How does Christmas actually fix anything?

We sing about peace on earth, but most of us look around and think: “Nothing’s changed.”

I regularly get this challenge from my Atheist friends: Pete, you say Jesus has saved the world: but I don’t see it.

And someone from church said to me this week: If it’s all Law and Gospel, then surely there’s nothing new — that just seems so… boring.

Well… welcome to Malachi, where God’s people are asking 1:2: “How have you loved us?”

They believe — but it just seems boring, because they feel secure in their situation already.

That same disease exists in us today: believing in God, but feeling like nothing really matters.

So this last book of the Old Testament before Jesus comes, is all about the arrogance of apathy:
“It doesn’t matter if we offer second-rate sacrifices.” (1:7–8)
“It doesn’t matter if we break our marriages.” (2:14–16)
“It doesn’t matter if we hold back from God.” (3:8–10)

And at the heart of this apathy, they are asking the same question we are asking today, Malachi challenges them in 2:17:

¹⁷ You have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet you ask, “How have we wearied him?” When you say, “Everyone who does what is evil is good in the LORD’s sight, and he is delighted with them, or else where is the God of justice?”

In other words: how does our God actually fix anything? Here’s how Malachi answers people like this — like us — in his final prophecy about Christmas:

1) Your self-made security will burn (v. 1)
2) Your security in Christ sets you free (vv., 2-3)
3) The Word of Christmas does both (vv. 4-6)

So, 1) Your self-made security will burn (v. 1)

Take a look at v. 1:

¹ “For look, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and everyone who commits wickedness will become stubble. The coming day will consume them,” says the LORD of Armies, “not leaving them root or branches.

The arrogant are those who trust in themselves. They don’t feel fear of God: they think God should fear them. They are not judged by God: they are judges of God.

They are not Adam, at first receiving God’s word about the tree by faith, they are Eve, deceived by the snake, discerning for herself whether God’s Word is true.

This old Adam, this person who thinks: “I’m reasonable, God needs to be proven.” “I’m moral, God needs to be tested.” …he’s in all of us. …for those without faith, he is all of us.

That part of you that thinks you’re neutral, reasonable, …a decent person just thinking things through: That’s what Malachi calls arrogant!

This is what Malachi’s audience were doing: questioning the things God says to them, Malachi 1:2:

“I have loved you,” says the LORD.Yet you ask, “How have you loved us?”

“Prove it!” is what they’re asking. 1:6:

“the LORD of Armies [speaks] to you priests, who despise my name.” Yet you ask, “How have we despised your name?”

Despite having clear instructions in God’s Law, they still say “Prove it!” 2:17:

¹⁷ You have wearied the LORD with your words.Yet you ask, “How have we wearied him?”

Everything God says, Israel just question. On the surface, appearing as reasonable, but in reality just being obstructive, disbelieving, and obstinate.

You see, we are not neutral observers. We are not in the place of God. We are not able to see things as they are. We are so curved in on ourselves, so confident of our own reason, our own minds, we feel offended by the idea that our attempt to be neutral is wrong:

This, Malachi says, is arrogance.

“2,000 years on — what good has Christmas done?” we say “Let me observe. Let me consider. Let me evaluate.” “Let me rate it, score it, provide God some feedback.”

But, the challenge of Christmas is this: God is not trying to persuade you.

He’s not going to give you proof.
He’s not going to argue his case.
He’s not going to defend himself.

Instead, his Law warns us:

the day is coming, burning like a furnace,

One day, Jesus will return a second time. He’s not coming to answer questions. He’s not coming to explain himself. He’s not coming to give you the reasons.

No: He will not come to give an accounting to you. You will give an account to him!

And to that part of us still trying to stand proud and neutral, looking down on God by sitting high up on the fence, hear the prophet Malachi say:

The coming day will consume them.

Your self-made security will burn

There is no reasoning with him. There is no explaining to him. There is no conversation or debate around the table.

That is the shock of the first Christmas, that is the shock of every Christmas, that will be the shock of his final return that ends Christmas.

If you insist on standing above God, the furnace will meet you there: because the sun is rising, and you can’t climb higher. God doesn’t say “Please, consider the evidence, believe!” God commands you today: “Fear, love and trust God above all things.”

And that’s why scorching is an appropriate picture: The more our arrogant “reasonable” self is told this… …the more frustrating it sounds, …the more angry we start to feel.

The more I reply to my atheist friends: “I’m not going to give you reasons to believe.” The more angry and irritated they get.

