Amos 5:1-17 BibleGateway.com
In this season we set aside the grinding normalcy of our lives to muster cheer and warm fellow-feeling through our celebrations, gifts, and religious devotion. Yet even as guests depart, well fed and cheered, we are haunted by a vague, gnawing emptiness. “This year just didn’t feel like Christmas” we confide to our closest friends—feelings made more poignant as we recall Christmases of Dickensian fiction or childhood anticipation of the day. But we are not now Victorians or children, and the symbols and rituals of this season do not touch us the same: They do not rally the same romantic feelings.
Today’s readings do nothing to help us reclaim the romance. In fact, this text reads like a funeral dirge. Amos warns that Israel’s military strength will be wrecked and her soldiers slaughtered, and that Yahweh has no interest in her ritual pilgrimages to Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba. Israel’s problem was not that she lacked a certain experience or emotion. She was happy with Yahweh, she liked Yahweh. But she no longer saw that her salvation, expected from Yahweh, was thoroughly entwined with her practice of justice as revealed in the covenant and law.
The hope of Advent is not for salvation through rituals or feelings, but through One who came among us, living in peace, sharing his goods, and healing in word and deed. To Him Christmas bears witness: An alternative to a society based on violence is made possible by the life, death, resurrection, and teachings of Jesus. In this Way there is Joy indeed.
Prayer: Gracious God, as we celebrate your coming, forgive us for piling between us rituals to muster cheer instead of the courage for justice and repentance. By our longing for warm feelings, turn us to the least among us—those broken by war, sickness, and injustice. Move us toward them so that your joy may be complete.
Amen
David White
C. Ellis and Nancy Gribble Nelson Associate Professor of Christian Education
Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary
CLICK HERE to listen to each day's devotional.
In this season we set aside the grinding normalcy of our lives to muster cheer and warm fellow-feeling through our celebrations, gifts, and religious devotion. Yet even as guests depart, well fed and cheered, we are haunted by a vague, gnawing emptiness. “This year just didn’t feel like Christmas” we confide to our closest friends—feelings made more poignant as we recall Christmases of Dickensian fiction or childhood anticipation of the day. But we are not now Victorians or children, and the symbols and rituals of this season do not touch us the same: They do not rally the same romantic feelings.
Today’s readings do nothing to help us reclaim the romance. In fact, this text reads like a funeral dirge. Amos warns that Israel’s military strength will be wrecked and her soldiers slaughtered, and that Yahweh has no interest in her ritual pilgrimages to Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba. Israel’s problem was not that she lacked a certain experience or emotion. She was happy with Yahweh, she liked Yahweh. But she no longer saw that her salvation, expected from Yahweh, was thoroughly entwined with her practice of justice as revealed in the covenant and law.
The hope of Advent is not for salvation through rituals or feelings, but through One who came among us, living in peace, sharing his goods, and healing in word and deed. To Him Christmas bears witness: An alternative to a society based on violence is made possible by the life, death, resurrection, and teachings of Jesus. In this Way there is Joy indeed.
Prayer: Gracious God, as we celebrate your coming, forgive us for piling between us rituals to muster cheer instead of the courage for justice and repentance. By our longing for warm feelings, turn us to the least among us—those broken by war, sickness, and injustice. Move us toward them so that your joy may be complete.
Amen
David White
C. Ellis and Nancy Gribble Nelson Associate Professor of Christian Education
Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary
CLICK HERE to listen to each day's devotional.
______________________________
For the glory of God and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary is a seminary in the Presbyterian-Reformed tradition whose mission is to educate and equip individuals for the ordained Christian ministry and other forms of Christian service and leadership; to employ its resources in the service of the church; to promote and engage in critical theological thought and research; and to be a winsome and exemplary community of God's people.CLICK HERE to learn how you can support the mission of Austin Seminary
No comments:
Post a Comment