“Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.
He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse” (Malachi 4:5).“The One who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’ Amen! Come, Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen!” (Revelation 22:20).
Let’s contrast the ending of the conventional Old Testament [without the Apocrypha] with the conclusion of the New Testament. They are both presented above. The prophet Malachi predicted that Elijah would appear to Israel before the day of the Lord [Hbw. Yom YHWH]/ He was sent by the Lord Almighty to bring understanding between the generations. Parents and children were to come together in a bond of love and empathy. If they would not do so, then God threatened to curse the earth, as He did at the time of Adam and Eve’s betrayal of His love.
Remember what the bystanders were saying as they watched our beloved Lord being nailed to the cross: “Let’s see if Elijah comes to rescue Him” (Matthew 27:49). They were unable to see Elijah because their eyes were bereft of spiritual vision. He was near, as he was on the Transfiguration Mountain, and the holy prophet was praying—For the Son of God and for his own people, Israel. Jesus was praying with His last precious breaths the prayer of Psalm 22 where He identified with His people. Not He the Messiah, not He the only-begotten Son of God, but He the Jew was identifying with His people Israel. That psalm which begins with a question and ends with an affirmation was on the lips of the Lord at His death.
Remember what you were like as a child—open, honest, sincere, pure in heart. The Lord is speaking through the prophet Malachi to the elders of Israel: “The day must come when your children will obey their parents, honoring them and respecting their authority and the parents will love their children with all their hearts. Children, do not rebel against your parents, and you parents must not be cold-hearted and uncaring. Otherwise I will curse you and punish you.” When Jesus admonished His disciples for chasing the children away, He told them: “Let the children come to Me, for of such are the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14). More than an act of affection, He was fulfilling the prophecy that ends the Old Testament.
Why is it that we do not find everywhere and always that love even within families, which the Lord demands of us? How is it that rebellion is excused, explained and justified in our times and in this culture? Our novels, stage and television productions are replete with examples of conflict between generations, from the old T.V. All in the Family series through the movie The Graduate and to the present where the viewer and readers are encouraged to mock and ridicule the frustration and alienation of parents and their children. What is lacking, that our nation so rich in many things is so impoverished when it comes to family affection?
The answer comes in the last words of the New Testament. “The grace of the Lord” is not present. Grace is the gift of God that comes to us and fills us with spiritual blessings. Indeed, it is the Holy Spirit Himself who enters into the hearts of true believers and fills them with what St. Paul enumerated in Galatians 5:6: “Love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control.” The Old Testament ends with the believer standing as it were at the edge of a vast canyon, looking across the abyss that separates him from the other side. What will bridge the gap and take him across? Nothing human can take him across. Only God can do that. Only the God-man Jesus Christ knows the way and has the ability to release the precious gift that accompanies Him—the Person and gift of the Holy Spirit who leads us to the Lord of love.