A sermon preached by Pastor Lewis Polzin on November 8, 2020 at St. Peter–Immanuel Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI, on Amos 5:18-24. You may play the audio of the sermon here.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from the Prophet Amos, the 5th chapter:
Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light, as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him. Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it? “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
The world is growing darker, true. We are now in daylight standard time. We're out of daylight savings time and that's not a bad thing. I’d vote for any politician that made that the highlight of their campaign, to abolish one or the other. Still, it seems to get darker than it should right now. I mean it's pitch-black at almost 5:30 now. At night here at SPI, our parking lot has no real lights in it, which is unfortunate and it makes it difficult. But, the world is growing darker, not just in terms of the light of the sun, but the world is growing darker with its sin. We see this all over the place.
I've often compared America to the old Roman Empire, not the Catholic one, but the one that was there around Jesus. And in two hundred years, we’ve reached a point of immorality in America that it took Rome about a thousand years to reach. And what happened to Rome? It fell under the weight of its own immorality. It's true. What do we think is going to happen here? The world is growing darker. It is not going to get better, whether President Trump is re-elected by the electoral college or whether we have a President-Elect Biden. It’s only ever going to get worse.
The world is growing to grow darker and darker and darker. Now, first, for Christians, this is actually good news. I know it may not seem like it, but it's true. In one sense, the world growing darker gives us the opportunity to bring the message of Jesus into a world that's hurting, it gives us a clarity of focus as we go forward out from this place and into the world to preach into the lives of the people who are around us, to share with them the love of Jesus Christ. Second, in a very real sense, it’s good news for us personally because, as the world grows darker and darker, the light of Christ will grow ever brighter for us.
Have you ever been out in the woods in the middle of the night or on a street where there are no street lamps around you for blocks? Maybe you have a little light with you, a flashlight, your phone, a keychain light. What happens with that light? It overtakes the darkness and suddenly, though little that light is, it floods your world so that you can see everything. Your eyes have grown so accustomed to the dark that, when the light comes, it is blinding to you. It is the same with Christ, that we who love the light and love the Lord are comforted by His light.
But to those who hate the Lord, to those who despise all that He is and all that He's done, when they see the light in the middle of their darkened world, they run with terror they scream and shrink away. They don't let their eyes look at the light, lest they burn with the fire of well within them.
This is where Amos picks up. Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord. He's not here talking to those who are faithful and righteous and who are in Christ forever. He's talking to those who just wish the world would end, who wish that they would do it on their own. You know these people. These are people who have no hope, for their only hope is in themselves. And we all know what happens to our flesh in this world; it decays and dies and there we find our hope is extinguished. But, if instead we have hope in Christ, there is no woe for us. There is only joy.
Again, for those who are without Christ, woe to you who desire the day of the Lord. Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness and not light. But, Pastor, you just told us that that God is light, that Jesus is light. The day of the Lord is indeed darkness, for when Jesus Christ reappears, He will bring not peace but a sword and He will send all those who have rejected Him in this life into the place that they have chosen for themselves, to the fiery pit of hell, where heat is hotter than any heat you could imagine and the cold is colder than any cold you've experienced. It is darkness. It is weeping. It is the gnashing of teeth.
It is darkness, not light. Instead, it is as if a man is fleeing from a lion and meets a bear. They flee from the light of God and run straight into the maw of hell. Or it's like he went into a house and leaned his hand against the wall. Thank goodness, I finally got there and suddenly a snake pops out and bites him and kills him. Is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light and gloom with no brightness in it? The answer is yes, the day of the Lord is darkness and it is not light. It is gloom with no brightness in it.
Our Lord Jesus Christ tells us that the wedding feast is coming, that He is coming soon and we must be prepared. That's a wonderful thing. He gives us a heads-up. It's like saying, You know, I know you’re tired, but if you walk only five more blocks, you’ll find a hotel completely free of charge with the best chef working there you’ve ever tasted. It’s good news, and it’s something for us to look forward to. Jesus gives us the ending before it even comes. I am coming soon, be prepared. Like the wise virgins, He is training us to look for the day of His coming. He is training us to keep the oil in our lamps that we might indeed be found ready when He reappears.
But then there are the foolish virgins. They are the ones who are not prepared. They are the ones who get by on just enough and find that they have been shut out of the wedding feast forever, for the Lord has not saved them. This is not because He didn't desire to. After all, they were invited to the feast weren't they? They are not saved because they lacked preparation. The Lord shut the doors on them and cast them out into the darkness forever.
This is why then God says through Amos, I hate, I despise your feasts and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. You might get a little bit scared because, after all, we've just had two weeks of feasts and festivals here, with Reformation Day and with All Saints Day. Soon, we’re going to be celebrating the Last Sunday of the Church Year. Soon, we’re going to be celebrating the Nativity of Our Lord. Soon, we’re going to be celebrating Christmas Day. These are the feasts. Does God hate them, too? No, God has given these days to us and we rejoice in them and God rejoices with us. Every time we gather together, it is a solemn assembly, whether we're five people or 50 people or 500 people. Does God hate when when we gather?No, He has given us this time to be a solemn assembly, coming together before God to plead His Mercy for our sins and to find that forgiveness of sins that He so freely gives to you from the cross, in His Word and in His Sacraments.
