Turning up the heat

If this world makes you crazy

And you’ve taken all you can bear

You call me up

Because you know I’ll be there

And I see your true colours

Shining through

I see your true colours

And that’s why I love you

So don’t be afraid to let them show

Your true colours...

As I studied the Gospel and the Old Testament readings for today, the above song came to my mind. Now, according to Google, True Colours was written as an encouragement to the songwriter’s mum but for me they connected with this morning’s scriptures that describe Jesus as someone who is able to see and reveal what’s inside people.

In our Gospel passage, Simeon tells Mary that her baby boy will be a sign that reveals people’s inner thoughts, their true colours will come to the surface when they encounter Jesus.

And in the book of the prophet Malachi, we are told that “the messenger of the covenant….is like a refiner’s fire...”. A refiner is someone who uses fire to remove unwanted matter from precious raw metals, like gold.

The refiner’s fire brings to the surface everything that is unwanted and impure so that it can be sifted out and only the pure gold be left behind. Their job is to bring out the gold’s ‘true colours’, its true value.

The refiner holds the gold in the fire as long as it takes, and he knows that the gold is pure when he can see his clear reflection in it.  

Malachi describes the trials we experience in our lives as being part of a refining process. It’s usually when we go through periods of trouble, we see what we are made of. Difficult times can bring out the best and the worst in us. When we are dealing with stress at work, illness, pain, or problems in our relationships, the way we react to the people around us can sometimes surprise us. We may be short-tempered, impatient, and critical. We may lash out verbally.

The heat of the trials of life might bring out prejudices we have about other people that we have picked up from our upbringing or experiences.

The heat of the trial might reveal to us that we tend to depend on alcohol or other unhealthy habits to numb the pain or avoid dealing with something we really need to.

And amidst the heat of the trials of life, we might reasonably expect God to send water to cool us down and comfort us.

But, Malachi tells us that instead Jesus, the Word of God, is sent to us as a fire when we are already more than hot enough!

Why?

God sends Jesus, the refiner’s fire, because when we stay in the heat of His Word as we go through the trials of life, our weaknesses, our faults, our struggles and our impurities are exposed. It reveals what’s inside of us. And God wants them to come to the surface, our true colours, so that they can be removed.

When God looks at the people He created, he sees us not in our unrefined state, he sees what He created us to be. A geologist can see the value inside what looks to the untrained eye like a clump of dirty rock. Just as a gold dealer will buy the unprocessed gold ore because they see the value in the raw metal even though it contains impurities.

God sees us as people that he paid a high price for, people that He washed clean through the blood of Jesus, and that need to go through the refinement process. The Bible tells us that the whole of creation is groaning waiting for us to be refined and revealed as Sons and Daughters, people who reflect God to the world around us.

God wants us to be refined because He wants to see His face in us.

We might wish that our path to sainthood was instantaneous, but unfortunately, the refinement process is a life-long one.

Simeon and Anna were in their old age and both of them stayed in God’s presence, in His temple. Anna experienced life’s trials – losing her husband at a young age, struggling financially as a widow – but she stayed close to God’s refining fire and God shone out of her as a result. The years of worship, fasting and praying day and night, were all part of the refining process that allowed God to not only shine out of her but to also speak through her. She was able to share the good news of Jesus with his parents and everyone at the temple who was looking for redemption.

Now the refiners fire produces intense heat and light.

Intense heat is uncomfortable. It makes us sweat. It forces us to strip layers of clothing off.

Intense light is painful to our eyes, especially when the light shines suddenly into a dark place.

Being in the presence of Jesus, the refiner’s fire, isn’t always a comfortable place.

God burns with love for us. He IS love. His love is passionate, it is intense, and overwhelming. God describes His love as zealous for the people He created to share and experience His love.

His love is a consuming fire. It inspires fear, reverence, awe, and respect when we see the intensity of a love that would die for us. Jesus brings intense light and revelation.

When the Word of God focuses its intense heat and light on something about ourselves that needs to change, it is painful.

This morning’s scriptures ask the questions: “who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears?”; “Who can stand in [the Lord’s] holy place?”

These questions are pertinent because the temptation is for us to remove ourselves from the uncomfortable heat and light of the refiner’s fire; to ignore the things we’ve seen rise to the surface in us. It’s tempting to get on the defensive and cling to the bad habits or behaviours that come out under pressure because that’s what we have always done and we don’t want to let go of it.

But God is asking us to endure even when it is uncomfortable to feel the heat of conviction or open our eyes to the darkness inside us.

How we respond to the refiners fire is a choice, as Simeon points out; when the Word of God comes to us, we can fall or rise based on our reaction.

We fall when we respond by ignoring, denying and rejecting what the fire of His Word and the fire of our trials have brought to the surface.

We can rise when we respond with repentance – admitting that we’ve been doing things the wrong way, that there are unwanted things in us that we want to be rid of. That there are people we have hurt with our words and deeds and that we want to change and live a different way.

We rise when we accept the help of the refiner to clean us up. To trust God enough to stay in his presence in the fire until his face shines out of us. He wants us to reveal His salvation to those who are not yet free from the fear of death and judgement.

We are told in Paul’s letter to the Hebrews that because Jesus himself suffered and was tested in the fire of the human experience, he is able to help all of us who are being tested in this life. He is our merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God.

Jesus wants to help us as he refines us. To help us to stay in his presence and allow the Holy Spirit to do the work of refining us until God’s face shines out of us.

He wants us to share the message of the new covenant with our lives, and not just our words.

I stand here and preach sermons and lead services. As members of this congregation we serve God by writing intercessions, keeping the church clean, utilities on, and the doors open. We may serve Him by keeping the church accounts in order, playing beautiful hymns, and brightening up the church building with a lick of paint or a beautiful flower arrangement.

And while God calls us to many types of service in the church, he most wants my life and your life to be a sermon, a beautiful arrangement, a loving sacrifice, a warm welcome to those who we encounter in our day to day lives.

My family, my neighbours and work colleagues, won’t be won over to the truth of the Gospel by my words. They will be won over when they see more and more of Jesus in me.

The evidence of a transformed life is what will speak to people more than any sermon could.

Our attendance and participation in the life of the churches in our parish is important, but staying in God’s presence when we are outside these doors is even more important.

God wants us to stay in the fire of His Word, letting it burn away the dross and impurities it reveals in us, because He wants to see his love shining out of us to the people He has placed in our lives.

He wants His love to shine out of us at a time when our families, our communities, our nation and the whole world is being tested by economic decline, and growing inequality. Climate change, war  and uncertainty are putting heat and pressure on all the nations and we see fear, hatred, injustice, greed, corruption and anger rising to the surface in this time of trial.

And although we may feel powerless to do anything in the face of all these national and global problems, Malachi reminds us that God is bearing witness.

God will judge the leaders of nations for oppression, for not giving workers a fair wage while spending money on war and enriching greedy individuals. God will judge those who do not look after the poor, the widowed, the alien and the vulnerable.

We can align ourselves with God's will and pray for God’s Kingdom to come so that the world will be under His loving rule. We can also pray for God’s Kingdom to come fully in our lives so that every part of us is submitted to His leadership and we can share His love with the people he has placed around us.

God wants to refine us as individuals. He wants us to pray and fast for the broken world and people seeking redemption, like Anna did. He wants us to stay in his presence and be led by the Holy Spirit like Simeon was. And He wants us to let his refiner’s fire do it’s work so that God’s true colours, the reflection of His love, grace and peace, will shine out of us.