With the final stroke of Malachi’s pen, the prophets fell silent. For 400 years they remained such, their tongues and pens still. The people who originally held so much hope of the imminent birth of the Christ-child had passed away. Ensuing generations would gradually grow less and less hopeful. Tired of waiting. Tired of hoping. Tired of wondering if they had misinterpreted the sacred text.
Where was God anyway? Never had he been late in fulfilling His promises. What was taking so long? When the captives in Egypt cried out to God for release, He sent Moses and Aaron to rescue them. When the waters of the Red Sea trapped them helpless at the mercy of their captors, He didn’t hand them directions for a year-long bridge-building project. He parted that water then and there. When they needed water and food in their trek through the desert, He didn’t drop down a packet of seeds and a shovel for them to plant and wait for the harvest. He covered the ground in manna and had Moses strike a rock. Over and over again, when faced with unbeatable enemies, God had never needed days or weeks, months or years to invent and implement a strategy for salvation. Not even once. He’d had it ready before they even needed it. All they had to do was ask. (Exodus 7; Exodus 14:21; Exodus 17; Psalm 105; II Chronicles 20)
So what was the hold-up? Centuries had passed since God had promised the Messiah would come and dwell among them. It hadn’t happened. He hadn’t come. No matter how patiently they waited and hoped. Regardless how fervently they prayed and begged. In spite of their constant glances heavenward, the skies remained brass. God remained silent. They couldn’t see His hand at work so, steeped in discouragement, they determined He wasn’t working at all.
They desperately wished He was. They wished He would send the promised Christ-child. It would make their lives so much easier if only He would come and silence the critics. It would make the embarrassment of unfulfilled waiting more palatable. The scoffers constantly asking where their Messiah was would suddenly be speechless. The naysayers forever wondering what was holding Him up would have their answer. The doubters always questioning if there had been a misinterpretation, if the prophets had simply been too aged to accurately hear the voice of God would know without a doubt that their waiting had not been in vain. As it stood, the continued waiting added up to so much speculation and taunting it was easier to pretend the cynics were right, to agree there could have possibly been a mistake.
There was no mistake. In that 400 years of alleged silence, God was busy. He was doing what the prophets could never do, what they could never adequately express, what they would run out of ink attempting to record. Kingdoms would rise and fall. Prophecies would be fulfilled. People would be given opportunity after opportunity to place their faith and hope in the promise of God and trust Him for the fulfillment. Even when the answer was a long time coming. Not everyone stayed the course. Religious factions were born. The path to eternal life leaned heavily on works and adherence to the law. People quit believing God was sending a rescue, so they attempted to make one of their own. Because they were so busy being god for themselves, they largely failed to notice when the heavens responded.
When everyone believed God was unmoving, inactive, non-verbal, He moved. Into this silence, He spoke. Words of hope to one of the few still listening, still believing hearts. To Zechariah he sent an angel with the news of a child. To people who had long since relegated their hope of procreation to the rubbish bin, God said, “Let there be life.” And there was.
Born of God’s alleged inaction, John the Baptist came to prepare the way for Jesus Christ. There was little fanfare. The miraculous circumstances of his birth would go unnoticed. It had happened before. Barren births littered their history. Sarah. Rebekah. Rachel. Hannah. God had been speaking life into barren places since the dawn of time. There would be no glory or glamour. No one would revere or respect him. His demise would rest on the evil whim of a wicked woman and her corrupt child. But his work. His work would be imperative. (Genesis 11:30, 25:21, 29:31; I Samuel 1-2; Matthew 14:1-12; Genesis 1-2)
It would be an onerous task. Not only would he have to take on the pagans and infidels, he would have to sway those who already believed they knew the way to God. Those who had chosen to throw in with the idea that forgiveness of sin and eternal life could be earned by legalistic adherence to the law. Those who had chosen to stop waiting for the promised Messiah and create a way to Heaven on their own. Those who mistakenly believed there was a side door, a rear entrance, an unguarded gate through which they could eternally enter the presence of Almighty God. (Matthew 3; Luke 3:1-22)
John the Baptist was tasked with straightening out the crooked paths of twisted human thinking. He was charged with preparing people who now doubted Jesus’ coming, to accept Him when He came. He was assigned the duty of preparing hearts now set in their ways to change for the better when Jesus called them. John was precisely placed in a society poised to reject the Messiah out of hand, to show them that their kingdoms were for a lifetime, but the kingdom of God would have no end. His mission was to convince society to open their eyes, lift up their heads, and be ready. Jesus was coming. Coming to do a work in their day that they would never believe could happen until they saw it. (Habakkuk 1:5; Isaiah 9:6-7; Luke 1:76-79; Mark 1:1-8)
As a teenager, depressed by the deepening evil of the world around me, I once mentioned to my Dad how scary it was to be living in those times. He vehemently disagreed. “Oh, no,” he said, “These are the most exciting times to be a Christian! Isn’t it exciting to see what God is going to do next?!” Decades later I find myself wholeheartedly agreeing. The angels are not silently waiting for the signal to blow the final trump. The saints are not holding their applause awaiting that rapturous announcement. God is not sitting silently as the world spirals out of control. Oh no, friend. God is still very busy. He is up to something so amazing you wouldn’t believe it even if I had space to type it all.
And He wants us to be part of it. He wants us to stop looking forlornly around, bemoaning the horrific state of the world in general and our society specifically, and remember that He is not finished working. Instead of clustering together in clandestine meetings encouraging one another to continue white-knuckling until the second coming, we need to place our faith in His word and believe He still wants to do magnificent work in our day. We need to know in our hearts and believe in our heads that He is not through with humanity. He has not quit calling people to Himself. He has not stopped saving souls. In this moment, when we are tempted to believe the shots have all been called, the moves have all been made, God wants to sweep in and do amazing work in our day that will silence the critics, confound the naysayers, and dump the doubters on their heads. Do you believe it?
Do you believe that into the spiritual silence of recent years, God wants to once again send the saving grace of Jesus Christ? Do you believe He is calling you to prepare the way? He is. He is calling you to repentance, revival, renewal. He is calling you to examine your own heart and life. Clean it out. Clear out any obstructions to the presence of God within you, the work of God in your life. Sow righteousness and love in those places you’ve let lie dormant. Grow attitudes and actions that vibrantly exhibit the grace of God in your life. Let the peace of God so fill your heart and soul and mind that the chaos of this world absolutely cannot shake you. Allow the excitement of the living, present, active Jesus Christ to spill from your soul and flow to the barren lives around you. Step out of your comfort zone, your happy place, your fulfillment center and go be a way-maker. Make way for the glorious work of Jesus Christ! (Hosea 10:2; Joel 2:12-13; Philippians 4:6; Matthew 3:8, 5:16; )
Centuries ago, after centuries of silence, God sent Jesus into a broken, bruised, barren world starving for hope and help and healing. In spite of the valiant work of John the Baptist, so many missed Him. Although Jesus has long since ascended to sit by the Father, He still walks among us. The world today is just as broken and bruised and spiritually barren as it was then. People are still starving for hope and help and healing. Just as John the Baptist was called to prepare the way for Jesus then, we are called to do so now. Called to be way-makers. Called to clear the way for God to work and move among us. May we choose to answer the call. May we choose to be way-makers. May revival fill our land. Isn’t the very thought exciting? (Habakkuk 3:2; Luke 4:16-30; Mark 16:19; Psalm 85:6)