In most editions of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Book of the Prophet Malachi appears at the very end. The reading we hear today is the only passage that we will read this week.
This very short book speaks of the situation in Israel after the return from Babylon. Though Ezra and Nehemiah had done their very best to discipline the people and lead them in a general reform and return to the observance of the Sinai covenant, the situation in Israel is much the same as it was before the Babylonian captivity with the exception that there is no king on the throne of Israel.
The name Malachi is probably nothing more than the Hebrew word which means “my messenger.” The messenger begins by stating in strong terms that God loves Israel, but the people return that love poorly. Taking advantage of the negligent attitude of the priests, they withhold tithes and sacrificial contributions and cheat God by providing defective goods for sacrifice. People divorce their spouses and marry worshipers of other gods. Sorcerers, adulterers, perjurers, and people who take advantage of workers and the needy abound. Priests, who could strengthen discipline by their instruction, connive with the people, telling them what they want to hear. Underlying all this is a weary attitude, a cynical notion that nothing is to be gained by doing what God wants and that wrongdoers prosper. God condemns the wrongdoing and the underlying attitude, issuing a challenge to immediate reform, but also announcing a general reckoning at a future moment.
At the very end of the passage we hear today, we hear the promise that God makes invoking “a sun of justice” with its “healing rays.” It is this healing sun of which Zechariah sings in the opening chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke and which we pray every morning when we sing of “the tender mercy of our God by which the daybreak from on high will visit us to shine on those who sit in darkness and death’s shadow, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”
Jesus is the sun of justice who heals us through his death and resurrection. Jesus is the promise fulfilled which we receive each morning at the banquet table of the Lord.