Amos 5,21-24. Quinquagesima

Amos 5,21-24   1524

Quinquagesima 23 

Euphrosyne, Virgin, ✠ 470

11. Februar 2024 

1. ℣ Be Thou my strong Rock: 

℟ For an house of defense to save me (Psalm 31,2). 

O Jesus, without You we can do nothing; enlighten our understanding that in Your Light we may behold the greatness of Your love and compassion.  Amen. (Pieper 128-29; English transl. 75). 

2. »Therefore thus says Yahweh, the Elohe Sabaoth, Adona: „I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer Me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from Me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.“«  (Amos 5,16.21-24)

3. »The Prophet Amos calls both Judah and Israel to repentance. When Jeroboam I founded the nation of Israel after the death of Solomon, Jeroboam lead the 10 Tribes into idolatry. He forbade the people from worshipping Yahweh at the temple in Jerusalem. In place of Jerusalem, he had shrines to Yahweh built at Dan and Beth-el. These sites idolized Yahweh with statues of calves and bulls. Jeroboam had re-instituted the idolatry the people engaged in at Sinai. »When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him: „Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.“ And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said: „These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!“ When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said: „Tomorrow shall be a feast to Yahweh.“« (Exodus 32,1.4-5). What Aaron did was syncretize Israelite and Canaanite deities, blurring the distinction between Yahweh and Baal. Jeroboam II continued this practice in Israel. 

4. Amos reprimanded Israel for using images of Baal for Yahweh. Amos says Yahweh rejects their worship and sacrifices because they have created a new god to worship: Yahweh with attributes of Baal added. This was the same idolatry Aaron and the Israelites created at Sinai; this new god is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Psalmist laments: »If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign god, would not God discover this? For He knows the secrets of the heart.« (Psalm 44,20-21). Indeed, Israel had, and God sent Amos to reprimand them. 

5. Israel did not understand Yahweh’s grace, for the people had broken their covenant relationship with God. Such syncretism of Yahweh and Baal effected the social morality of the people. Under Jeroboam II, the 13^th king, Israel had become its most prosperous since its founding, but idolatry, a corrupt justice system and oppression of the poor were common occurrences. Haughtiness, overconfidence, oppression and exploitation of the poor, luxurious splendor and a craving for amusement typified Israel und Jeroboam II. We are arrogant and naive if we think a rejection of the Triune God in our nation will not have similar consequences; for indeed, the increased immorality and vice that afflict our culture results from a rejection of God. 

6. Yet in spite of such apparent and gross unrepentant sin, Israel thought everything was fine. They had the Scriptures; they had temples and priests; they had the animal sacrifices; and they had their god. They were the chosen race of God. They felt they could do no wrong in God’s sight, and even if they did, what of it? They had the sacrifices to bring forgiveness. They believed that their offerings and sacrifices pleased God. But Amos condemns them for not having Yahweh but some other god.

7. Yahweh’s justice is dependent upon Yahweh. For Judah and Israel, Yahweh’s justice were found in Jerusalem at His temple, not in the other temples they built at Dan, Beth-el and elsewhere, for it was at Solomon’s temple that the sacrifices were offered and through those sacrifices Yahweh’s absolution was spoken by the priests. Today, God’s justice is found in His Church. „The ‘justice’ which it is the church’s work to proclaim is that vicarious ‘justice’ we have in the covenant with Christ, namely the Gospel, by which alone we escape condemnation, no matter how fine a moral code we pursue“ (Hummel 308). 

8. Christ crucified is the manifestation of God’s love in the flesh. Christ loves you, therefore He suffered to save you. Christ brings the righteousness and justification of the reign of God into our midst. At Calvary the gospel was poured out with Christ’s shed blood »like an ever-flowing stream.« In Christ, all our sins are washed away and forgiven. Christ’s blood justifies us and makes us righteous; then sanctification and holy living spring forth in our words and deeds. 

9. Through the Word and the Sacraments the Holy Spirit now redeems us into the image of the Triune God. The Apostle Paul describes this holy likeness, writing: »Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends« (1. Corinthians 13,4-8). Each day the Holy Spirit uses the gospel to remake us into a man or woman of faith, a person who fears, loves and trusts in Christ Jesus just as He originally created you. Jesus has promised it, and He will see it through to completion. Esto mihi in lapidem fortissimum, et in domum munitam, ut salves me facias : Be a Rock of refuge for me, a Strong Fortress to save me! (Psalm 30,3b mas). 

10. O Lord Christ, cover up our sin

And to us kindle love within,

That with delight we to our neighbor do,

As O Son of God, Thou do to us too (Ein wahrer Glaube Gotts Zorn stillt elkg 646,8 2021 Nikolaus Herman (1560) 1562). 

This is most certainly true. 

11. The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4,7).  Amen. 

12. Let us pray. O Lord, give us more charity, more self-denial, more likeness to Thee; teach us to sacrifice our comforts to others and our likings for the sake of doing good; make us kindly in thought, gentle in word, generous in deed; teach us that it is better to give than to receive, better to forget ourselves than to put ourselves forward, better to minister than to be ministered unto.  Amen. (Quinquagesima, Vespers Collect 2. The Daily Office.)

To God alone be the Glory 

Gode ealdore sy se cyneþrymm

✠

 

All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, Septuaginta, Vol. I and II 2. Revised Edition © 2006 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 28. Revised Edition © 2012 Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart. 

Evangelisch-Lutherisches Kirchengesangbuch. Copyright © 2021 Selbständige Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche, Hannover. 

   Starck, Johann. Tägliches Hand-Buch. Copyright © 1852 Enßlin & Laiblin.

Starck, Johann. Tägliches Handbuch. Franz Pieper, tr. Copyright © 19oo Concordia Publishing House.

   Starck, Johann. Starck’s Prayer Book. Copyright © 2009 Concordia Publishing House.

The Daily Office. Copyright © 1965 Concordia Publishing House. 

Hummel, Horace D. The Word Becoming Flesh. © 1979 by Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis.