The Center

Bread and Wine Reading: "The Center", J. Heinrich Arnold

Scripture Reading: Malachi 3: 1-3
See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.

Arnold begins his writing by saying that “every believer knows that Christ went the way of the cross for our sakes. But it is not enough just to know this. Each of must find the cross.” But I’m wondering how many of us truly want to find the cross. We like our cross images that we place on our altars, wear as jewelry, or hang from the ceilings over the naves of our sanctuaries—those “cleaned-up” images that for us represent eternal life and salvation, the hallmark of our welcoming savior. But Arnold claims that those images are not enough, that they are only part of the story. As he says, “If we truly love [Christ], we will love everything in him; not only his compassion and mercy, but his sharpness too. It is his sharpness that prunes and purifies…Christ’s love is not the soft love of human emotion, but a burning fire that cleanses and sears.”

I am reminded of the movement early in Handel’s Messiah (Part I, Movement 6, usually), "And He Shall Purify the Sons of Levi". In it, the image of the “refiner’s fire” implies some pain and even, perhaps, despair that people must go through to be one with God. Now remember that refining requires intense heat to burn away the impurities and set free the pure metal. To work with the metal, you have to get close to the fire, dangerous as that may be. The image depicts God as a blazing fire at the center that impurities cannot withstand. But getting close means that we have to enter the danger and risk being changed. We have to endure our own impurities, our own sins, being burned away until we are made new.

What a great image for the cross! It’s not a “cleaned-up” accessory or object of adornment. The Cross in its truest and purest form is a white-hot fire burning its way into the center of our hearts by scorching all in its path. The cross is the center, the intersection, between who we are and who we are meant to be. And at the cross, with all that stands between us and God falling away as burned embers do, God takes us at our purest, at our most vulnerable, and raises us up. This is the place where all are reconciled to God.

Discussion Questions:
1.) What does that say to you that each of us must find the cross?
2.) What images of Christ does this evoke for you? What images are uncomfortable for you?
3.) What keeps you from drawing near to this fire that is Christ? What is it that you are trying to save?

So go forth, walk into the fire that you might be made pure!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli