“The End”
These two words evoke a wide range of emotions. If you’re watching a great movie, you probably feel some satisfaction and some sadness when “The End” appears on the screen. If you’re watching a terrible movie, the same two words can bring relief and release. (They can also make you ask yourself, Why did I watch that movie to the end?)
In real life, too, the end of a season can bring joy or sadness, peace or conflict.
In the Bible, Amos the Prophet announces “The End” to the people of Israel. But they hardly hear it, much less consider what it means that God is bringing life as they know it to an end. Amos gives many reasons for the coming of the end, but perhaps they can be best summarized by saying there was no justice in the land.
This week, as we continue to learn from Hosea, Amos, and Micah, we will meet this shepherd-turned-prophet and learn how God’s true justice requires that, at some point, the end will come. In the meantime, then, we must ask, “How does the inevitable coming of the end in the future change the way we live now?”
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Grace Fellowship Church
Jon Stallsmith
Series: True
October 5, 2014
True Justice: The End
Amos 1-3
If you have your Bibles, go ahead and open them to the book of Amos. If you don’t have a Bible, slip up your hand, and our ushers will put a Bible in your hand, and we’ll get rolling here. If you remember, at the beginning of September we started our journey through the words of three prophets, Hosea, Amos, and then we’ll get to Micah.
As an introduction, we saw in Amos, chapter 7, one of Amos’ visions was that of God standing next to a wall holding up this guy, a plumb line. We talked about how as the prophets are communicating the heart of God, their words operate just like God in that vision, holding up a plumb line to the lives of the people of Israel, to the lives of God’s people.
In the same way, as we read and let these words work on us, it holds this sort of plumb line to our lives to let us know if what we’re building in our lives is upright or if it has begun to drift off of the center line of God’s heart. For the last several months, I’ve kept this in my bag as a reminder of these words of the prophets.
I’ve flown a couple of times. Every time, they get me in the line with this. I go through and they scan it and I see it pop up on the scanner, and they’re like, “Oh yeah, that looks like a bomb.” So they pull it out, and I have to explain to them that it is a plumb line and I’m a pastor and the plumb line is like the words of God. They think I’m weird, but when I say I’m a pastor they’re like, “Okay, whatever. We think you’re probably not a threat.”
Anyway, that’s what we’ve been doing. In the last several weeks, we were journeying through the words of Hosea. If anything, Hosea is a prophet who emphasizes love. He tells that amazing story, lives that amazing story, of the relentless love of God for his people. Even when his people run away, God continues to come after them. At the same time, we also saw how the words of Hosea call us to love God. It’s not just God’s love for us but also the invitation that we might return to God and be revived in his presence.
Amos takes a little bit of a different tack. Amos isn’t so heavy on the love of God. He’s much more emphasizing the justice of God and even the judgment of God, and he does it with all the tender kindness of a bucket of cold water in the face. So that’s what we’re preparing ourselves for this morning, as we read these first couple of chapters of Amos.
Actually, I’ve been surprised. I’ve read Amos before. I knew it is a bracing call to the people of Israel. But at the same time, I’ve been amazed by how beautiful and uplifting these words have been, even in my own life. So I’m hoping that as we read this together over the next several weeks you’ll find the same to be true.
Now the central message of Amos to the people of Israel is basically that it’s all over. “The end is here. You’re in big trouble.” That’s the cold bucket of water. You have that quote from Amos 8, verse 2: “Then the Lord said to me, ‘The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass by them.'” (Amos 8:2)
What do we make of this message to the northern kingdom of Israel? Remember, as we were looking at Hosea, we’re at a period of time in the history of God’s people when they’re living in a divided kingdom. You have Israel to the north and you have the kingdom of Judah to the south. These 12 tribes that used to be one unified nation have split, and they’re both on these journeys away from God, sort of at different paces.
Hosea prophesied around the same time as Amos. Maybe Amos was a little bit earlier, but they’re basically prophesying at the same time. We’ll just read a quick verse to introduce this. Amos 1:1 says, “The words of Amos, who was among the shepherds of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.” (Amos 1:1)
This introductory verse telling us that Amos is a shepherd. The word for shepherd used is actually the word that means a sheep breeder or maybe the head of shepherds. This is interesting, because Amos is not simply a laboring shepherd; he’s actually up a notch. He’s more of a middle-class to upper-middle class guy in his profession. He has these visions. As we read Amos, we see that the grip of God’s Word on his heart is so intense he has to prophesy.
