“An ominously re-occurring theme”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Thursday, December 2, 2021
Amos 4:6-13 (Forward, p. 34) CEV p. 931
When I initially turn to a piece of Scripture, I read it over once, before anything else, to try to get a feel for it, a sense of its main point or theme. In this passage, this main point or theme couldn’t be any plainer. The Lord is warning Israel concerning its misdeeds and reminds her of the various calamities He has brought upon her to try to bring her to her senses. But none of this has had even the least effect. Israel is still determined to persist in her evil, disobedient ways. In this, one phrase stands out over and over again. “Even then [after all these things] you rejected me. I, the Lord, have spoken!” (verses 8b, 9c, 10d, and 11c). And even when God, in His mercy, plucked them from the fire, prevented their total destruction, they still turned away from Him. And so, now in verse 12, He says, “Now, Israel, I myself will deal with you. Get ready to face your God!” No more indirect encounters, no more at-arms-length repercussions and punishments. Now they are to face up to God directly and answer to Him for their doings. But even then, even now, He does not give up on them. Repeatedly in the next few verses, He pleads with them, begs them, to turn back to Him.
To me, this exchange is a reminder of how God deals with all people, not just Israel. As Isaiah says, we have all ‘erred and strayed, like lost sheep.’ None of us is righteous or sinless. We have all fallen short of what God expects and demands of us. And, as with Israel, He lets things ‘happen’ to us in an effort to bring us to our senses. And, again, as with Israel, He yearns for us to return, to return to Him. And why is that? Is it because of some sort of ‘need’ on His part, a ‘need’ to have clingy, subservient people hovering around Him? No. It is for two reasons. Firstly, because He truly does love us and want us with Him in a loving, caring, reciprocal friendship and fellowship. And secondly, because it truly is what we need and yearn for. Indeed, we are empty, hollow and never to be satisfied without that relationship.
And so, He continually tries to woo us, to win us back, and in this, never, ever gives up, gives up on us. Over the years people have sometimes said to me, ‘No, I’m too bad for God to ever love me or forgive me. I have done far too many bad things for God to ever accept me.” To this, I have replied, “Try Him. You’ll find that there is nobody who is too bad for God, not even you. All you need to do is ask Him.” This is the lesson that I take from Amos today, a lesson for each and every one of us. Amen.
Forward notes: “Therefore, thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!” (verse 12).
“Amos is not a book I automatically turn to in the Advent season. Instead, I’m prone to read the parts of Isaiah that prophesy of the Christ child’s birth, or better yet, the early chapters in Luke when the holy infant finally makes himself known to Mary, Joseph, and the host of other characters found in commercial manger scenes.
“So, when a passage from Amos on how Israel rejects correction is part of the lectionary reading, I can’t help but wonder how the two might be connected. If we read the entire passage in Amos, we see time and time again how the people of God did not return, no matter what the Lord tried.
“As such, this verse ends with the instruction to ‘prepare to meet your God, O Israel!’ I can’t help but wonder: even if a prophecy about a bouncing baby boy named Jesus isn’t part of a text but the words are instead directed to a wicked people, will readers of the text, thousands of years later, still prepare to meet our God in the weeks to come?”
Moving Forward: “What does it look like for you to prepare your heart for the Christ child’s birth?”
