August 26th: Amos 7 & John 20

Alastair Roberts

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August 26th: Amos 7 & John 20

August 25, 2021

Alastair Roberts

Amos' first three visions. The resurrection of Jesus.

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Transcript

Amos chapter 7. This is what the Lord God showed me. Behold, he was forming locusts when the latter growth was just beginning to sprout. And behold, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings.

When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said, O Lord God, please forgive. How can Jacob stand? He is so small. The Lord relented concerning this.

It shall not be, said the Lord. This is what the Lord God showed me. Behold, the Lord God was calling for a judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land.

Then I said, O Lord God, please cease. How can Jacob stand? He is so small. The Lord relented concerning this.

This also shall not be, said the Lord God. This is what he showed me. Behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand.

And the Lord said to me, Amos, what do you see? And I said, a plumb line. Then the Lord said, behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. I will never again pass by them.

The high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words.

For thus Amos has said, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land. And Amaziah said to Amos, O seer, go flee away to the land of Judah, and eat bread there, and prophesy there, but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom. Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, nor a prophet's son, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs.

But the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, Go prophesy to my people Israel. Now therefore hear the word of the Lord. You say, Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not preach against the house of Isaac.

Therefore thus says the Lord, Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided up with a measuring line. You yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land. The concluding chapters of Amos contain a series of visions, beginning here in chapter 7. This chapter gives the first three of the five visions, and the narrative of a confrontation that Amos had with Amaziah, a priest at Bethel.

The first four visions all open with Amos' description of something that the Lord showed him. The first two visions, in verses 1-3 and 4-6, are a pair, and the third vision can be paired with the fourth in the chapter that follows. Beyond the features that they share in common with the other visions, the first two visions both involve the Lord showing Amos a judgment that he is about to bring upon the land.

Amos then pleads with the Lord that he relent from the judgment, both times using similar words, pleading on account of the fact that Jacob is so small, and then the Lord relenting. In Amos 3-7 we read that the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets. We have an example of this principle in Genesis 18-19 when the Lord declares to Abraham his plan to destroy Sodom.

The Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have chosen him that he may command his children and his household after him, to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him. After this the Lord declares to Abraham his purpose concerning Sodom. Abraham then proceeds to intercede for Sodom, getting to the point where the Lord says that if there were but ten righteous in the city, he would spare the city on their account.

Here we see that the prophet is not just a messenger, but that the Lord involves the prophet in deliberations concerning what he will do to his people and others. Like Abraham in Genesis 18, Amos does not simply ascend to the Lord's purpose at this point. Rather, he intercedes for the nation, praying that the Lord might not actually bring his punishment upon them.

A judgment of locusts had already been mentioned in chapter 4-9. I struck you with blight and milled you, your many gardens and your vineyards, your fig trees and your olive trees the locusts devoured. Yet you did not return to me, declares the Lord.

Here the vision of the locust plague is one that will strike the latter growth, the crops that would be sown after the rains in March and April. This is after the king's mowings, presumably a tax that was taken from the first produce of the people's lands. As the king took some of this earlier growth, the people would especially depend upon what came next for their own survival.

And with the arrival of the locusts and the dry summer months to follow, they would be unlikely to have enough to get them through the winter. It would be a time of famine. After seeing this vision of the judgment that might come, Amos pleads for the people and the Lord relents.

Amos pleads for forgiveness and also throws himself and the people upon the mercy of the Lord. The people are too small, too weak to survive such a general disaster. The second vision of Amos is a fire that is sent upon the land and upon the great deep.

Perhaps the great deep here are the waters beneath the earth that water the land. This fire and its associated drought would dry up and wither the land and prevent it from being fruitful, much as the locusts, which again would be reminiscent of the eighth plague upon the Egyptians, would consume all of its fruitfulness. Once again, after Amos has appealed to the Lord for his mercy, the Lord relents.

In response to the second vision, Amos does not plead for forgiveness as he does in the case of the first. Perhaps Israel is too far gone for that. Daniel Carroll observes commonalities in the second pair of visions.

In chapter 7 verses 7 to 9 and chapter 8 verses 1 to 3, the Lord asks Amos, what do you see? And then the Lord plays upon words relating to what Amos sees. The Lord explains the images that Amos sees and states, I will not pass by him again, and then declares the aftermath of the judgment that is coming upon the people. While in the first pair of visions, the intercession of Amos is effectual in preventing the disaster, in the three visions that follow, the disaster cannot be averted.