Tekoa was in the southern kingdom of Judah, but we see that most of his prophecies are to the northern kingdom of Israel. So in a sense, he’s one of the very first missionaries sent from the south up to the north to make these announcements during the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash. Jeroboam, if you remember from our study of Hosea, was pretty much the mastermind behind the northern kingdom’s expansion to its greatest extent.
Jeroboam was a genius when it came to the economy and military conquest and everything else, so the borders were big and the rich were really rich and the stock market was awesome. They were just cruising along during the days of Jeroboam. So for Amos to show up from the south and begin announcing that the end was at hand was kind of like, “Are you kidding me? Really? I mean, we’re God’s people. We’re thriving. We’re wealthy. Can’t you see God is blessing us?”
Amos now is giving them that stern announcement. “The end is at hand.” Verse 2 says, “And he said: ‘The Lord roars from Zion and utters his voice from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds mourn, and the top of Carmel withers.'” (Amos 1:2) It’s this picture of God’s words going out like a great lion roar, but not bringing life. This time it’s causing things to wither. These are words of judgment.
Then Amos begins to talk about how this judgment is going to be played out. We mentioned how Amos is bringing this message that life as Israel knew it was coming to an end. The end is at hand. What we’re going to see as we read through these first several chapters of the book of Amos is, first, the reasons for the end; second, the inevitability of the end; and finally, third, what will happen at the end. Let’s unpack these a little bit.
It’s interesting, because Amos, as he begins these prophecies, actually starts prophesying about other nations. Not Israel, not Judah, but actually the nations surrounding the land of Israel. The first one here in verse 3 is Damascus and the kingdom of Aram that was there in modern-day Syria.
“Thus says the Lord: ‘For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they have threshed Gilead with threshing sledges of iron. So I will send a fire upon the house of Hazael, and it shall devour the strongholds of Ben-hadad.'” (Amos 1:3-4) Then it goes on to talk about the punishment on Damascus.
The reason for this punishment is that they have threshed Gilead with threshing sledges of iron. The reason is war crimes. If you knew how they would thresh out wheat, they had these big iron threshing machines that would come behind the cutter, pulled by an ox, and it would rake over the wheat, and that was how they’d get the grain out of it.
What it’s saying here is that when they conquered the region of Gilead, they treated the people as though they were wheat and just threshed over them. It was really a difficult set of war crimes. The innocent are suffering. This makes God really unhappy. Then it goes on to verse 6 with the prophecy against Gaza, which was to the south of Israel and Judah.
“For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they carried into exile a whole people to deliver them up to Edom.” (Amos 1:6) Then it talks about God’s judgment, sending the fire. What’s going on here? Well, these people, when they were conquering other nations… It doesn’t even tell us who they conquered, but they took the people they conquered captive and sold them into slavery.
God’s outrage is about this human trafficking that’s occurring. The people of Gaza are going and taking them, carrying them into exile, and selling them over to Edom. Then we get to verse 9. “Thus says the Lord: ‘For three transgressions of Tyre, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they delivered up a whole people to Edom, and did not remember the covenant of brotherhood.'” (Amos 1:9)
It’s the same language once again, selling people into slavery, but this time it’s even made worse, because it says they have forsaken or they’re not remembering the covenant of brotherhood. The bonds of family, the bonds of relationships and kinship are being neglected. This bothers God. God cares that we honor our families, extended families and everything else.
Over to verse 11: “Thus says the Lord: ‘For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because he pursued his brother with the sword and cast off all pity, and his anger tore perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever.'” (Amos 1:11) This people of Edom are living out a life of feuding and bitterness and deep-seated animosity to the people around them, holding on to their racism, holding on to their feuds, and things like this.
Then to verse 13: “Thus says the Lord: ‘For three transgressions of the Ammonites, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they have ripped open pregnant women in Gilead, that they might enlarge their border. So I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it shall devour her strongholds…'” (Amos 1:13-14) It goes on to talk about the judgment of God.
In the ancient world (there is record of this), when an area was conquered, particularly cruel armies would assault pregnant women. Even the language creates a chilling echo for those of us who live in our country today. We think about the number of pregnant women whose babies are lost. This grieves the heart of God when we choose by human means to rip open wombs. This is the sort of thing God pays attention to.
