming.  The hope of the world is coming.  There was a time when our sacrifices meant almost nothing.  Malachi’s name means messenger or prophet.  Prophets speak for some higher authority.  When God sends a messenger, we get a prophet.  When the President of the United States sends a messenger, we have a press secretary.  The jobs of each are alike.

What is going on?  The Lord is taking possession of his temple.  This is a public and juridic act.  We have witnesses, an old man recognized as a prophet and an old widow of ancient parentage, also accredited as a prophet.  When Jesus enters his temple accompanied prophet by his parents, Simeon and Anna are there to witness and record this official state visit.  This is what is going on.

The prophet’s words describe Jesus as the fall and the rise of the people of Israel.  The words “fall and rise”, like other doublets in the Bible embrace the totality, like the A to Z of the people the of Israel.  The word many means more than one, which itself stands for “many more than one”, which really means “all”.  In Jesus, then sees the totality of the entire history of the Israelites from first to last.  Somehow the almighty Lord God, coming into his Temple, accepts the totality of history with all its ups and downs, and undoes the evils and downs to restore the entire holiness of God’s creation.

By putting these two passages together, we can perhaps see how Luke interprets Malachi so that the bringing of Jesus into the temple can be seen as a fulfilment of Malachi’s prophetic word. A Christian interpretation of Malachi is a choice that can add to an understanding of what Jesus means to those who believe in him.