God is not talking to you, that He hates your feasts and your festivals and your solemn assemblies. But God is speaking to those who, again, want to do it their way, who will look and try to offer themselves to God, that they are somehow so good that God should honor them. They pay God lip service, but do not gather in the hope of His salvation. Instead, we plead before the Lord knowing that we are poor miserable sinners and all we can do is plead the mercy of God. Have you thought about this before? That truly it would be enough for us that God would just wipe us out of existence. Think about this for a second. You are so sinful that you deserve hell. Would it not be better for you just to be completely annihilated and never go to hell? If we’re honest with ourselves, it should give us some comfort that, if all we had was annihilation, at least we would not suffer for eternity. But God doubles down on you and He loves you so much that He does not offer you annihilation, but He offers you eternal life. He takes away your sin and then gives you a reward beyond measure. He gives you a place where you can live with Christ, a place where you can gather and feast and come together in the solemn assemblies of the Church.
In these things, God gives you life. And even as we experience them here now, right now, in this place, they are only a foretaste of what is to come. The joy we have as we gather around these feasts and festivals is palpable. I don't know about you, but I love Reformation Day and I love All Saints Day even more. I love the Last Sunday of the Church Year and I love Christmas Eve and I love Christmas day. It is a joy to celebrate those feasts and festivals every time they come around. And again, God delights in that with us, for He has given us those days. We are not coming to Him offering the gift of our oh, so worthy selves, we’re coming to Him and offering nothing but receiving everything.
The natural state of man is to try to work to save ourselves, to be good enough to get into heaven. Talk with any random person on the street and, unless they have been catechized well, they will probably tell you the answer to this question, How will you get to be in heaven, is, Well, I try to be as good as I possibly can. I try to help those who are in need. I try to do good things, and, on the balance, I think I'm better good that I am bad. I think if my deeds were put on a scale, they would weigh down on the good side and thus God would have to let me in. Try it this week. Go up to any random person in the grocery store and ask them that question and I can almost guarantee you that that is what they will answer.
You see, that's the natural state of man in our sin. Those are the things that we offer to God that He hates. He abhors, He despises when we come to Him with these sinful hearts and give Him some kind of offering out of our own generosity. He hates that because it’s not from Him; it’s from us. Anything we give Him that is His own, He loves, for it comes from Him. But anything we come up within ourselves, our hearts, our minds, our strengths, He hates. He is not going to accept them. The peace offerings of the fattened animals, those things that would stand there and make peace between you and God, God isn't even going to look on them, they’re so disgusting to him.
I think about it this way: growing up I spent a few summers with my grandmother out in Fitchburg, out there by Madison. She had a farm on the back of her house. It wasn't hers, it was the Lacey Farm. And every summer the cows would be out. I loved those cows. I still love cows today. Those cows have come up to the fence and they would eat the crab apples right out of our hands and those cows smelled awful. Cows are stinky, stinky creatures. And yet I love that smell. Because of all the good things that have been associated with that, I love that smell. So, now, living up in Fredonia, with all the farms around us, when the wind is blowing the right way, we get a big old whiff right at the house of the farm down the street. And while most people would close their windows and most people would shut their doors, I stand outside and I take the biggest whiff I can because I love those cows. I love them even though their stench is disgusting. I love it. And so it is with God.
When we come before him with sinful hearts and try to offer him the offerings that we have with our within ourselves, He finds that stench disgusting. It’s like a corpse flower that only blooms once every few years and smells like a decaying body. That is what our offerings to God smell like.
But when we come with a broken and contrite spirit, as you have today, and the stench of your offerings, as pitiful as they may be, come before God, He delights in them for He loves you. He created you to love you, and, so, when all that you have is offered because of Christ, then He glories in you and honors you.
God will not delight in the unbelievers’ songs or the unbelievers’ praise. All the things that they could bring before God, He will not accept them. Instead what He desires to see from them and from us, is justice rolling down like the waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Again, these are not things that come from us. They come because Christ is yours. Because He is yours, all that you have is His, and so the just and righteous things we do flow from Him.
If we tried to justice and righteousness on our own, we’re back to corpse flower territory. After all, the justice of God and the righteousness of God are not the justice and righteousness of man. Is it right that a woman who kills her rapist would be sentenced to prison? No, probably not, and yet there are courts in our land that will do just that. Is it right that a doctor who commit abortions doesn’t face any justice or penalty whatsoever? No, that's not right, and yet the justice of man allows that. That's not the justice that God wants to see. The justice that God desires to see from us is to take care of the widows and the orphans to take care of the marginalized among us, that in our good works toward them, our good works towards our neighbors, we might find that we're living out our vocation in Christ. That's the justice that God desires to see and Jesus even calls that true religion.
Mankind cannot achieve righteousness on its own, but through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God who took on human flesh, who went to the cross to die for you, to be resurrected for you, and even to ascend for you, the righteousness of Christ flows into you like an ever-flowing stream coming out of the waters of baptism and flowing into your life forever.
The righteousness of God is good. And when you have the righteousness of God within you, all of the evil things that we could offer to God are now pleasing to Him. All of our shortcomings are now seen as holy things, for we do them all for the sake of our neighbor in service to God. And there we find great joy.
As our Lord looks at the justice and righteousness we show, He says to you, Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter into the feast of my Son, the bridegroom, Jesus Christ. And so we are welcomed like the wise virgins. We enter into the feast well-prepared by faith to rely on the righteousness of God. We are prepared to look to the mercy of God.
In Christ, we find ourselves prepared and welcomed into the eternal feast, the wedding banquet that never shall end. We will not be cast out like the world. Even though the day of the Lord will be dark, the light of God shines through and enlivens your hearts. For there, in that day of the Lord, you will find that you will live forever, not cast into the darkness, but welcomed into the light of Christ. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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