Okay, now I'm seriously thinking of ditching the RCL daily texts and moving on to something a little more cheery. Sure, God is powerful, and sure, it is not my perogative to determine which characteristics of God I want to fashion into my own little demi-god, but these texts do not communicate the love God has shown to Israel. If we do not keep always in our minds God's previous actions with God's people, I think we get lost in these texts that promise destruction, wrath, and vengeance.
I say this also being aware that one of the themes for Advent this year is righteousness (with purity and repentance following closely behind, if I am looking ahead correctly). As Luther has suggested, the law makes us hungry for the Gospel, but how hungry must we be? Destruction day after day, I think, can drive a person not to the cross, but, if he does not remember "the rest of the story," can drive a person to forget the love God has for him.
Amos wrote of the exile... his words were not so much a threat, as a description of what was happening in lives of Israel. Revelation was most likely written during a period of Roman persecution of Christians, a time in which most people thought the world would end. It seems each generation believes their generation will be the last and, indeed, each generation sees their share of beginnings and ends. And we look to God, not as a fortune teller or Santa in the Sky, but as the rock of our salvation, "Let all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. Let those who love your salvation say evermore, 'God is great!' But I am poor and needy; hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer: O LORD, do not delay!" These words ring true even as we read Amos and Revelation. Let us not forget that, despite the wrath and destruction that we read, see, and hear, we take refuge in God's promises offered freely in Christ.
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