Chapter 2, verse 1: “Thus says the Lord: ‘For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because he burned to lime the bones of the king of Edom.'” (Amos 2:1) The idea here is that Moab as they conquered Edom… It’s another one of these regions just to the east of Israel. When they conquered Edom, they took the king’s bones and burned them. It’s a total desecration of the king’s bones. This bothers God. He hates to see humanity defiled like this.
So if you were the people of Israel, hearing these prophecies from Amos about all of the people who are traditionally historically their enemies, all of the people they’ve fought battles against, and now God is saying, “I’m going to do this; I’m going to judge them for three transgressions and for four…” That word transgression even could be translated crime. It’s almost like God is talking about these war crimes, these crimes against humanity.
So they’re hearing Amos talk, and he’s announcing these judgments against all of their enemies. Then Amos goes on and talks about Judah, even their own people to the south. The people of Israel hear this, and they’re thinking, “All right.” Verse 4: “Thus says the Lord: ‘For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they have rejected the law of the Lord, and have not kept his statutes, but their lies have led them astray, those after which their fathers walked.'” (Amos 2:4)
So you’re there in the northern kingdom of Israel and your life is pretty successful and it seems like God is really blessing you. You feel like you have it made. Your savings account is full, and now God is taking care of all of the other nations for all the rotten stuff they’ve done. You’re kind of going, “Yes, God. Smite them. Take care of them.”
Then here’s what Amos does in verse 6. He turns the tables. “Thus says the Lord: ‘For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment…'” (Amos 2:6) You can hear the people gasp. “Us? I thought evil was out there, not in here.” It’s really easy to draw a line between “us” and “them” and imagine that all the evil is out there and God just needs to deal with that. But listen to what was happening in Israel. This is Amos’ true focus.
“I will not revoke the punishment, because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals…” (Amos 2:6) What this means is there is a system in Israel where people are becoming slaves because of their debt. They’re needy for a pair of sandals. Basically, people are in so much poverty and in so much debt their lives are just being traded back and forth.
“…those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted…” (Amos 2:7) The second accusation here is there is a system in Israel where the poor have no way of rising through society. They’re in poverty, and they’re continually trampled down in poverty. This society of affluence and upper-middle class wealth is built upon trampling the poor into the dust with no regard.
“…a man and his father go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned…” (Amos 2:7) The fabric of family is being broken up. Think a man and then his father, so the father is married, and now there is this adultery happening. The family is falling apart. Then in verse 8 it says, “…they lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge, and in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined.” (Amos 2:8)
This idea of lying down on these garments taken in pledge… Remember, we talked about this over the summer when we were looking at Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount talking about giving the cloak and the garment. The Old Testament law kept in mind the poor. If a person was so poor he could only give his garment as a pledge for a loan, as collateral basically, the law said that whoever took the garment had to return it every night so that poor person would at least have something to sleep in and stay warm, even if they’re homeless.
What Amos is saying here is that the people are taking garments in pledges, they’re taking from the poorest of the poor, and then at night they’re just lying down and sleeping on it themselves. It’s total disregard for the poor. Then in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined. There were other Old Testament laws that talked about when people were fined it was to make restitution because somebody had done damage to someone else.
So there would be a fine. They would have to give a payment of crops or something like that. Then the leadership would make sure that would go toward setting right whatever it was that was wrong. Here the leadership is drinking the wine of those who have been fined. They’re taking the fines, but they’re not making restitution. This is the decay that’s working through the system.
As Amos is prophesying, first, he is very clear that God notices the evil at work all around in the nations. I don’t know if you’ve wrestled with or thought through a lot or been troubled by the news recently. You can see the ISIS issue in northern Syria and Iraq and the murders that are happening there, the awful violence, the evil that has gained a head of steam. It’s just outrageous to the point where it’s bringing our country back into war once again.
If your heart has any humanity in it, you just feel so broken for the people who are suffering in the midst of that situation. Or maybe you’ve tracked the news and seen the spread of Ebola and you think about Africa and how it’s moving through the western part of Africa. It’s terrifying. Then you go on and think about what they found in the United States. It’s very easy to become fearful of that.
Go back a few months to the issues in Ferguson and racism flaring up once again in our country. The interesting thing about these news stories that are so troublesome to us is they seem like echoes or repeats of what we’ve seen before. Before the ISIS thing there was Al Qaeda. Before that, there were other extremist groups, terrorist acts.
