Rev. Sean Daenzer, pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Great Bend, ND and Peace, Barney, ND, joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 5:1-3.
When a funeral dirge is sung, our ears perk up to...
Rev. Sean Daenzer, pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Great Bend, ND and Peace, Barney, ND, joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Amos 5:1-3.
When a funeral dirge is sung, our ears perk up to learn who has died. The surprise of Amos 5 is that death has come to God’s own people, Israel. Though physically alive, they are spiritually dead. They have not heeded the LORD’s call to repentance through increasingly severe plagues, and so they have met their God in death rather than life. Their failure to cry out to the LORD for mercy, having not even recognized their need for it, has led to their own fall, which they have brought upon themselves. Tragically, due to her own idolatry and injustice, the virgin Israel did not receive the wonderful gifts her husband, the LORD, desired to give. On her own land, the destruction of Israel would occur at the hands of Assyria in 722 BC. Only a tenth of the soldiers would remain, and these ten tribes of Israel would be lost to history. Yet the prophet sings this funeral dirge with the desire that the people hear and recognize that there is no hope in themselves. Only the LORD Himself can raise the dead from their graves. In this repentance, the LORD calls us to meet Him on His terms, so that we would not have death, but life. This happens in Christ crucified for us. Through faith in Him, we meet God and live.
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