Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Today’s Old Testament lesson (Mal. 3:13-18) is part of a longer dialogue in the Book of Malachi. The first three chapters of this book are a kind of Q&A in which Yahweh accuses the Jewish people of religious hypocrisy and just going through the motions. They complained that worship was boring, exclaiming, “What a weariness!” (1:13). They also wondered if faith was useless, asserting, “It is vain to serve God” (3:14).
Throughout the dialogue of Malachi, Yahweh will offer a critique and follow up with a question, demanding an answer why. But rather than answering, the people respond defensively with their own questions:
“How have you loved us?” (Mal. 1:2, ESV).
“How have we despised your name?” (1:6).
“Have we polluted you?” (1:7).
“Why doesn’t God accept our offerings?” (2:14, paraphrased).
“How have we wearied [the Lord]?” (2:17).
“Where is the God of justice?” (2:17).
“How have we robbed you?” (3:8).

By the tone of these questions, the Israelites question Yahweh’s goodness and justice.
Have you ever questioned God in a similarly, defensive way? I have. “You say that you love me, God? Then prove it!” “If you’re so good, then why did you let my mom die such a terrible, horrific death?” “Why didn’t you let me hold the babies we lost between Benjamin and Michael?” “If you’re so just, Lord, then why do you let the wicked people run roughshod over the righteous?” “Why do you put me through so much stress and trouble when all I’ve ever tried to do is serve you?” “Won’t you ever just let me be happy?” Do any of these questions sound familiar to you?
Instead of gratitude for God’s goodness and grace, we worry the Lord with our grievances. The Jews of Malachi’s day did the same, even though the times were good, and they enjoyed prosperity after the return of the Exiles from Babylon.
So in the final verse of Malachi (the last verse of the Old Testament), Yahweh threatened sudden and “utter destruction” (Mal. 4:6). That is, the last thing God said was a kind of curse. This curse was so devastating, that in the Jewish synagogues, when they read from Malachi, the lector would re-read verse 5 after verse 6, just to make sure that the reading didn’t end on a down beat. Here is the prophecy of verse 5: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes” (Mal. 4:5).
Malachi was the last of the Old Testament prophets (both chronologically and canonically). His was the last voice heard by the people of Israel before 400 years of prophetic silence. Since they would not answer God’s questions, he did not answer theirs. Yahweh and Israel both gave each other the “silent treatment.” For after Malachi, there was no new Word from the Lord until the arrival of John the Baptist. 400 years of silence. 400 years without God’s Word. 400 years is a long time.
To put it into perspective, consider that next November 2020 will mark 400 years since the Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock to found their colony in Massachusetts. It’s been nearly 400 years since the first Thanksgiving Feast. Think about how during that time the United States grew from a fledgling colony barely getting by to an international superpower sending human beings into outer space and to the moon! 400 years is how much time elapsed between the death of Martin Luther (1546) and the end of World War II (1945). During that time, communication went from a hand-cranked Gutenberg printing press to wireless radio communication and transatlantic phone cables. Messages that used to take weeks or months to get one from place to another could now reach instantaneously. 400 years is a long time.
Imagine not hearing from God for 400 years.
[Pause for dramatic silence.]
Then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord…’” (Matt. 3:3, ESV). Approximately 400 years after Malachi, John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness proclaiming a Baptism of repentance and urging people to “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:1). Suddenly, after not sending a prophet to Israel for four centuries, a prophet appeared in camel skin clothes and eating wild honey. His was the garb of the prophet Elijah (2 Kings 1:8), and his message was nearly the same: turn from sin and return to God. John was the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophecy that God would send back the prophet Elijah before the Day of the Lord (Mal. 4:5). Christ himself declared that John “is Elijah who is to come” (Matt. 11:14). For 400 years God did not speak, and then he suddenly sounded the alarm, blasting his message through a megaphone.
But that was not enough. No, God knew the sordid history of Israel, who mocked and ignored the prophets. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!” (Matt. 23:37a). The Jewish leaders arrested John and beheaded him. Same old story, just a different day.
So it was no longer enough for God to lean on his servants. This time he would send his Son. That’s why the divine Logos, the Word of God who was with God in the beginning, took on human flesh and came down to earth in the person of Jesus the Messiah. The Son of God spoke as God himself. And so the world has never been the same.
“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son…” (Heb. 1:1-2a).
How many times have we lain awake on our beds in the middle of the night, waiting for God to whisper in our ear? But rather than hearing God speak, you hear only the heartbeat of your anxious heart and sighs of despair. No Word of the Lord. Nothing! Just crickets…
But maybe we are waiting for God to speak in a way that he has not promised. After all, in the past, God spoke to us by the prophets. But not anymore. Now he speaks to us by his Son. He speaks to us in the written Word of God, in the Bible, in the Scriptures, which are the Word of Jesus. And, according to the apostle Peter, the written Word is a “more sure” Word—a more reliable Word—than any voice we might hear in a prophetic vision or the stillness of the night (cf. 2 Pet. 1:17-21). It’s not that God can’t speak to us in those ways; but he hasn’t promised to. Yet he has promised to speak to us in his holy Word.
God has never been silent. Not in your life, not in mine. Not even during those 400 years between Malachi and John the Baptist. After all, the people still had the entire corpus of the Old Testament recorded for their hearing and believing.
Perhaps, like the people of Malachi’s day, sometimes our faith is just a pretense—we’re merely going through the motions. We show up at Church on Sunday. We sing some songs and listen to the sermon and put a little money in the offering plate. But then we go home and live as practical atheists, as though God does not exist—or doesn’t matter in our everyday lives. Or maybe God’s presence seems more like a threat than a promise—a message of doom and gloom like the curse in the final verse of Malachi.
But God still loves you. He’s still near. He still speaks, wooing you with the words he whispered to Judah: “I have loved you” (Mal. 1:2). And he loves you still. He loves you so much that he sent his beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross to make payment for your debt of sin, your default of hypocrisy and spiritual melancholy. The same Jesus who endured the shame and scorn of the cross, could have gone down fighting. He could have called done fire from heaven to destroy his enemies. Instead, he prayed, “Father, forgive them…” (Luke 23:34). He could have pronounced a plague on the Jewish priests and Roman soldiers, damning them (and us) to hell. His last words could have been a curse. Instead he became a curse for them (cp. Gal. 3:13). He pronounced weal instead of woe, declaring, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).
I’m tired of waiting for the Lord to speak. Instead I will go to the Scriptures, the living Word of the living Lord Jesus, where he promises to speak. His Word is near, not far (cf. Deut. 30:14). His Word is here [point to Bible] and here [point to altar]… and here [point to heart.] In Jesus Christ our Lord, God’s “silence” is finally over. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of T the Holy Spirit. Amen.