Before Ebola there was still HIV/AIDS working its way through humanity, exacting a high cost. Before that, you had smallpox and polio, all the way back to the bubonic plague. It’s not like the earth is a great place to stay healthy. You think about racism and issues like that. We thought, “Whoa, I thought we dealt with that.” There was the civil rights movement and the abolition of slavery and everything else.
It just seems like these cycles of evil continue to work themselves out, and now we’re reading from Amos, who’s writing around 760 BC, and it’s the same stuff. It’s the same evil. It’s the same wickedness and the death of the innocent and people coming through and threshing innocent people to death and children and women who are suffering. The earth is bad. There are just all sorts of stuff.
You start thinking about this. Yes, these are harsh words of judgment God is delivering, but as we think about these things, in some ways, it is a relief to know God sees all of it and keeps track of all of it and that God, even though he is loving, is also extremely just, and that he will bring to account those who create and commit such terrible crimes against humanity.
The second piece of this that is so chilling is when we watch the news or when we think about life, when we think about evil, it’s really easy to get into that “us and them” sort of thing. “It’s us versus them.” But when Amos comes to the end of that little series of prophecies and turns the tables and says, “Actually, Israel, God’s people, you guys are just as bad,” it gives us pause, because that line between good and evil doesn’t just run between us and them; it actually runs right through our own lives.
If we’re honest with ourselves, we know we experience evil. We know we perpetrate evil. We know that perhaps we’re not committing war crimes, but sometimes in our hearts we do. Sometimes in our actions we do cheat and desecrate and are violent against others and forget about the poor and all the rest.
So as we’re seeing Amos beginning his book of prophecy, he is announcing that the end is coming, and these are the reasons. That phrase, even, “Three transgressions, and for four.” It’s God emphasizing, “I have been patient. I’ve been patient. Three, even four times, I’ve allowed you to go out and violate the way of morality and the way of goodness. I have been patient, but there is an end that will come.” That’s what Amos is saying.
There’s an end that will come, and that end is going to satisfy the deep cry for justice. But at the same time, that end can be a little bit scary, because if we’re not careful, we can find ourselves just as caught up in the evil ways of the world as the rest.
Then Amos begins to talk about the inevitability of the end. This is something that’s not going to change. Already, in each of these prophecies, we see God saying, “I will not revoke the punishment.” This is a pretty clear statement from God. “I’m not going to revoke it.” We go down to Amos, chapter 3, starting in verse 1.
It says, “Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt: ‘You only have I known of all the families of the earth…'” (Amos 3:1-2) Again, if you’re Israel and you’re listening to this, you’re going, “Yes, we’re God’s chosen people. Yes, he’s going to bring an end. Yes, he’s going to bring judgment, but we’re his chosen people. We are the elect.”
Look at the second half of verse 2: “…therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.” (Amos 3:2) What? Most people in Israel thought their election, their “chosenness” by God, preempted them from punishment, that their election meant privilege, when in fact their election meant responsibility. When God looked at them, he said, “You of all peoples I have known, I’ve chosen. You should be the ones who know how to live out my ways, and yet you don’t.”
Then Amos goes on to verse 3. “Do two walk together unless they have agreed to meet?” (Amos 3:3) Here Amos is beginning to give some examples that show the relationship between cause and consequence. This inevitable judgment that’s coming is not coming out of nowhere; it actually has been caused, in the same way that it is impossible for two people to walk together without first greeting each other, meeting each other. They go together.
Or like verse 4: “Does a lion roar in the forest when he has no prey?” (Amos 3:4) Amos the shepherd knows the way of a lion. A lion is not going to roar before it has taken its prey, because it scares off the prey. A lion will only roar after it has taken its prey, because the prey is dead. “Does a young lion cry out from his den if he has taken nothing? Does a bird fall in a snare on the earth when there is no trap for it?” (Amos 3:4-5) No, of course not. There’s a cause and a consequence.
“Does a snare spring up from the ground when it has taken nothing?” No. “Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?” (Amos 3:5-6) Amos is saying, “This end that is coming is inevitable. There is an end that is coming, and it has been caused by these transgressions, by these crimes against humanity, these times they have neglected the poor and have failed to take justice into account. The end is coming.”
In one sense, the inevitability of the end can be terrifying, because the words God uses to describe his arrival are not friendly words. In another sense, the certainty of the coming end can be incredibly clarifying and can bring great urgency to our lives. Think about this. A couple of weeks ago, we were in California for my brother’s wedding. We had a late flight on a Thursday night, and I had found a good deal on a rental car.
