“I am about to send my messenger to clear a path before me. Suddenly the Lord whom you seek will come to his temple; the angel of the covenant in whom you delight is here, here already, says the Lord of Hosts.”
(Malachi 3:1)

This is the last angel of the Old Testament. Just a page before the Gospel of St Matthew. He speaks of the messenger who will clear a path before the Lord, an expression that Jesus himself will apply to his forerunner John the Baptist. “Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: ‘He is the man of whom scripture says: Here is my herald, whom I send ahead of you, and he will prepare your way before you. Truly I tell you: among all who have ever been born, no one has been greater than John the Baptist.” (Matthew 11:7, 10-11)

The prophet Malachi speaks of the coming of the Lord to his temple, a prophecy that Jesus fulfilled when he was taken as a child to Jerusalem and consecrated in word and blessing. And he speaks of “the angel of the covenant”, where the covenant is a term that covers the covenant of Israel with Yahweh in the Old Testament and the covenant Jesus brought to the whole of humankind in the New. The last book of the Old Testament is thus present in the first book of the New, sealing the unity of the word of God in the presence of the angels.

The angels inspired the prophets of Israel, and those same angels are waiting to appear before the shepherds of Bethlehem; the heavenly messengers that announced military victories to the kings of Israel are now eager to proclaim before men and women in the new people of God the decisive victory of Jesus’ resurrection over sin and evil. The history of salvation is one of a piece.