And there’s a part of you and me that always feels the same: Why won’t God discuss it with me? Surely God should be logical, reasonable — like me? Why won’t God deal with me in a way I can understand and reason with?

This is why Jesus describes Hell as a place where there is constant “gnashing of teeth”:

It’s a picture of people perpetually trapped in their own frustration …not being able to make sense of things on their own terms …yet eternally never letting go and just trusting what God gives them to be received in simple faith.

And so many Christian groups have codified this false appeal to reason.

“Is God illogical?” another church pastor wrote to me recently. And then he explicitly added “in Acts we see God using means: argue, reason etc.”

This simply isn’t true, friends!

1 Corinthians 1:21:

in God’s wisdom, the world did not know God through wisdom

Isaiah 55:8-9:

⁸ “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways.” This is the LORD’s declaration. ⁹ “For as heaven is higher than earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

You cannot comprehend God through reason: to try is a burning frustration. So repent! Don’t stand over Christ, stand under him.

So how do you get out of this? How do you avoid that self-reliant logic trap? If you can’t reason your way to safety… if you can’t think your way into faith… what possible hope is there?

The prophet Malachi says:

2) Your security in Christ sets you free (vv., 2-3)

Please look at v. 2:

² But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings,

The coming of Christ is always like the rising of the sun. At the same time burning the one, while healing another.

For those with faith, the fact that we purely depend on Christ from outside ourselves and our own minds, is full of healing assurance:

You didn’t argue yourself into faith… …so nobody can argue you out.

You didn’t overcome your sins and failures to believe in Christ, so you don’t need to overcome them to stay in Christ.

You didn’t work out the truth logically to be forgiven… …so nobody can reason that forgiveness away from you.

Precisely nothing. Not one thing. Depends on you. At all.

After beginning by the Spirit, are you now finishing by the flesh?

Paul asks in Galatians 3:3? Of course not. How ridiculous.

And so, Malachi continues in v. 2:

and you will go out and playfully jump like calves from the stall.

You will chill out! You will enjoy your freedom! You won’t be having to do anything, argue anything, or reason anything, — make a case, prove a point or set a record straight.

This is Christian freedom. And in this is true power, v.3:

³ You will trample the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day I am preparing,” says the LORD of Armies.

On the last day: Those who set themselves high, will find themselves beneath your feet. You who have humbled yourself low, will find yourself set as royalty on high.

“Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” …as Jesus will one day say. (Matthew 23:12)

Your security in Christ sets you free

So, when the old Adam in you starts demanding explanations and justifications — just drown him in your baptism and point him to Christ, not your understanding.

Because that’s how Christmas fixes things. How it both burns away our self-reliant reason And sets us free through faith in Christ regardless:

3) The Word of Christmas does both (vv. 4-6)

I’m not just saying this because I’m a Lutheran: That’s exactly where Malachi points everyone in the last three verses of the Old Testament, v. 4:

⁴ “Remember the instruction of Moses my servant, the statutes and ordinances I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.

Remember the Law, Malachi says. And then, vv. 5-6:

⁵ Look, I am going to send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes. ⁶ And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

God’s sending John the Baptist to prepare for the Gospel.

This is the Word of Christmas: God’s righteous requirement must be fulfilled. So he’s sending His Son to do it for you.

That Word kills the old Adam, and gives you faith in Christ, feeding the new one.

The Word that you can’t reason with God, baby Jesus has done all the reasoning for you:

Modern Christmas is useless without this Word.

But, if this Christmas we speak it — it is the power of God. Burning away my self-reliant selfishness, and healing my hurts by warming my trust in Him.

So…

How does Christmas actually fix anything?

1) Your self-made security will burn (v. 1)

Anything in you that stands on your own reason or goodness will not survive Jesus’ coming. Put this side of yourself to death with the Law, and certainly don’t feed it like some pastors will tell you to.

2) Your security in Christ sets you free (vv., 2-3)

Nothing depends on you. While your old self finds that frustrating… …your new self finds it freeing. Proving, defending, explaining, clarifying… …you don’t need to, you don’t have to.

and 3) The Word of Christmas does both (vv. 4-6)

It is God’s Word that does these things… …His dual Word of Law and Gospel. The Law that burns this self-reliant false idea of neutrality. The Gospel that heals this sick sinner who needs forgiveness.

Look, I am going to send you the prophet Elijah

Malachi says, and so, Mark 1:4:

John came baptising in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.