Morning Devotion for Advent
December 8, 2021
The Invitatory
In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.
Praise ye the Lord.
The Lord's Name be praised.
Reading: Amos 8:9-12
On that day, says 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 all loins,
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.
The time is surely coming, says the Lord God,
when I will send a famine on the land;
not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord.
They shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord,
but they shall not find it.
Meditation: Jo Ann B. Jones
While engaging in some virtual window wishing I came across an item that caught my attention. It was a green tee shirt for a cat lover (I have a cat whom I adore). The design features the head and eyes of a black cat peeking out with the captions “JUDGING YOU and beneath it, written slightly smaller - silently. And in that very moment I was thrown back to those days when God terrified me! Because I knew that he was judging me and I was surely headed to hell. My sense of terror is almost as strong as my deep lament that God has abandoned me. Or is it the realization that something that I have done has placed me at a distance from Him? That is definitely a dark, hopeless, helpless and frightening place to be. How do I recover? How do I wrestle with accountability for what I have done?
That I experienced this sensation, recently even though momentarily, heightened my awareness to the realization that there are very real consequences to my actions - both the harm done to others, and the consequent effect on me. There’s no walking away clean or free of responsibility. Yet, it is not hopeless. What happens when an entire community’s actions become subject to God’s judgment?
In prior verses, Amos announces what the guilty party has done wrong and declares what will happen as a result. Amos focuses on the merchants who sell grain and their religious hypocrisy. In response, God threatens a variety of calamities that will affect not just the corrupt merchants but all of Israel, suggesting that the society at large bears responsibility for creating the circumstances in which such actions could prosper. The consequences of these wrong actions have seismic ramifications and further cosmic disruption to the sun in its passage during the day. The threat is actually “a famine … of hearing the words of the LORD.” In ancient Israelite religion, prophecy was the primary channel through which God was expected to communicate. Because the people of Israel have rejected the warnings of prophets like Amos, they will lose access to prophecy when they desire it. This frightening possibility reaffirms the freedom of God from any human manipulation. While Christians rightly celebrate God’s definitive self-revelation in Jesus Christ, it is important to recognize this as a gift not to be taken for granted. While it is true that God never stops speaking, we sometimes stop listening. God does not owe us any revelation and may sometimes withhold it from us for reasons known only to God.
As we find ourselves in this season of Advent, it also seems reasonable and faithful to understand that God’s mercy converges with and triumphs over God’s judgment in the cross of Christ. With echoes of verse 9, Luke’s description of the moment of Jesus’ death: “It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two.” In this moment of the ripening of the sins of the world, God’s mercy triumphs over God’s judgment.
The Lord's Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
