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By: Blake Hiemstra
You may listen to this devotion in audio form via podcast here.
Therefore you will be among the first to go into exile;
your feasting and lounging will end.
- Amos 6:7
It’s a pretty safe bet that Amos won’t be writing for Hallmark anytime soon . . .
You lazy, prideful, apathetic people - you’re going to come to ruin and devastation. But have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
It’s also a pretty safe bet that when a section of scripture leads with “Woe to . . . “ it’s not going to inspire warm fuzzies. Amos and his Eeyore-like minor prophet compadres foretell judgment and doom on God’s people with frightening regularity. This particular passage doesn’t play nice with a holiday that’s long on cozy, nostalgic, even gazellig, good vibes, filled with family and traditions and twinkling lights. So why might the lectionary plop this passage into the Advent calendar? What value is there in contemplating Amos’ stern lambasting of God’s people?
Before answering that question, let’s see what Amos is saying. He’s prophesying judgment. He says “Woe to you who are complacent in Zion, and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria.” He’s calling out God’s people who might be resting on the laurels of their status as God’s chosen people, and invites them to look around:
Go to Kalneh and look at it;
go from there to great Hamath,
and then go down to Gath in Philistia.
Are they better off than your two kingdoms?
Is their land larger than yours?
Amos basically says, “Take a look at the nations around you, the ones that in days of old lived off the fatted calf. See the destruction and ruin that befell them? Guess what’s coming your way?” He goes on to paint a picture of apathetic complacency, of how Israel and Judah loaf around like nobility:
You lie on beds adorned with ivory
and lounge on your couches.
You dine on choice lambs
and fattened calves.
You strum away on your harps like David
and improvise on musical instruments.
And then, to the complacent, the apathetic, the people resting on their own laurels, Amos issues the condemning pronouncement:
Therefore you will be among the first to go into exile;
your feasting and lounging will end.
And thus, God’s people in the Old Testament face judgement.
And thus, we as God’s people in the modern world face a sobering passage that makes us look in the mirror and see our own apathetic, complacent, self-reliant selves. Maybe using Amos as a mirror is the real value in reading through such a passage at the start of a holiday season. We can see that our futile counterfeit independence, thinking that we can do this on our own, brings the same demise that it brought to Amos’ audience.
In the midst of this season, we need Amos to remind us of the true nature of this world, of our utter helplessness and sinfulness . . . because that helps us realize with ever greater intensity the need for a Savior. It’s not just a cozy story that pairs well with a fireplace and cute Christmas programs. It’s a gripping narrative that should prompt feverish and spirited rejoicing. For when we contemplate our own sinfulness and utter inability to do anything about that state on our own, it makes us hunger and thirst for rescue and for liberation. It makes us sing with extra gusto and meaning, “Come thou long-expected Jesus, born to set thy people free.”
Maybe one way to properly prepare for Christmas is to sit in front of our splendid trees, and instead of joyful carols tickling our eardrums, we need to quietly read through a book like Amos, realize our desperate hopelessness on our own, and celebrate anew that the almighty God of the universe stepped into our world as a baby to rescue us from ourselves.