I realized the reason it was such a good deal is that it was one of those rental agencies that was off the airport, so you have to catch a shuttle to get there. We got in about 11:45, and the last shuttle left at midnight. So it was one of those races through the airport to get on the sky train to get out to ride six escalators to get over to the rental car center to make it to the big long way, where at the very end is where this shuttle was.
So we were coming along. I knew the last shuttle was at midnight and we were really pushing it close. As soon as we got out onto that long stretch, I could see down at the very end there’s the shuttle with our brand on it, and it is driving away. It’s bad news. The last one. The end has come. The knowledge that that was the last shuttle really had an impact on me. I said, “Amy, I’m going to catch that shuttle!” So I just started running. I have my roller board and briefcase behind me. It’s bouncing along on the curb and everything else.
This shuttle actually got out onto the real road. It got off the airport property onto the road at a stoplight. I run up to it at the stoplight. I knock on the door, and he opens it up. “Are you guys renting?” I’m like, “Yes!” He’s like, “Good thing you caught the last shuttle.” Amy is running along behind. Her shoe had fallen off halfway, so she’s kind of hopping like this. There was a real fear of God in me in that moment. We were going to miss the shuttle. And then what happens? I don’t know.
Sometimes, the certainty, the knowledge of the inevitability of the end, can be terrifying, but it can also be clarifying. It can create that urgency in us that is important, the necessity. “Hey, we need to make sure we catch that shuttle. We need to make sure we are in the right place when judgment comes or when the end arrives.”
This is important, and this is part of what Amos is doing. The way he talks about the end is he uses this phrase the day of the Lord. Amos is prophesying to the northern kingdom of Israel, and he is speaking to them specifically about the day of the Lord, when life as they know it will come to an end, because they’re going to be invaded and the whole region is going to be destroyed and the people are going to be carried off. This is what he’s talking about with the day of the Lord. It is a grim day.
If there are echoes of things that are in the future of the day of the Lord, when not just with the northern kingdom of Israel, but in the big sense, God removes all evil… Those echoes may be there, but really, Amos is speaking right here specifically to his people Israel. In Amos 5, verse 18, he talks about the day of the Lord. This brings us to that question…What will happen in the end? These are the words of the Lord.
“Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light, as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him.” (Amos 5:18-19) There is no escaping this day of the Lord.
I don’t know if Amos was a good hang, you know. This story of, “You get away from the lion, but the bear catches you. You get away from the bear, but then a serpent bites you and you die.” “Cool, Amos. Pass the potatoes. Happy Sunday.” But this is the word. It’s that the inevitable day of the Lord is coming.
He’s saying, “You guys are yearning for the day of the Lord, but you shouldn’t. The day of the Lord is going to be a day of judgment, and you guys are not in the right spot on this, because you’ve failed to recognize what it looks like to live in alignment with God’s heart for justice. You’ve created this society built on debt and trampling the poor and tearing apart families.”
Pay attention. This is what Amos is saying, and it is a grim message. He picks up this imagery of the day of the Lord in Amos 8, verse 9. I know we’re jumping through the book a little bit. We need to catch an overview of what Amos has to say, and then the next couple of weeks we’ll unpack a little bit more specifically some of the ways he addresses justice.
But this idea of the day of the Lord… What’s going to happen? Amos 8, verse 9, says, “‘And on that day,’ declares the Lord God, ‘I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on every waist and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.
Behold, the days are coming,’ declares the Lord God, ‘when I will send a famine on the land––not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.'” People just won’t listen. “They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.” (Amos 8:9-12) Surely God is bringing an end to his people Israel. They have gone so far from him that he’s bringing an end.
How does this relate to us and how we live now? We see that God is a God of justice. He’s a God of judgment, and the crimes against humanity do not go unnoticed. We see that all too often we ourselves are even a part of those systems, a part of those crimes, a part of those lifestyles that lead to the trampling of other humans. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it.
As I read this, there is a fear of the Lord that begins to rise up within me. There is a clarity about my life. There is an urgency about my life that begins to emerge from these words, because we may not be living in the northern kingdom of Israel around 760 BC, but we are living in a largely affluent country that displays in our society many of the same characteristics this people of Israel had displayed in their own society.
We know from the New Testament record, God will bring this life as we know it to an end, that there will come a day when Jesus returns, and in that day, it says, the Serpent, the Dragon, Satan, evil will be removed, and all of those whose names are not written in the Book of Life are thrown into the lake of fire as well.