While Amos interceded in the first two cases, he does not in the third and fourth. Perhaps the more focused and less comprehensively devastating character of these judgments means that he's more ready to submit to them. The third vision, although it is the most familiar of all of them, is very difficult to understand.

What is commonly understood to be the plumb line and is translated as such in most English Bibles cannot actually be understood this way. Daniel Landsberger has made a definitive argument against it. He argues that the word must mean tin rather than lead.

Of course, tin would not be suitable as a plumb line, so it must refer to something else. Besides the fact that the word itself cannot be translated as lead or plumb line, the fact that the Lord would place a plumb line in the midst of the people seems strange. The people have already been condemned to judgment, so it seems strange that the Lord would be assessing them at this point and measuring them.

Carroll suggests that the tin refers to the weakness of the walls and the fortifications of Israel. From a distance they might look to be as strong as iron, but when you get close you see that they are made only of tin and could easily be broken through. Perhaps the Lord having tin in his hand is a sign that he has taken some from the wall to demonstrate the weakness of it.

Marvin Sweeney, who also argues that it cannot mean lead, interprets it as plaster instead, not thinking that there is a convincing argument in favour of tin. He argues that the point of the word here is not to be seen in the actual substance, whether it is plaster or tin or lead, but rather it is about the wordplay that is taking place. The word employed in the vision plays upon the word for lament, sighing or mourning.

That such a wordplay is taking place is supported in part by the wordplay that is in chapter 8 verses 1 to 3. Another example of such wordplay in a similar sort of vision can be seen at the beginning of the book of Jeremiah, chapter 1 verse 11 and 12. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Jeremiah, what do you see? And I said, I see an almond branch. Then the Lord said to me, you have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it.

If we were to focus upon the almond branch itself, trying to find significance in that, we might miss the point, which is the wordplay. The almond branch is a branch of the watcher tree, and so the Lord is watching over his word. Here the Lord placing tin or plaster in the midst of his people is the Lord placing mourning and lament in the middle of his people.

This would make sense when we read the judgment in the sentence that follows. The Lord is going to leave the people desolate. He's not going to pass by them again.

The high places and sanctuaries will be laid waste, and the house of Jeroboam will be cut off by the sword. In the book of Jeremiah, we read of several confrontations that Jeremiah had with false prophets and leaders of his time. In this chapter, Amos has such a confrontation with Amaziah, the priest of Bethel.

It seems that Amos had been delivering his message in Bethel, presumably to be heard by many people who came there to worship. Perhaps Amaziah saw Amos' message receiving traction among the people. Amos was a man who was gaining standing, people were paying attention to him, and his message was starting to cause waves, and so he sent the king, Jeroboam II, telling him that Amos was conspiring against him, causing trouble in the midst of the people, and that the land could not long sustain his troublemaking.

He misreports Amos' message, saying that Amos said that Jeroboam should die by the sword. Amos had not said that, he had said that the Lord would rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. That does not mean that Jeroboam himself would die, but Jeroboam's house would be violently cut off in his son Zechariah.

Amaziah commands Amos to return to Judah at once, to his land of Tekoa, and not to come back. He is not welcome at Bethel anymore. Speaking of Bethel as the king's sanctuary, and the temple of the kingdom, it is notable that he makes no reference to the Lord.

It is as if the sanctuary at Bethel exists primarily to prop up and support the nation, rather than to serve as a site of faithful worship of the Lord. We might think back here to an earlier confrontation between a man of God and the king himself at this site of Bethel, in 1 Kings chapter 13, where another man of God from Judah had confronted Jeroboam's predecessor and namesake, Jeroboam I, the son of Nebat. In responding to Amaziah, Amos stresses that he was no prophet, he did not come from a prophetic school.

Being a prophet was not his primary vocation, he was a herdsman, an addresser of sycamore figs, perhaps primarily as fodder for animals. The Lord called him from his primary vocation, and presumably he is going to return to that when the mission is over. As Amos's mission is dated relative to a single year, being a couple of years before the year of earthquake, it is quite possible that all of these visions and prophecies occurred within a very short span of time.

When this whirlwind of prophecies is over, Amos expects to return to regular civilian life. Amos then declares a great judgment upon Amaziah by the word of the Lord. Amaziah had tried to expel Amos and with him the word of the Lord from the place of Bethel.

He had forbidden him to prophesy on Israel. As he has tried to expel the word of the Lord from the land, he is going to be expelled from the land by that word. His wife will be a prostitute in the city.

