Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Advent
Today marks a wonderful moment in our Advent journey to pause and ask the Lord to purify us. Advent is a time of waiting for the Lord’s coming anew into our hearts, lives, and world, and a season to anticipate the Lord’s coming again in glory. Advent is also a time for repentance, to humble ourselves before the Incarnate One who is also our Savior and Redeemer. Purification is one of God’s loving processes within us. Let us consider today how we might yield and surrender to this gracious and merciful work.
Our first reading from the prophet Malachi sounds ominous and scary at first glance. The prophet asks, “But who will endure the day of his coming?” Reading those words, I almost feel I should brace myself, prepare for a devastating arrival of epic proportions! Indeed, we must maintain a posture of abject humility and remain awestruck before the Holy Trinity. God’s glory and majesty cannot be conceived; God’s holiness requires the mortal sinner to fall prostrate, crying, along with the prophet Isaiah, “woe is me!” (Isaiah 6:5). And yet . . . And yet we know that God is Love and all of God’s ways are good and loving toward us and the entire creation. God desires to refine us like a precious metal, to purify us of anything that prevents us from being our true, radiant selves, created lovingly in God’s image. Restoring us to purity, to our created beauty, to the masterpiece that each one of us is – that is nothing but extraordinarily merciful, unconditionally loving, extravagantly gracious. Rather than fear God’s purifying work in us, we should embrace it! We should long for purification, even as we long for God’s coming and God’s presence in our lives. The purer we are, the more of God’s holy presence we can enjoy. John the Baptist said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). As I allow God to purify me, the unholy parts of me decrease and I become more Christlike so that my purified parts can shine radiantly with Christ’s love.
In today’s Gospel, Zechariah has finished a season of purification. He was struck mute from the time of the Angel Gabriel’s visitation to him, until the time of John’s birth. God humbled Zechariah and led him into an experience of purification because this man of God did not believe the angel’s message. I can imagine how difficult this experience might have been for Zechariah. And yet even in the midst of the most challenging situation, we have a choice as to how we react and respond to it. We can choose to make a period of purification painful by resisting it, or we can surrender to it in joy, that deep peaceful contentment that transcends our circumstances and trusts in God’s providence. I wonder which path Zechariah chose. I wonder which path you and I will choose?
Today, we have an opportunity, and invitation to seek the Lord’s purification. Dare we come into his presence, trusting God’s loving best for us and asking for purification? The Refiner’s fire comes from the purity of God’s love. Making us pure can be nothing other than loving.
Part of my Advent prayer each year is to prayerfully listen to Handel’s glorious oratorio, Messiah. Today’s first reading is beautifully performed as one of the movements in this masterpiece. You might join me today in praying it in song. You can find it here. I pray that Emmanuel, God with Us, is especially close to you and your loved ones the remainder of this Advent week and into the Christmas season. God’s abundance be upon and within you!
- Elizabeth Wourms