Malachi 4 Sunbeams 62914

I’ve always had an obsession with sunbeams.  I have great memories of leaving a youth group retreat in the spring and while driving home with a friend we spotted a farmers field that was basking in the rays of the sun, filtering through puffy clouds.  We parked alongside the road and got out and ran through the fields chasing the sun beams, taking pictures (with cameras, not cell phones) of our sillies.  I tell the kids that God speaks to me in sunbeams.  So often when I am struggling or praying over a decision I’ll see the rays of the sun shine on a field and a sense of peace will flood my soul reminding me of God’s presence.  Noah asks me what God says to me in the sunbeams and I just answer that God says everything will be okay or God says I am with you or God says Isn’t this life beautiful?

And it is.

Let us pray.

It was early May when I started thinking about today’s worship service.  I was looking through the scriptures we had already covered in our series and I knew that soon we would be leaping into the New Testament and so I thought Malachi would be an amazing choice.  The last book in the Old Testament and a book that we really don’t spend much time at all in.  Malachi was the last of the minor prophets and spoke to the people in Israel almost 400 years before Jesus was born.  As far as Old Testament biblical knowledge goes, I’d guess that we as a whole know little about the prophets.  The Old testament is broken into three distinct sections – history, poetry, and prophets and they come in that order.  So if you are looking for the prophets an easy way to find them is to find the new testament and go backwards or to find the psalms and page a little bit ahead.  I suppose I’ll always be sneaking in ways to help people navigate the bible.  

I looked around to see if anyone ever preaches on Malachi and the sermons were few and far between, for sure and so I thought it would be a fun challenge to explore a book I know very little about and find a way for us together to come to know God more fully.

The text is short and quite strong.  It starts with some pretty rough words about evil doers burning up which we can’t ignore, but what really truly caught my eye were the images of verse 2:  that for those who love God, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. And of verse 6: God will turn the hearts of parents to their children and children to their parents.  

We have several bird feeders on our deck and when the birds come to feed I always watch closely  as their wings spread wide to give them flight.  It’s such a beautiful picture when a bird rises and takes that great leap off of a tree branch or a perch.  The takeoff is so smooth, the soaring so graceful.  And then to see them soar on the horizon out of our back yard it just looks so effortless and yet I know that they were designed for this.

Malachi struck me with that image.  To soar with healing in its wings.   As if the bird was broken or bruised or burned and that it would rise up out of a fight or an accident or a fire… that it was hurt and would triumph over it’s circumstances.  That image is why I chose to preach on Malachi 4.  

And this is the part where I tell you a powerful story about someone who has risen above their trials and tough times and allow that person’s story to ignite in you empathy or compassion.  

But today, the circumstances of the trials, I think, are ours.  

And it is our ordinary.  Our everyday.  Our current trial that we must rise above.  

Or at least that’s what I thought.

You see when I looked more closely at images for Malachi 4 I found that this isn’t a text about a bird or a phoenix rising and the text written – the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings….  That word “sun” is the S-U-N sun and not the S-O-N son.  Further study revealed that in ancient Egyptian cultures, as you may know, the sun was revered and the sun of righteousness was a symbol where there was a circle representing the sun in the center with wings protruding outward.  

Modern allusions to this image are found in the symbols of the Harley Davidson, the Chrysler company, and the band aerosmith.  

One pastor in Allegheny, PA  in the early 1900’s put this image of the solar disk with wings protruding on the front of his biblical commentary and was criticized heavily for using symbols of Egyptian gods.  He was accused of being a cultist and his books were banned for many pastors.  

As the founder of the Jehovah’s witness, Pastor Russell has had quite the legacy of criticism for cultic behavior and somewhat interesting beliefs, but Russell shared why he used the sun of righteousness as his book cover… citing Malachi 4. 

He said that his research showed him that ancient cultures across the globe noted during a full solar eclipse when the sun is totally covered by the moon, there appear for a split second "streamers" or "wings" on either side of the sun. Scientifically they are called "coronal streamers". From these observations the ancients developed a winged solar-disk. The symbolism represented the domination of the light over darkness. That even when the sun is blocked out fully the light still finds a way. 

For ancient people the sun of righteousness, or a solar eclipse was a way to represent the concept of that which was dead being restored to life.  

Secondly, at the dawn of the day, when the sun first emerges on the horizon, there is a split second when it appears to have "streamers" or "wings" on either side. Of course, he said, the sun also seems to display 'beams' pouring out from a central source when perched high in the sky.  

I became fascinated by the image of this winged solar disk and poured over so many images of sunrises and I could see how clearly it appeared that the sun did indeed have feathery wings extending from it’s center.  

