2 Chronicles 35 Revelation 21 Malachi 3
Josiah
continues his reforms, now re-establishing the pattern of worship lost for so
long. Particular emphasis is placed on the Passover, the annual remembrance of
God’s great act of salvation in leading his people out of slavery in Egypt
The
death of Josiah shows that we can never relax our guard, and that God’s word
can come through the most unexpected sources. That is not to say that we accept
whatever we are told, but nor should we simply dismiss it as Josiah does here.
Whenever we are faced with someone claiming to speak from God, we must weigh it
carefully, however unlikely it seems. For Josiah, it is a fatal mistake. 31
years of good kingship comes to an end in one of the most famous battles in
human history, the battle of Carchemish Carchemish Megiddo
by the king of Judah
Malachi
3:1 refers to the coming of Christ at the first Christmas, and may have
influenced John, alone among the gospel writers, to set the cleansing of the
temple right at the beginning of his gospel, just after the wedding in Cana – a
‘sudden coming’ indeed! 3:2 reminds us that Jesus is not the meek and mild
figure of popular, liberal Christian myth. Rather, his presence and ministry –
and, crucially, humanity’s response to them – will determine the ultimate fault-line
of judgment, and on which side of that line we find ourselves. Think Matthew
3:12, a verse we so often ignore in our excitement at the previous verse. Our
Lord comes to us as refiner, and refining involves a degree of heat sufficient
to make us pliable to his Will and Purpose. Human nature doesn’t change as
radically as we sometimes imagine. A key way in which the Lord’s refining work
plays out in everyday life, whether in Malachi’s day or our own, is our use of
money. ‘Everything comes from
you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand’ may be ancient words (1 Chronicles 29:14), but
they should inform our thinking today. The word ‘possessions’ is not a
Christian one.
It
is only after Revelation 19 and 20 that we can begin to read Revelation 21 and
22. It is only on the basis of a cosmos
purged of evil, that we can see the new created order, represented here by the
new Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God, prepared as a bride,
beautifully dressed for her husband. Are
you a bit surprised to find that John’s image of eternity is a city? It means
people living together; it means organised social living – and that’s precisely
what John intends us to take from this.
The
Christian hope is solid, material, it’s social and it’s perfect. Peter writes
in 2 Peter 3:13 that ‘We are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth,
the home of righteousness’. We notice in 21:24 that cultural diversity will
continue. There will still be nations,
which will still be governed by rulers, but they will bring their splendour
into the gates of God’s city.
All
those Old Testament images of Jerusalem , the
City of Peace
But
we need to be clear that John’s vision of the New Jerusalem is not a simple
continuation of human history, nor the final flowering of human achievement.
New Jerusalem comes down from Heaven – God’s new creation, completely gifted to
us. And it stands on the other side of
the line which the return of Christ will draw across the page of human history.
(member of the clergy)