“Jesus Will Take Us by Surprise”

Advent 2 – December 5th and 6th, 2009

Malachi 3:1-4

Patience is a virtue that most people do not come by naturally. If we get caught in a traffic jam, we often get
highly agitated and very frustrated. If we have to sit for an unexpected period of time at a train, our blood begins to
boil. If we go to a fast food restaurant and the “food” that we ordered and paid for isn’t received very quickly, we
get irritated and angry, and say to ourselves (or maybe even out loud,) “I thought this was supposed to be fast food!”
We just don’t like to wait for anything. The creed for our instant-gratification world is quite simple, “I want what I
want and I want it NOW!”
Patience may not be something that we come by naturally, but it is something that our Lord teaches us in
his Word – to patiently await with faithful hearts the coming of the Lord Jesus. Advent is a season of the year where
that virtue of patience is renewed in us, as the Holy Spirit continues to urge us to remain in a state of spiritual
preparedness, constantly looking to Jesus for assurance of salvation, and always looking, with eyes of faith, to the
skies and to the time when Jesus will fulfill his ascension promise, to return in glory and power and majesty.
Our lesson from Malachi 3 today further teaches that virtue of patience and, especially preparedness by
telling us that, yes, Adonai is coming. So, patiently wait for him and faithfully prepare for him, because just as it
was with his first advent, so also in his second advent he is going to come, “suddenly,” taking all by surprise, both in
regards to the TIME of his coming and the PURPOSE of his coming. He will take us by surprise when he comes
again unexpectedly and when he cleans his house thoroughly.

I. When he comes again unexpectedly

Jesus’ first coming took people by surprise. Mary, Joseph, Herod, the shepherds, friends and enemies, all
were taken by surprise that first Christmas. Since that very first sin in the Garden of Eden, back in Genesis 3, since
the dawn of the world, virtually, God had been promising to send the “offpring of the woman” who would crush the
head of the serpent and free the world from their sins. But generation after generation came and went, and there
was no such offspring, no righteous branch of David. The hope of the Messiah remained with the people through
the Word of God, given through the prophets of old, but what the people hoped for and confess with their mouths
they really didn’t expect in their hearts.
And it showed in their worship life! The people who had returned from exile were losing hope in God’s
promises. They had returned to the promised land of Canaan, but it wasn’t a glorious land, it was under the rule of
the Persians, the glorious future which had been promised by the prophets had not taken place and the Lord had
not come to his temple. And as they were losing hope in the Word of God, and as their expectations waned, their
worship life dissolved into a listless perpetuation of rituals which has lost their meaning and significance. All of
those sacrifices which not only revealed the severe punishment of sin, but also the way that God would absolve sin,
through an innocence substitute, those beautiful portraits of the Messiah were simply lost in a menagerie of
ritualism which led the people further and further away from their God and his grace.
 So, God spoke to them with a certain level of harshness, but also with a great amount of blessing and grace:
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You have wearied the LORD with your words. “How have we wearied him?” you ask. By saying, “All who do evil are
good in the eyes of the LORD, and he is pleased with them” or “Where is the God of justice?” 1 “See, 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.”
Do we actually expect that which we hope for? Do we actually expect to happen what we confess publicly -
that the Lord Jesus will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead? We should, but I’d bet that we don’t.
You and I cannot control God’s actions, we cannot define or dictate when Judgment Day is going to be, we cannot
look into the mind of God and see his plan for the future, and so, in the ignorance of our sinful ways, we question
God’s commitment to his promises, and we question his purpose in waiting so long to fulfill those promises, just as
the Israelites did. Our lack of expectation shows itself in our worship life with apathetic attitudes, and mindless
repetition of rituals, which in and of themselves are meant to be blessings to us for our spiritual betterment, yet
instead are often abused by us to our spiritual detriment. How impatient we can get, seeing as we often do not
actually expect that which we confess to hope for!
Whether or not anyone is expecting it or ready for it, the Lord is coming! And just as it was with the first
advent of Christ, so it will be with his second advent – he will come “suddenly”/”unexpectedly.” But just because his
coming will be sudden, surprising and unexpected, “like a thief in the night,” we’re told, (because no one really
knows the time when he will come,) that doesn’t mean that we need to be caught by surprise completely
unprepared. Our Lord has provided the means for preparation – his Word, the message of the gospel, and
messengers that carry that gospel to the ends of the earth. “Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call on him when he
is near,” the prophet Isaiah says in chapter 55:6. Prepare for his coming by listening and taking to heart the message
of the Lord of hosts, “Behold, Adonai is coming to his house!” Read it, hear it, learn it, inwardly digest it – and
expect that God, who was faithful to his covenant in sending Jesus the first time, will once again fulfill his covenant
to come again a second time!

