Today's Scripture Reading (February 16, 2023): Amos 8
In his science fiction novel
334, Thomas Disch argues this about the end of the world.
The end of the world. Let me tell you about the end of the
world. It happened fifty years ago. Maybe a hundred. And since then it's been
lovely. I mean it. Nobody tries to bother you. You can relax. You know what?
I like the end of the world.
As much as I know some won't like
me for saying this, Disch is right. And it is part of the contemporary
Christian problem and our obsession with the end times. We interpret everything
written about the end as a future thing. And those who argue that some of what
end times enthusiasts consider to be still coming have already taken place are
marginalized and often ridiculed. And yet, there is scholarship that suggests
much of what has been predicted in the Bible has already occurred. The end
times have already happened. Many scholars remind us that the end times
properly began with the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. The end times have
continued in an unbroken chain of events over the 2000 years that have elapsed
since that birth in Bethlehem.
As far as the Bible is concerned,
we also must recognize that many predictions have an immediate, intermediate,
and end times element. Consider Isaiah's famous prophecy read every Christmas
that the virgin would be with child.
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a
sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a
son, and will call him Immanuel. He will be eating curds and
honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right,
for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and
choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste
(Isaiah 7:14-16).
When
the full context of the passage is considered, it appears to be less about the
birth of the Messiah and more about Isaiah's warning to Israel. They were
afraid, and Isaiah is trying to encourage them that in the time that it takes a
young woman, the literal translation of the word we have as a virgin, to give
birth to a child and for that child to grow to know right from wrong, God will
take care of the cause of the fear of the people. That is Isaiah's intention
for the prophecy, but it is also about the birth of Jesus. Both are correct
readings of the prophecy. Part of our problem is that often we don't know which
way a prophecy might be directed until after it happens.
God
declares to Amos, "In that day," a common expression meaning the end
times, that the sun will go down at noon and the land will become dark. If we
take the prophecy literally, this will take place at the end of all things. For
the sun to go down at noon, we know the real catastrophe that would have to
happen for that event to take place. It would likely only occur as the earth
began to experience its final death throes. But it might not mean that. God
could be talking about a total eclipse of the sun, and experts argue that there
were two such eclipses during the prophet's life.
Of
course, there is also a Jesus connection with Amos's words. Matthew reports
that during the crucifixion of Jesus, "From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came
over all the land" (Matthew 27:45). As a result, we have three different possibilities
for this prophecy of Amos. And all of them are a possible fulfillment of what
God wanted Amos to know.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading:
Amos 9
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