Book: Malachi

If the message of Christmas is real, then our preparations for it need to be radically life-changing.

The task of being changed into what God calls us to be involves a radical break with the established norms of our world.

The refining fire made known in Jesus is not targeting “morality” issues, but our hatreds, hostilities and inhospitableness.

God approaches us in an eager desire for communion, so our task is not to strive for communion, but simply to open ourselves to receive it.

In baptism, we have passed from the preoccupations of the present to the a life shaped by God’s future, and though the completion of that transformation may be painful, it is nevertheless the fulfilling of our deepest longings.

Being saved can be painful, but its goal, becoming a purified people who can worship rightly without fear, is the ultimate reward.