II. When he cleans his house thoroughly

Jesus will take you by surprise when he comes again...but will also surprise you in his PURPOSE for coming
– to cleanse his house and his people like one who purifies thoroughly using fire and soap. We read on in Malachi
chapter 3: 2 But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s
fire or a launderer’s soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold
and silver.”
The Lord is coming! But who can endure his coming? Who can stand in his presence when we know that
we have not loved God with all our hearts and our minds, and when we have not loved our neighbors with the
perfect self-sacrificing love with which our Lord Jesus loved us? That great and glorious day of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the day of his appearing, the day of his second advent is at hand, and look at how impure we are! We are
just as unprepared in impurity for Jesus’ second coming as the Israelites were for Jesus’ first coming.
Remember, though, that Jesus is the one who is able to remove impurity. Here he is described in two very
interesting ways – as a refiner of precious metal and as a launderer who uses soap. He is a refiner: a refiner is one
who uses incredible heat to burn away any impurity found in metals like gold or silver. The process of refining
makes use of intense punishing heat to cleanse the metal of all things that make it undesirable.
 And then he is described as a launderer of soap. The idea is that of one who takes the wool of a sheep which
has just been shorn, wool that is full of all kinds of natural oils and impurities that make it unfit for any kind of use,
and it is then scrubbed thoroughly with alkili, a strong chemical substance so that every stain, every blotch, every
ounce of dirt is removed from the wool.
That’s what the prophet wants us to see in this imagery. The stain of sin is sunk in so deeply within us.
And no matter how much we try, you and I cannot scrub ourselves clean or make ourselves white. In fact, with
such efforts, we will only make our stain of sin more prevalent and more visible. But the refiner, the launderer, the
Lord Jesus Christ has taken his cleaning agent, his holy and precious blood, that miracle cleansing agent and has
scrubbed us completely clean. It was his blood, shed on the cross for your sins and mine that guarantees that we are
completely clean and ready for the presence of our God in heaven. The apostle John says in 1 John 1:7, “The blood
of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” And Isaiah 1:18 uses the same kind of imagery, “Though your sins are like
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”
He takes us by surprise. In his coming, Jesus justifiably could have come to be an agent of destruction,
taking out his wrath over the sins of the world on the ones that truly deserve it, you and me. Instead he has come as
a cleansing agent, taking away all the impurity of sin that makes you and I unfit to stand on the Last Day. And
now, having been purified by blood, when we hear the promise, “Jesus is coming,” we need not fear, we need not
hide in terror, because those who have been cleansed with holy blood, the saints of God, purified by grace through
faith in Jesus Christ, will stand on that day, and will endure his coming.
Patience is not something that comes naturally to many people. Even in our spiritual watchfulness, you and
I tend not to be very patient, and may, like the Israelites, begin to question God’s commitment to his own promises.
Be patient and be faithful, because the Lord is coming. And when he does, it will be a surprise – but for all who
have received the full and complete cleansing of Christ’s blood by faith, Jesus’ surprise appearance will be a
wonderful surprise. Amen.