I heard the First Reading today from the prophet Malachi presenting the future Messiah as coming in power—”Who will endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears?”—to purify God’s people of their sins.
It can be easy to read this as God coming to judge and exclude persons in order create a purer community.
However, the Second Reading from Hebrews makes clear that the Messiah’s enemy isn’t sinful people, but sin itself. Christ’s enemy is the one “who has the power of death.” Christ came to “free those who through fear of death had been subject to slavery all their life.”
As we read in the Gospel last week, Christ’s mission is the liberate captives. And Hebrews makes clear that the captives include those held bound by sin due to their fear.
Jesus subverts human expectations of power and judgement. He came to us, not robed in power and authority, but as an utterly powerless infant wrapped in swaddling clothes.
Jesus came to purify his people, not by excluding and condemning sinners, but by offering himself as the Way that sinners—all of us—can be freed from the fear that keeps us captive, that prevents us from doing what we want and not doing what we hate (cf. Romans 7:15).
On this Candlemas, may the light of grace show me where I still need to be liberated from fear.