Whether this woman of high standing is going to be raped by an invading army, or whether she's going to have to sell her body to survive is not entirely clear. Either way, it's a terrible fate. His sons and daughters are going to die by the sword, and his whole household is going to be cut off and humiliated.

His land is also going to be divided up with a measuring line. We might see in Amaziah a picture of what's going to happen to the entire nation. A question to consider, why do you think that the Lord declares judgments to Amos that he is going to relent from performing? John chapter 20.

Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him. So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb.

Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb.

He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed. For as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.

Then the disciples went back to their homes. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept, she stooped to look into the tomb, and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? She said to them, They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.

Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus said to her, Mary.

She turned and said to him in Aramaic, Rabboni, which means teacher. Jesus said to her, Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God.

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord, and that he had said these things to her. On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, Peace be with you. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld. Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the twin, was not with them when Jesus came.

So the other disciples told him, We have seen the Lord. But he said to them, Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the and place my hand into his side, I will never believe. Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them.

Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here and see my hands, and put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.

Thomas answered him, My Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed. Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book.

But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. John chapter 20 is clearly one of the most powerful and moving stories within the whole of the Bible. Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb early in the morning.

She sees that the stone has been rolled away and she runs and tells Simon Peter and the other disciple, the disciple Jesus loved. Now, the disciple Jesus loved is later identified with the author of the gospel. And throughout the Bible, the disciple Jesus loved are connected to each other in ways that suggest some sort of contrast, comparison being drawn between the two.

At the meal in chapter 13, the beloved disciple is reclining at Jesus' side in the meal and Peter has to ask him to ask Jesus a question. The beloved disciple has a closeness to Jesus that is even greater than Peter's. In chapter 18, there's another disciple who accompanies Peter to the house of Annas, the high priest, and that disciple goes all the way in, whereas Peter remains outside at the door.

At the cross, the beloved disciple is there at the foot of the cross and is given the care of Jesus' mother. In the next chapter, it's the beloved disciple who's the first to notice that it is the Lord on the beach. And then at the very concluding episode of the gospel, Peter looks around, sees the disciple that Jesus loves, and asks, Lord, what about this man? To which Jesus responds, If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me.

And so in this chapter, right where we would expect this clear focus upon the story of the resurrection, we find this strange incident of a running race. Why on earth is the gospel recording this? And it seems to me that part of the purpose is to relate and to compare and contrast the witness of the beloved disciple and the witness of Peter and the leadership of Peter. Peter is the one who eventually goes in to the tomb first.

He leads the way in mission just in the same way as he will lead going out of the boat in the chapter that follows. But the disciple whom Jesus loves is the first to see. If Peter has a priority in mission, the disciple whom Jesus loves has a priority in vision and also in proximity to Christ.

The point, despite the fact that there is a running race here, is not to pit the two against each other, but to show that they have different callings and they have priorities in those different callings. When they come to the tomb, the disciple whom Jesus loved looks inside and sees the linen cloths lying there. He doesn't go in, but then Simon Peter gets to the tomb, goes into the tomb, sees the linen cloths lying there and the face cloth folded up in a place by itself.

Evidence that this is not something that's happened in a hurry, a hasty rush to remove a body, but that something very different has happened here. When the other disciple, the disciple Jesus loved, comes inside the tomb, he looks inside, sees around and believes, even though they do not fully understand the meaning of the resurrection at that point. The disciples go back to their homes, but Mary stays outside the tomb and weeps.

Looking inside the tomb, she sees two angels in white, seated where the body of Christ had lain, one at the head and one at the foot. Now what's going on there? I think we should notice that this is some sort of allusion to the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant, where you have an angel on one side and an angel on the other, the head and the foot of that particular piece of furniture. Jesus has gone into the Holy of Holies, the tomb is that Holy of Holies and he's opened up the Holy of Holies and now living water flows out into the world.

This is the spring in the centre of the garden from which the spices and the water will flow and give life to the world. Mary coming to this is wondering where her Lord is. The angels ask her why she's weeping and she says to them, they've taken away my Lord, I do not know where they have laid him.

Many people have seen in the encounter between Mary and Jesus in the garden a reference back to Eden and I think there is something of that here but I think there's something more. I think the reference that I hear primarily is the reference to Song of Songs, the woman who opens to her beloved but her beloved is not there. I opened to my beloved but my beloved had turned and gone.

My soul failed me when he spoke. I sought out but found him not. I called him but he gave no answer.