All of this from one verse in the last book of the last minor prophet of Malachi.  

Some of the other books of the prophets were written when nations were in turmoil, or in the middle of great war or distress.  Some books of the prophets were written in famine or in want, but Malachi was written when people got bored rebuilding and they lost their energy.  Malachi was composed by a prophet who’s message from God was – don’t turn away from me now.  We’ve come so far together and we’ve got a beautiful and powerful future ahead, but only if we are in this together…. 

The vision for this message two months ago was to take a look at the images in the prophet of Isaiah… the places where the bible says that a wolf and a lamb will eat together without fear, that the lion will eat straw with the ox calmly, that babies will no longer live but a few days, that there will be no more cries of distress….  The vision for June 29^th, 2014 was to wrestle with the texts where God’s vision and our lives are not in sync.  We hear these texts about wolves and lambs and no more pain and it simply isn’t how our lives play out.  And I think that the reality is that because we don’t see this vision being played out that the reality of our circumstances keeps us from fully experiencing what God has in store for us.  

I’m not sure we are  not wiling to live this biblical practice of dangerous reconciliation.  I’m afraid of lions and tigers and bears  (oh my!)   But I ask you this day, can we hear the call of malachi begging us to rise above our fear of these tough relationships and to rise with healing in our wings.  So that we can look at the tough places in our lives where we are not comfortable and know that we will rise out of them.  

But grace is so much stronger than our plans and so much more amazing…. And this is the great, true joy of spending time with scripture.  Because in my can do all nature I was inspired by the power of this rising above when in reality it never says that.  

Malachi 4 – for those who love god, the sun of righteousness will rise above and provide healing in its wings.

I don’t rise and I don’t do the healing.

My job is simply to love god and receive.  

To say to the dark eclipsing moments --- I know that god’s healing will make this okay. Not that I will feel better or I will get over this time in my life… but that god’s healing will cover my pain.

To say after a long winter…  that a new season is coming… not the can do attitude of our culture that says I will carve my own way, but that god’s healing will bring warmth where there has been cold.

To look at the clouds that seem to hover and resist the urge photoshop them out, or pretend that there is no darkness or gloom, but instead know that god’s healing touch will bring the sunbeams penetrating our thickest clouds.  

Theologian John Calvin says it all comes down to the last powerful phrase in Malachi’s dialogue: “I will send a prophet to reconcile parents with their children and children with their parents.

Calvin says, “Only God can bring about this kind of healing.” It’s the deepest healing, he says, and it’s a healing of the most basic, ordinary things. 

On a bulletin board in college I had a quote by CS Lewis

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

C. S. Lewis

When we look at the world through our limited view we see pain and suffering, we see flawed political and church systems, we see abuse and neglect, we see all that is broken.

But what if we could take the daily sunrise and let it remind us every single day of our loves that God’s power rises above all of the trials of life and covers us.  That we are defined in the moment when we admit to God that we need him and that we cannot rise above it all by our selves.

We’ve all got visions… I just spent time with some families who are baptizing their babies this week and we talked about the visions they have of their lives as families.  We’ve all got long range plans and daily plans and weekly plans and goal setting and organizational charts….some more than others…

But the only plans that truly matter are the plans that God has set before us, that the prophet beckons us to return to and that remind us to be humble, patient, and focused on God and God’s glory.

Because we are incredibly aware that the vision and the reality are often far from each other.

I think what fascinated me most about Pastor Russell and the winged solar disc was the incredible controversy around what he decided to put on the cover of his book.  I have no ties or interest in the Jehovah’s witness, I know little of masonic symbols, I am not connected to these things in any way.  But how often do we get caught up in the critical management of how we believe our world should be.

Friends, there are moments when the sun is blocked from our sight when darkness is all around, but the darkness never wins.  This is the good news we hear in the gospel and it is the good news for our every day lives.  

I was lucky enough to spend the last two days with the same women I sang and prayed with 20 years ago at church camp, the same women who chased sunbeams in a farmers fields with me.  Do I really believe that sunbeams talk to me? I’m not sure.  But I really believe that all of this is God’s.  All of who we are belongs to God.  All of the clouds and the storms and the turmoil and the birth and the beauty and the joy it is all god’s and we are not meant to be in control of it as much as we desperately try, but we are meant to be swept up in a great ride that carries us when we cannot carry ourselves. The sun comes up every morning without any help from us, a message from our creator speaking to us in whatever way we are willing to listen, but I am convinced that when we are willing to listen god spreads his wings wide and covers us and heals us and the vision does becomes a reality.