Malachi 4:2 “But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall.”

“You who revere my name” is practically another way of saying, “You who believe in the gospel.” God’s name is not just the letters G-O-D or L-O-R-D. It is his good name, his whole saving reputation. When God explained his name to Moses on Mt. Sinai, these are the things he emphasized: “the gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in love, forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.”

Ever afterward, that became a repeating theme, the way people who believed in him understood him. Five hundred years after Moses, David used almost the same words to describe the Lord in several Psalms. One hundred and fifty years after that these became the words of the Prophet Joel, and then Jonah, and after the Babylonian exile we find them again in Nehemiah–gracious, compassionate, loving, forgiving. That is the God the true believers in the Old Testament knew.

Jesus, of course, personifies all of that in the New Testament. His very name means that God saves people from their sins. He made that grace, compassion, love, and forgiveness real and tangible when he gave his life as the sacrifice for sins at the cross. And since then God has made the name of Jesus the name that is above every other name, the only name under heaven by which we must be saved.

For those who revere God’s name, who know and trust him this way, that bright shining light we see when the Day comes is not the fire of God’s justice, but “the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings.” Does that remind you of a Christmas carol? “Hail the heavenly Prince of Peace! Hail the Sun of Righteousness! Light and Life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings.” When Charles Wesley wrote those words to Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, he understood that Jesus is the Sun of Righteousness, the Great Light that heals us. And while his first coming provided the medicine that heals us from our sins, it is his second coming that completes the healing of our bodies and souls, hearts and minds.

With the extermination of sin comes the elimination of all its consequences. That means complete healing, real healing for the bodies in which we live. The surgeon took half my thyroid out several years ago. While that means I don’t have a dangerous growth there anymore, it also means that I have half a working gland, a scar, and a lifetime of monitoring to show for it.

Many men and women I know have received knee replacements over the years. The new one will only last another 20 years or so, and then it will wear out, too. Maybe you take pills for diabetes, or high blood pressure, or some other condition. These may allow you to function now, but stop taking them and see what happens. They cover up and allow us to cope. They don’t cure and heal.

The Day is coming when the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. These bodies will be transformed, restored, perfected, not taped and tied together so that we can limp along a little longer. We will know, finally, what it means to be completely whole, and well, and free.

I have seen a wedding day turn a bride into bridezilla. I have seen surgery day paralyze a patient with fear. I have seen the day of the big game make strong, fit, 250 pound athletes lose their lunch. God’s day, THE day, is coming soon. It promises to turn us into creatures fit for heaven.