A Pure Offering in Every Place
This meditation was delivered on January 7, AD 2024 at King's Cross Church (Moscow, ID).
During the time of the prophet Malachi, the Jews had returned from exile in Babylon, rebuilt their temple—but were still far from God. For in their sacrificial worship, the people began to place on the altar of the Lord blind, sick, and lame animals instead of offering animals without blemish. And the corrupt priests did not stop or rebuke them. By doing this, Malachi says they polluted and despised the table of the Lord.
This disregard for God’s holiness then flowed out of their worship into their daily lives, where many men divorced their wives and the poor were oppressed. And so through Malachi the Lord rebuked the people, saying, “Oh, that there were one among you who would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire on My altar in vain!” (Mal. 1:10). By this we see that the Lord would have preferred the Temple to be shut up and the fire gone out than witness such desecration of His name.
But then the Lord said, “‘For from the rising of the sun, even to its going down, My name shall be great among the Gentiles. In every place incense shall be offered to My name, and a pure offering; for My name shall be great among the nations’” (Mal. 1:11).
Since the earliest writings of the church outside of Holy Scripture, this passage has been considered a prophecy regarding this New Covenant sacrament. For wherever the Lord has established His church, the pure and final offering of Christ is remembered at this Table. And in return, the people of God offer sacrifices of thanksgiving and praise to God.
This is most glorious—and yet we still must heed the lesson from Malachi’s time. We must not treat the table of the Lord lightly, by coming without faith or with known yet hidden sin and compromise in our lives. For to do so is to partake in vain and to dishonor our Lord.
So then—with sincere and humble hearts, full of thanksgiving and praise—magnify together the name of God at His Table. Come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.