Read
When the Lord Judges
18You look forward to the day
when the Lord comes to judge.
But you are in for trouble!
It won't be a time of sunshine;
all will be darkness.
19You will run from a lion,
only to meet a bear.
You will escape to your house,
rest your hand on the wall,
and be bitten by a snake.
20The day when the Lord judges
will be dark, very dark,
without a ray of light.
What the Lord Demands
21 I, the Lord, hate and despise
your religious celebrations
and your times of worship.
22I won't accept your offerings
or animal sacrifices—
not even your very best.
23No more of your noisy songs!
I won't listen
when you play your harps.
24But let justice and fairness
flow like a river
that never runs dry.
25 Israel, for forty years
you wandered in the desert,
without bringing offerings
or sacrifices to me.
26Now you will have to carry
the two idols you made—
Sakkuth, the one you call king,
and Kaiwan, the one you built
in the shape of a star.
27I will force you to march
as captives beyond Damascus.
I, the Lord God All-Powerful,
have spoken!
Reflect
We are apocalyptic. We live in a culture of doom. Every other film is the End of The World, by asteroid, weather, aliens and now the dead.
How are Christians different? We embrace the End. We look forward to the “Lord’s return.” But should we? There will be no more tears, no more pain, no more mourning, no more suffering – but for whom? “The day when the Lord judges will be dark, very dark, without a ray of light” Amos reminds Israel, and us.
What do we do while we wait? We worship and celebrate. We sing “noisy songs.” What a terrifying thought, that all the stuff we spend so much time on, our churches, our preaching and our worship, he might actually “hate and despise.”
Do our justice and fairness flow like a river? he asks. Do they never run dry? Or are we intermittent showers? Are we even fair and just to each other? Do we rehearse worship, manage and organize, study and teach, while we gossip, manipulate, are high-handed or underhand, vain or prideful? Be honest, how many times have you been shocked by the lack of kindness either side of praising of God’s “loving-kindness”? Has that ever been you?
Sakkath was the Assyrian god of war; Kaiwan was the god of justice. By war and justice their Israelite worshipers will be taken to the homeland of their gods, “beyond Damascus” to Nineveh, to Iraq. He does not want them to leave, left to the consequences of their own choices, the fruit of their idolatry, just as he does not want us to reap what we sow. He does not want Israel’s neighbours to either, just as he does not want our neighbours to.
So what should we pray? “Come, Lord, come?” Yes, but first in us. So that he is seen by our neighbours in us, just as Israel was meant to reveal him to her neighbours.
Respond
Come, Lord, come, not yet to judge, but to save, not to End but to Begin, not to close the Book of Life but to open it. Fill us so that you overflow. So that we cannot help but bless our neighbours, to love them as you have loved us.
Alexander Best
Alexander cultivated a network of Christian leaders, OneMission, to promote collaboration, including service to the 15,000 new students arriving at University of Toronto each fall, under the umbrella, ServeToronto. He helped foster the same at the PanAm Games in Toronto and is the former Canadian Director of the Lausanne Movement Canada. He publishes THisToronto, a social media platform promoting & connecting the activities of over 300 ministries and churches in the city."