November 9th Sermon

“Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you want the day of the Lord? It is darkness, not light; as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear; or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake. Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?”

What is the “Day of the Lord”? I guess the best way to translate this into our way of speaking would be to call it “Judgment Day.” The “Day of the Lord” is the last day of the world. When God sits on his throne and puts all the nations under his feet as a footstool. When God makes his final decision about you once and for all.

And according to the prophet Amos, the Israelites loved to talk about the Day of the Lord. Judgment Day what something they were looking forward to. It was the day that they would finally be embraced as God’s chosen people and all the troubles in the world would be over. There would be a new heaven and a new earth—a new Jerusalem! They were the descendents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They were confident of God’s decision and his choice. They looked forward to the day when everyone else could see that they—THEY—the Israelites, were right after all! What a glorious moment that would be! The Day of the Lord. Judgment Day. When believing in God all those years would finally pay off!

Sometimes we are so focused on the law and following it that we miss the mark completely! Instead of loving our neighbors, the thing the law wants us to do in the first place!—we end up becoming self-righteous like the Israelites Amos was preaching to. We try to follow the law so completely that we end up breaking the law. By demanding that our neighbors follow the law we forget to love our neighbors. Pointing out sins is fine as long as you remember that sin is a universal condition. We cannot simply point out sin, we must pray, love and forgive sinners just as we have been prayed for, loved and forgiven.

However, in our day, it’s tough to be quite as self-righteous as the Israelites seemed to be when Amos was talking to them because God doesn’t seem to have the stomach for judgment at all anymore. He seems too progressive, too loving and too tolerant for all that stuff the Old Testament talks about. At seminaries, in casual conversations, in the news, in the movies, the Day of the Lord, Judgment Day, is often talked about with joyful anticipation. We get around the darkness of the Day of the Lord in a new way now. It’s called “Universal Salvation” or “Universalism” and it sounds pretty darn nice if you ask me.

Christian Universalism says that since God loves all people everyone will be saved no matter what. If there were such a thing as hell, which there probably isn’t Universalists would argue, that would mean that God is not a loving God at all but a vindictive God. A mean God. And that doesn’t sound right. What about all the Buddhists or Muslims or Hindus who never were told about Jesus Christ or who never had a chance to believe in him? If God were not going to save everybody then why would he let them be born into a different religion? An all knowing and all powerful God wouldn’t act like that. That wouldn’t be fair!

So, the Universalist argument looks at scripture. The gospel of John points out that, “God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life. But Jesus also says, “No one can come to Jesus unless drawn by the Father who sent him”. Therefore, as scripture also clearly says, God will draw all people to himself so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” According to Christian Universalists, everyone is saved by God. Everyone is loved by God no matter what they do. No matter what they believe. Everything will come out alright in the end. That’s the Day of the Lord and it doesn’t sound so darn bad if you ask me.

If everyone will be saved in the end then we shouldn’t be worried about the Day of the Lord should we, no matter what Amos says. We certainly don’t need to worry about what we do in this life. Morals, ethics, forgiveness and loving your neighbor don’t really matter. Who needs it? You’ll be fine no matter what you do. That’s the love of God, Universalists would say. But that’s not quite the same as a Savior who forgives sinners and creates a new creation. Universalism says that we are all saved without becoming new or changed. We are all forgiven without repentance and without a changed life. Finally, Universalism undermines the very proclamation we are called to give to people about Jesus Christ. For if everyone is saved in the end, why bother them with Jesus? At best Christianity will confuse people and at worst it might break up families, cultures and start a war.

Jesus was never tolerant, but he was always forgiving. He was understanding, compassionate, loving, peaceful, giving and fought against injustice wherever and whenever he saw it. But no one left his presence unchanged. No one left feeling that they were tolerated, as if that would be a loving thing to do. I mean, if someone tells you that they are tolerating you, does that make you feel very loved? Tolerance is not the same thing as love. With Jesus, you are either convicted of or forgiven for your sins. Jesus is never tolerant, but Jesus is always forgiving.

Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you want the day of the Lord? It is darkness, not light; as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear.” You and I worry about being called intolerant or legalistic and we run from those labels like they were going to eat us alive! But, in doing so, we find ourselves in a society where faith, belief and morality don’t mean very much. Perhaps this is why, in America at least, it is considered extremely bad form to criticize non-Christian religions in public, but it is more than acceptable to criticize Christians and Christianity in public. We flee from the lions of intolerance and, ironically are eaten by the intolerant bears of society.

Or course, tolerance is important, but it is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. Tolerance doesn’t free anyone from anything. It leaves the old creation old and nothing new happens. One of the biggest problems with making tolerance a doctrine of the church is that, often, the most tolerant people just don’t tolerate intolerant people! How ironic! But here is the truth of the gospel. God expects both the tolerant and the intolerant to repent of their sins—one is not better than the other. God offers forgiveness both to recovering addicts and to addicts who have no intention of recovering—everyone needs forgiveness.

“Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you want the day of the Lord? It is darkness, not light; as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear; or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake. I hate, I despise your festivals, 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 offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” God waited for his chosen people, the Israelites, to follow his laws. He waited for them to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with Him as their God. He waits for you to do the same thing, but it never happens. So God has now fulfilled Amos’ prophecy in Jesus Christ for you. “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.”

He rolls Jesus Christ all the way down from heaven to you like a flood of waters upon your head, drenching you in the promise of baptism and saturates you with His righteousness from head to toe. He forgives your sins over and over again and he makes living waters of faith gush forth from your heart in an ever-flowing stream. The Day of the Lord will still be a day of darkness for you, but you will not be alone on that day. The light of the world, Jesus Christ himself, will be standing there shining his salvation upon you even in the deepest darkness. And nothing, not even the Day of the Lord with all it’s lions, snakes and bears will be able to snatch you from the hands of Jesus. Amen.