There is an end coming. Yes, the end came for these people in Amos. Their kingdom was destroyed. But in the same way, for us… We don’t know when it is. Jesus says it comes like a thief in the night. Only the Father knows the exact time, but there is an end coming for us too, giving us clarity and urgency.
What do we do about the fear? What do we do about the reality, the knowledge that perhaps that line between good and evil is running through us? Where are we in this? At the day of the end, at the day of judgment, the day of the Lord, how do we sort this out? Where do we find ourselves? These are the questions that arise in me as I read Amos.
There is an interesting note in the gospel of Mark, chapter 15, that helps me understand, that blesses my heart, and perhaps even brings me into a greater understanding of Jesus than I would have if I had never read Amos. Like we just read in Amos 8:9, God is saying about that day, the day of the Lord, the day of judgment, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.” Then in verse 10 he says, “I will make it like the mourning for an only son…”
Mark, chapter 15, tells the story of the crucifixion of Jesus. You know that story. Jesus, God in the flesh, came to the earth and walked among us. In the final three years of his life, he had a ministry in which he announced the kingdom of God, called disciples to himself, raised them up, where he displayed authority over evil, casting out demons, and he displayed authority over sickness, authority over brokenness, releasing forgiveness everywhere he went.
He was totally upright. If you were to hold a plumb line of God’s Word to Jesus’ life, it was perfect. Yet the society then was just as bad as the society of the northern kingdom of Israel. It was just as bad as it is today. The people in their waywardness rejected Jesus. They didn’t know what to do with this upright man.
They conspired against him, and all evil, the political evil and social evil and religious evil and demonic evil, all this stuff came together, and Jesus was falsely, unjustly… It was the greatest injustice in the history of the cosmos. He was unjustly condemned to die a criminal’s death, and he went to the cross and hung on the cross.
Mark 15:33 is talking about this. It’s one of those details that if you’re reading too quickly you pass by, that unless you’re reading Amos you miss its richness. As Jesus hangs on the cross, it says, “And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.” (Mark 15:33) Do you know what time the sixth hour is? Noon. What did Amos say? “On the day of the Lord, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight, and then it will be like a day of mourning for an only son.”
What does Mark, in his gospel, want us to know? He wants us to see that the end, the day of judgment, the pouring out of God’s wrath, the justice required to set things right, was poured out upon Jesus on his body when he died on the cross, that that day of the Lord, that day of the end, was in one sense fulfilled when Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Jesus took upon himself the punishment we all deserve.
Now this morning we’re going to be taking Communion together. It’s the first Sunday of the month. For years at Grace we’ve taken Communion together. In the last couple of years we haven’t been as intentional about it, but we’re getting back on track with that. As we take Communion this morning, I want us to meditate upon the justice and judgment of God, because we really have two choices.
The end will come in this life, whether it’s our own death or the return of Jesus. There will be an end for us now in this life. When that end comes, you only have two choices. You’re either with Jesus and the judgment has been poured out on him and he has already taken it all, or you’re on your own to stand before God with your life and all of its goodness and all of its wickedness. The Bible is pretty clear that in the day of the end we want to be with Jesus. We want to trust Jesus. We want to allow him to have taken that darkness upon himself.
Paul tells the church whenever we take Communion together, it’s a sign that we’re trusting Jesus, trusting the sacrifice of Jesus, but he also talks about reflecting a little bit, examining the body. A lot of times we think about that being just our own bodies, but it can also mean the community, the body of Christ, how we’re all living together. Is this a just community of which we are a part? Are we a people of justice, or are we a people who knowingly or unknowingly engage in practices that trample the poor and forget about the weak?
As you hold that bread, representing the broken body of Jesus, and you have that cup, representing the blood Jesus shed on our behalf, I want us to think about these words of God’s passionate justice, the judgment he poured out, and how the way he dealt with evil in the midst of this broken world was by pouring that out upon himself, taking the judgment into himself, that his great love and his great justice can coexist.
As we contemplate taking the bread and taking the cup, we’re engaging with that forgiveness, engaging with that freedom. We’re saying, “No, we would rather be with Jesus in the day of the end than left to our own devices.” We’re saying, “Lord, we embrace what you’ve done, the forgiveness that could be released at the cross. Let it spill forth into us. Thank you, Jesus, that you have paid it all.”