Rescue Is Coming

Nathan Stam
Children/Communications Pastor

This past Sunday we finished up a study of the book of Malachi in the College Class. It was really a lot of fun to hang out with those guys and girls and it was quite a challenging book that brings the Old Testament to a close (or at least the English translations). But I have to admit the end of it is hard to swallow! Do you know what the last verse of the Old Testament is before there's four hundred years of silence between God and Israel? Here's a hint. It's not, "And the Lord will make your feet like eagles and give you strength and breathe his faithful love into your lungs." Here it is, in all of its solemn glory:

"Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse." 

The last word of the Old Testament is the word "curse". It bothered the Masoretes so much that they repeated the next-to-last verse of Malachi after the last verse. The fellows who translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek (the Septuagint) reversed the last two verses of Malachi so that it ends with a blessing and not a curse.

I like happy endings. I like it when things work out and the bad guy gets what's coming to him. When he gets his "comeuppance". I need to see Justice!

But it's almost like God wanted the reality of man's sin, of the curse that had affected all of creation, to echo through the next four hundred years in their minds. So that they wouldn't forget it. So that when a Deliverer came they would be ready and recognize that they indeed needed to be delivered. For the kingdom of darkness to be invaded and for us to be delivered into the kingdom of light. A few verses earlier Malachi wrote of the Sun of Righteousness who would come and even though the Old Testament closes without the story being done; even though the curtain comes down while there's still plot left to play out; even though the lights come down and the good guys haven't won the day.....there's hope. Sunrise is on its way.

As David Crowder sings so poignantly, "Rescue is coming!" And the Rescuer was Jesus.