Advent, Monday December 10: Amos 7.1-9

December 10, 2007 by djackson.

After Detroit handed Green Bay their only loss in the 1962 season Fuzzy Thurston, one of the Packer’s guards, searched for an upside. The marauding Lion defense had repeatedly punctured the front line and sacked quarterback Bart Starr. Turning to his running mate Jerry Kramer, Thurston quipped, “Well, at least it wasn’t a total loss. Wel learned a new block today: the lookout block. You know, you block and then you yell, ‘Look out, Bart!’”

When Amos sees the snorting linebacker of God’s righteous wrath about to blindside Israel he isn’t content to throw a lookout block. His vision calls for action. In fact, some scholars speculate that this series of oracles goaded the old sheep-puncher into knocking the manure off his sandals and heading north to preach judgment.

The prophet doesn’t have a lot to work with. Israel pretty much has it coming. He opts instead to appeal to God’s sensibilities as a gentleman. “How can Jacob stand, for he is small?” Amos pleads that this isn’t a fair fight. God’s heavyweight haymaker landing on Israel’s flyweight jaw amounts to a mismatch that no boxing commission would sanction. Fortunately for Amos and Israel, God’s a sucker for mercy. He pulls both punches and sends the locust uppercut and the wildfire hook whistling harmlessly past their targets.

Then comes the mildest - and most ominous - of the trifecta of visions. “What do you see, Amos?” No need to ask that when six-legged death swarmed the nation’s breadbasket. Dumb question when wildfire turned the very water table to hissing steam. “What do you see, Amos?” And the preacher nervously replies, “A plumb line.” Seems safe enough, but somehow it sounds like a trick question.

God can’t stop being himself, can’t stop being the absolute vertical which measures all reality. Sooner or later the crooked must be made straight, or at least revealed as crooked. Sooner or later God shows up. Everything else follows logically. Weakness is one thing; disobedience is another.

“I will spare them no longer,” says the Lord in verse eight. The Hebrew literally reads, “I will pass them by no longer.” At Advent, we pause to await Christ’s coming. We’d do ourselves a favor to heed the lookout blocks thrown through the centuries by bruised-hearted prophets who can’t stand to see the knockout blow. We’d be well advised to remember that God always has mercy on weakness, but never on rebellion.

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