I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved that you tell him that I am sick with love. Where has your beloved gone, O most beautiful among women? Where has your beloved turned that we may seek him with you? My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to graze in the gardens and to gather lilies. I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine.

He grazes among the lilies. Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus is the lover. He's the one who comes as the bridegroom.

He's announced by the friend of the bridegroom. He begins his ministry at a wedding feast. He speaks to a woman at a well, the place where the patriarchs met their wives.

He has nard poured upon his feet in the same way as Song of Solomon, chapter 1, verse 12, speaks about the nard filling the room with its fragrance while the king was at his couch. He's laid to rest in a kingly scented chamber in the garden where it will be opened up so that the spices and the living water can fill the earth and bring life. And so now the woman comes to seek for her beloved, the one that she has seemingly lost, and she goes to the place where she last saw him.

And he's not there and she's desperate. She's looking for her lord and the one that she loves and he's not to be found. And then in this powerful moment, Jesus speaks to her.

Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? And she thinks he's the gardener, but yet he's not the gardener. He's the one that she loves and he declares himself by speaking her name. My sheep hear my voice and I call them by name.

He calls Mary by her name and her name may make us think of some other events in the story of scripture. Miriam, who's there to witness the deliverance of Moses and then later on at the deliverance of the Red Sea. There is another sort of deliverance here and just as there was a Mary at his first deliverance of his birth, delivered from the womb, now there's another Mary to witness his delivery from the tomb.

Our focus can so often be upon the theme of faith when we're reading the Gospels, but yet John has a lot to say about love. John is the disciple that Jesus loved and we see in characters like Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, Mary the mother of Jesus, we see the love of the church for Christ. Now the disciples go their own ways when it seems that the mission has failed.

They scatter, but in the case of Mary and the other women, you see something about the love that binds them to Christ. They're attached not just to Christ in his seeming mission, but to Christ in his person. Mary of Bethany anoints his feet.

The other women are present at the cross. Mary Magdalene seeks him at the tomb and then clings on to him. Now in this I think we're seeing something of the power of her love and that even when faith seems to have failed, love can hang on.

Even on Holy Saturday and the darkness of that first Easter morning, Mary Magdalene's love burns fiercely in that darkness, refusing to grant the darkness its final victory. And there I think we're seeing something about a different aspect of our relationship to Christ, something that goes beyond just faith. There's something about the way that we should cling to Christ, that we should have a personal attachment to him which is exemplified particularly by the women within the gospel.

But yet Jesus has to go to his father, so she cannot cling on to him forever. He has to leave at some point, but she's sent to tell his disciples all the things that she has seen. And that very evening Jesus appears to his disciples when they're locked in this room for fear of the Jews and he shows them the tokens of his crucifixion, his hands and his side, and their response is one of joy.

He tells them twice, peace be with you, and he gives them a commission, as the father has sent me even so I am sending you. We can maybe think of the way that the son is in the side of the father and the beloved disciple is in the side of Christ. There is a symmetry between the church's relationship to Christ and Christ's relationship to the father, and likewise between the missions that they are given.

Christ is sent by the father, the church is sent by Christ, we continue that mission. And the role of the Holy Spirit is important here. Christ gives his spirit.

He handed over the spirit on the cross, he will deliver his spirit to the church at Pentecost, but here he gives his spirit to his disciples. This is part of the Great Commission as it's presented by John. Jesus appears on a second occasion, eight days later, and this time Thomas is with them.

Thomas has doubted the appearance of Christ on the first occasion. We often focus upon Thomas's doubts, but his confession is arguably much more notable. Of all of the disciples, it is Thomas who makes the great Christological confession of the gospel.

He declares, my Lord and my God. It's in this statement that we finally see the disciples arriving at the full Christology of the gospel's prologue. It's in the confession of doubting Thomas that we arrive at the definitive form of faith to which the evangelist is summoning us as his readers.

And this point is underlined in the summary verses that follow. The purpose of the entire gospel is to enable us to come to this point. In Jesus' response to Thomas, it's as if the fourth wall is broken and he turns to address us directly.

Blessed are we who have not seen and yet have believed. A question to consider. Throughout his gospel, John presents a number of different examples of faithful responses to Christ.

Are people receiving Christ in a good way? And we've seen a few of these within this chapter alone. Mary and her love. Thomas and his faith in response to the sight of Christ.

Peter and his obedience and mission. The disciple Jesus loved and his loving witness. What are some of the other examples that we're given to learn from within the gospel? Their positive, their negative features.

Is there a particular character that you most identify with? What do you learn from their example?