Well the wheels fell off the plan to post reflections for a few days... (I blame writing a sermon and lack of multitasking skills!) But we’ve picked it up just in time for the final passage of Amos.

 

In case you also missed it, things kept getting worse for Israel and Judah in Chapters 7-9. Despite God’s desire to show mercy, the time for comprehensive judgement was coming. God himself would bring disaster on his people - no one would be able to hide.

 

But in the final passage, the mood changes. The theme of judgement and destruction gives way to restoration and hope. God is determined not just to hold his people to account for their sin, along with the rest of the world, but to restore, rebuild and redeem. Like all the prophets, Amos sees that God is ultimately determined to bring about salvation and redemption through judgement. He will not bypass or avoid judgement, but neither will he give up on his promise to bless the world through his chosen people. And as the notes for todays Explore reading point out, God’s blessing is given in the language of undoing the judgement he has brought on his people: one day there will be no more curse. And like the rest of the prophets, the blessing is described in the language of national Israel - the language of the 1st covenant, but it points to the reality of the 2nd covenant - the reality of a new people of God brought together from all nations through faith in Jesus Christ to experience God’s blessing as members of his family. 

 

We are very aware of the effects of sin in our world right now - suffering, frustration, sickness and even death. And in the midst of it, it is profoundly comforting to know that God himself will ‘restore the fallen shelter of David’ and ‘rebuild it as in the days of old’. God has already come good on his promise by raising Jesus, the great Son of David, from the dead. And God is determined through the judgement of the cross and the restoration of the empty tomb to bring blessing to his people and his good creation. ‘The LORD your God has spoken’ (Amos 9:15).