Pastor Tom Johnson, November 8, 2020
The Old Testament people of God had a day that they were longing for—a day of fulfillment, a day of reckoning, and a day of completion. This day is a day Amos calls “the Day of the Lord.” The day they were longing for was a day of preservation and salvation for them and them alone. It was a day of political victory—a day when all enemies are annihilated by Messiah and enjoy peace.
God says to them, “Why? Why would you desire such a day? Why do you desire a Day of the Lord of that sort? It is a darkness, and not a light. It is gloom with no brightness in it.” As the people of God, they should have longed for and worked for the day when they would fulfill Abraham’s promise “that all nations—all the families of the earth shall be blessed through them” (Gen 12). Instead, they wanted an end to the troubles the surrounding nations caused. They wanted mere political liberation. They wanted Messiah to come with his sword and cast fire, smoke, and judgment on their oppressors. But this is not who Messiah is. Jesus, true Messiah, commands us to pray for our enemies, not hope for their demise. Jesus calls us to love our enemies, not celebrate their impending doom. The truth is that we all have common enemies—sin, evil, and death. Jesus comes to bring salvation and justice for all people.
If our faith is merely about whom we are against and not whom we are for, God says he hates our outward religion. “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.” Why? Because we are only concerned about our own self-preservation. We only want an end of our troubles. We only long for an escape from this broken world. It is self-centered and selfish. The golden rule—the royal law is to love our neighbors as ourselves. As Jesus put it, we are to love others as he has loved us.
You’ll remember that Jesus said in his sermon on the mount that if you are offering your gift at the altar and remember that your sister or brother in the Lord has something against you. Leave your gift there and first be reconciled to that person. Then come back and offer your gift (Matt 5:23,24). As Scripture says in 1 John (4:20): “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.” It’s a disturbing thought: God does not want us to pretend that everything is great with our relationship with him if our relationships with one another are broken. We may be only fooling ourselves. God sees through our phoniness. If our prayers and our worship and our offerings are about self-preservation and self-righteousness, God is not impressed.
The great commandment is for us to love God with our whole being—to do so with authenticity. Because the other command, that cannot be separated from that one, is to love our neighbor. And so God says, “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream!” God wants to cultivate justice in the world. He wants justice and righteousness flow out of his people and church now. The Reformer Martin Luther said of the command You shall not murder, “We should fear and love God so that we do not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body, but help and support him in every physical need.” Jesus spent his life bringing healing, good, and hope to the world in his earthly ministry. So we should care about the hungry, poor, downtrodden, victimized, and those treated unfairly. We cannot do it all. There will not be full justice until he returns. But God does call for us to collectively do our part as his people.
We need to guard ourselves from two extremes. One extreme is what we see in our text: to be so preoccupied with ourselves and spiritual lives that we despise or neglect the plight of those around us. The other extreme is to be so concerned about social justice that we neglect true worship and nurture in the Word of God. God’s prayer—his desire—is for us to be a part of the outpouring of his goodness. He wants us to channel the flood of his grace and mercy he pours out to the world. He wants to saturate the whole earth with his forgiveness, life, and salvation. Peter says in his epistle that “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet 3:9). We don’t long for judgment. We long for forgiveness, life, and salvation for the whole world. “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream!”
God wants us to experience the flood of baptismal waters that wash away the filth and the guilt of our sins. But he also wants those baptismal waters to break out into the world beyond our walls. As the prophet Habakkuk writes (2:14): “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” He wants his love, grace, and mercy to have a global impact. “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream!”
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