Restore the Roar!

Sometime around the year 762 BC, Amos, a herdsman from the small Judean town of Tekoa, heard the voice of God and compared it to hearing the roaring of a lion, a roaring that causes pastures to mourn and forests to wither (Amos 1:2). That is some kind of roar! The prophet then personally encounters the Lord as a Lion (3:12), and this propels him to confront Israel’s movers and shakers who were deaf to God’s call of justice and righteousness (e.g., 5:24; 7:1–17).

What set off this divine roaring that sent Amos into the fray? People were busy with religion, but they were not heartbroken over what was happening to the little people on the fringes of society (e.g., 6:1–7). Samaria, Israel’s capital, was a place of affluence and power that was indifferent to the poor. So the Lord roared, and Amos preached.

There are biblical images of God as a caring Shepherd (e.g., Psalm 23) and a mighty redeemer (e.g., Job 19:25). But we dare not let these images remove the claws and teeth of the Lion who roars from Zion. Throughout the Book of Amos, the Lion sends fires and earthquakes, locusts and droughts, famines, diseases, and an army bent on the complete annihilation of Israel. His wrath and anger are real. Amos declares that Israel’s most sacred institutions—its temple and systems of worship, priesthood, covenant, land entitlement, election tradition, and kingship—will not avert disaster. Long-standing institutions associated with God’s blessings, cherished belief systems, and a social structure that appeared invincible will come to a cataclysmic end (Amos 8:1–3). The prophet insists that the kings, priests, and leaders are engaging in an enormous deception, a huge lie.

The message of his book is singular—Restore the Roar!

This Lent, we will listen to the Lion as He rumbles in His jungle, pointing out our complacency, duplicity, and sin. But, and thank God for this, the ferocious Lion is also the bleeding Lamb. Our Lord’s mighty power is made most perfect in the weakness of the cross (2 Corinthians 12:9). And gathering under the cross, we will all the more be amazed when the roaring Lion defeats His greatest enemies, the devil, hell, and the power of death. Then with resurrection joy we will say of Jesus, “The Lion of the tribe of Judah, He has triumphed” (Revelation 5:5). 


On Easter, the roar of God’s saving love is restored forevermore! 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Water into blood and water into wine

Image
Here are some thoughts that didn’t make it into Sunday’s sermon. The Old Testament lesson for the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany is the account of Moses turning the water of the Nile River into blood. The first of the ten plagues God used to get the Israelites out of Egypt. Exodus 7:14-24 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Pharaoh's heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go. 15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the water. Wait on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake. 16 Then say to him, 'The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the desert. But until now you have not listened. 17 This is what the LORD says: By this you will know that I am the LORD: With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood. 18 The fish in the Nile will die, and the river will stink; the Egyptians will not
Read more

Justified in Jesus

Image
Matthew 27:27–31 27 Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole cohort of soldiers around him. 28 They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. 29 They twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand, knelt in front of him, and mocked him by saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 30 They spit on him, took the staff, and hit him repeatedly on his head. 31 After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him. 1) Jesus on cross picture. We are still in the five hundredth anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation. With the Reformation, the Lord of the Church allowed His truth to be retold through the writings of Martin Luther. But, God also used artists to visually portray this gospel to the minds of His people. If we wanted to “picture” the Reformation in our mind’s eye, there is no better “picture” than The Weimar Altarpiece . In thi
Read more

Jesus has prepared a place for you - A funeral sermon for Jim Hermann

Image
John 14:1-4 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me.  2  My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  4  You know the way to the place where I am going.” “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” Did you catch the difference between what I read just now and what I read in the Gospel lesson? The Gospel lesson was from the NIV. The second verse I read was from the King James Version. If you’re older than 50, that’s the version of the Bible that you heard in church and learned in catechism class. But, even if you’re older younger than 50, you know about the mansions. “The mansions of heaven” is a term Christians use pretty often. Preachers say it, poets write it, people
Read more