Malachi 2:17-36
Introduction: During this season of Lent we are focusing on this premise: there is no true justice without Jesus, and there is no true Jesus without justice. Justice has become a controversial word in our culture, triggering all kinds of reactions. We have already seen that justice is also a central theme of the Bible – learning who God is, what God does, and what God commands us to do. Amos 5 shows us the connection between justice & lament and how God actually feels about injustice.
1. When God Laments
Scholars tell us that verses 1-3 are patterned after a funeral song or lament. God is lamenting where his people are in their present “fallen” state, that they cannot rise up, and where they are headed if they do not radically repent and respond to what God is saying through Amos.
This funeral lament also signified something else: that their relationship with God was not just in need of some adjustment or correction, but that it had actually died! Given the context of the book of Amos, this would have been an absolute shock to the people to whom it was addressed. During the time of King Jeroboam II, Israel was experiencing a time of economic prosperity and success, in which people thought that God was blessing them. However, Amos tells the people, “Prepare to meet your God”. And when He comes, it as a God who is singing a lament.
But why is God singing this song of lament? God’s desire is for us to seek Him! The obvious implication is: “You think you are seeking me, but you are not. If you were really seeking me, you would live; but you are not and that is why I sing a funeral lament.” That the people are not seeking God is a clear sign that their relationship with God is dead.
Verses 10-12 show us how this looked in Amos’ time. We see that the powerful and privileged people (who say they know Him and believe they are blessed by Him) mistreat the poor and weak members of their society by “tramp[ling] on [them].” This was borne out in their judicial system, with oppressive taxes and usury (resulting in induced slavery or the relinquishing of land to wealthy landowners). The Old Testament observation of the year of Jubilee (cancelling debts, returning ancestral land, giving to the poor resources to re-start for free) was also being completely ignored.
When does God lament? God laments when people “who claim to know him” (as v14 says) live in comfort while people are trampled/oppressed/deprived of justice. And when that happens, it is time to sing a funeral song.
2. When We Should Lament
So when should WE lament? We should lament for the same reasons that God laments – when we see justice turned to wormwood [bitterness] and righteousness cast to the ground (5:7). We should especially lament when we have believed that we can seek the Lord and not love good, seek to establish justice or care for the poor in our midst; when we see a “faith without works is dead” kind of faith in us.
Justice is incomplete without the following three things:
Orthodoxy – a sound theology of justice; not from culture but Scripture
Orthopraxis – to do good, to perform acts of mercy and justice
Orthopathos – (which we see in Amos) to experience the right affections and emotions, a broken heart
The experience of lament is something that many modern-day Christians have little to no knowledge of, but about which we must learn! Fully 1/3 of the Psalms are forms of lament, and an entire book of the Bible is called Lamentations. People who are hurting and suffering need other people who can lament with them. One writer reminds us that the Bible calls us to weep with those who weep; it doesn’t tell us to judge whether they should be weeping. (H. B. Charles Jr.)
On a societal level, the first reaction from Christians toward people experiencing pain, poverty, racism has often been a desire to judge whether or not they should be weeping! Rather than this form of evaluation or judgment, lamenting requires listening to those who are bitter or feel they have been cast to the ground. Consider the words Amos used to describe people like this: “trampled, oppressed, deprived, obstructed”. When Christians encounter people who are experiencing these things, we are called to lament.
3. Where Lament Will Lead Us
Lament will lead us to Jesus Christ. This sermon is from Palm Sunday – the start of Holy Week. In Luke 19, we see the palms, the praises, the hosannas! But we often miss the lament of Palm Sunday in vv. 41-42. Why is Jesus weeping? He knew that for most of those gathered on the road, it was not real. They acted like they were seeking God, but they were spiritually dead like the people in Amos’ day. Amos the prophet told the people to prepare to meet their God. But Amos lamented over their rejection of God and the coming judgment. In Luke 19, Jesus (God in the flesh) comes into Jerusalem but laments their rejection of him.
In Jesus, God had come to meet us – not to bring judgment on us for all our injustice but to take the just judgment of God in our place. Jesus lamented and cried over the unwillingness of people to come to him for forgiveness and real spiritual life. If the warnings of Jesus about our own sins of injustice don’t move us to seek Him in repentance, may we let the tears of Jesus move us to run to him in our own tearful repentance.
Having heard the warning of God in Isaiah, the delight of God in Jeremiah, the requirement of God in Micah, the confrontation of God in Malachi to do justice and show mercy to the poor; now let the tears of God in Amos – fulfilled in Jesus Christ – lead us to repentance and change. Though we deserve judgment, death and a funeral, we receive by faith in Jesus forgiveness, a song of resurrection and new life. Jesus can take those who truly repent and lament and turn them into a person whose life flows with the streams of justice.
REFLECT OR DISCUSS
What about this sermon most impacted you or left you with questions about the justice of God?
What are the signs of a “dead faith” according to this chapter in Amos 5? What is the role of works of justice in a life of genuine faith? How does this challenge/encourage you personally?
Look above at the 3 aspects of biblical justice. Why is orthopathos so important? What might it look like for us to lament injustice?
H. B. Charles Jr. said, “The Bible calls us to weep with those who weep; it doesn’t tell us to judge whether they should be weeping.” Why do we judge whether others should be weeping instead of weeping with others? Has this been true of you?
How can lament people a part of reconciliation – even in our divided and tense time? Consider the quote below.
As it turns out, our all-wise and all-loving God has given us in the Bible just such a technology, a way of talking with a built-in procedure and potential to help us express our feelings, empathize with others, turn to God in faith, and, by the Father’s grace, inch toward a deeper experience of reconciliation. That way, that technology, that language is lament. Oh, that we would use this universal translator to commune with each other across our ethnic differences! (Thabiti Anyabwile, Weep with Me)How might the lament of Jesus change us if our hearts our indifferent to injustice or we are inactive in doing anything for those affected by injustice?