Amos 5:1-9: Crush-able
The past week I turned my attention back to Amos with the hopes of tracking through the rest of the book in the next few months. It has been way too long since I immersed myself in Amos, and I quit midway. I am hoping for grace to finish it this time.
God begins Amos 5 with a lamentation. He calls in the mourners and wailers and sets them to singing a sad song. The song is all about the fall of Israel. The emotion is so strong that the lamentation reads, “Fallen no more to rise is the virgin Israel.” She is forsaken and there isn’t anyone around to help her up. They have been wiped out in battle. One city sent out 1,000 of their best fighters, but only 100 came back. Another city sent out 100 of their best fighters, but only 10 came back. That’s a 90% drop in able-bodied, fighting men available to a nation. Not a good percentage.
It is important to remember that throughout most of Amos’ messages God has been rebuking Israel for oppressing the poor. The poor are those people around us who are without resources and without someone to help them get back up. In these first 2 verses of Amos 5, God reveals that he has made his own people into the poor. He has taken away their resources (Amos 4:6-13), and now he has removed their help, too. Basically, God has given them a taste of their own medicine.
Later in Amos 5:8-9, God reveals himself again to his people after calling them to return to Him. And he reveals himself as the strong, mighty, able-to-crush God of the universe. In other parts of Scripture God reveals himself as patient, or as comforting, or as tender, or as helpful. Not here. Not now. God speaks of himself in this way:
He who made the Pleiades and Orion and turns deep darkness into morning and darkens the day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth. God just declared his sovereign power over and through most every aspect of the physical universe. The heavens and the stars? God controls them. Darkness? Controlled by God. The light of day? Does God’s bidding. The expanse of the oceans? God controls them, too. The process of precipitation? Governed by God. Where it rains and when it rains? Ruled by God. The heavens, the atmosphere, the air we live in, the light we use to see, all of it belongs to God and does his bidding.
But what does any of this have to do with Israel’s just retribution for oppressing the poor? Sure God is strong and in charge. But what we really need here is some help for the poor it seems. Which leads to the next way God reveals himself to the poor-oppressing people of Israel:
Who makes destruction flash forth against the strong so that destruction comes upon the fortress. Essentially what God just did was put Israel in her place. The same way the strong relate to the weak, the same way the rich relate to the poor, is precisely the same way God could relate to Israel. The strong have the power to ruin the weak simply by being stronger (whether their strength is physical, mental, political, whatever). And the rich have the power to destroy the poor simply by being richer. It is incredibly easy for the strong and the rich to oppress the weak and the poor. It just is! By the nature of the situation, it is incredibly easy!
And it would be incredibly easy, too, for God to relate to me the same way. He just could! By the nature of who He is, it would be incredibly easy for him to destroy me. He just could! And that is what He is making clear to his beloved people, Israel. They thought they were strong. They thought they were rich. They thought they were inpenetrable, unbreakable, unbeatable, and unstoppable. But now, after a few messages from Amos, they find themselves penetrated, broken, beat-up, and stuck. They have lost 90% of their warrior fighters. Their defenses are down, and they are fallen. If that we not enough, there is no one around who can help them out! By all definitions they are poor.
God didn’t just say it, but he proved it to them that the same way the strong relate to the weak, the same way the rich relate to the poor, is precisely the same way that God could relate to Israel. He said it, and now He has done it.
Now, thousands of years later, how amazing is the Gospel! I thought I was strong and rich. I thought I would be inpenetrable, unbreakable, unbeatable, and unstoppable. And, yet, I found myself weak and poor. I found myself penetrated, broken, beaten up, and stuck. And just like I feel towards my friends in poverty, God felt towards me. I was crush-able. I was destroy-able. I was an easy target to leave all alone to waste away in misery. That’s how I was. And, yet – amazing! – while I was still the weak, poor, arrogant, penetrated, broken, beat up, stuck sinner Jesus died for me. And God issued a clarion called to, “Seek me and live” (Amons 5:4), brought me to life, and gave me the grace to surrender.
Oh, my, how stupid I am to pick up the sword and try to find my own strength again. How stupid of me to think I am rich again. On my own I am the opposite. My strength is Christ. My wealth is Christ. The God who saved me is the same God who fights for me still.
