“You, who desire the Day of the Holy One, what do you think it is? Well let me tell you, the Day of the Holy One is darkness and not light. It’s as if someone ran away from the sight of a lion to meet a bear and then ran into the house to be bitten by a snake when they leaned against the wall” (Amos 5:18-19).
I’ve mentioned here before that I grew up with what’s called dispensationalist eschatology—the “left behind” idea that Christ would come and take the faithful away from this world before things get too bad. I can remember being told once that those working to make the world a better place—those trying to lower pollution in the air and seas, those who sought peace instead of a sword—were actually working against Christ, against his will. For Jesus to return, the world must be at its worst. We should work to see that this world becomes as horrible a place it can in order to hasten Jesus’ coming. So that we can leave this world behind.
It’s hard for me not to think of this type of teaching when reading the verses above from Amos. He is not the only prophet to warn those who seem to live in longing for the end of the world, but he is the most…direct about our desire to leave this world behind.
The Day of the Holy One, he says isn’t something worth celebration. It’s not what’s going to save your skins but, worse, it’s going from the frying pan to the fire. Consider his simile: it’s like running from a lion just to come upon a momma bear protecting her cubs and, then, to turn and run into the house where, as you’re catching your breath and thinking you’re safe, you get bit by a copperhead.
It’s almost as if that Day isn’t an escape at all.
I live with the hope that Christ will, some day, make all things new. As I glimpse the first light of dawn out the window, I look forward to a day when death and entropy are destroyed and their effects undone. I long for the day I will again see the faces of those from whom I’ve been separated. But believing Jesus will make all things new isn’t the same as expecting Christ to clean up our mess. This, I think, is at the heart of what Amos is saying.
None of us, even all together can undo the poison of death’s sting. But the scars we’ve left upon our planet, the lives that end due to hunger and disease, the animals that disappear because of our neglect are not beyond us. Alone, we cannot heal all these things, but together we can alter the damage we’ve caused.
What if, in contrast to the way I was taught, we are supposed to work to better the world, to arrest its slide into hell in order to make way for the Holy One? Maybe Christ is waiting, expecting us to straighten out the ways we’ve made crooked, to smooth the mountains into level ground. Maybe it’s not about letting the world go to hell but, instead, tending it like a garden.
Maybe it’s about making a world we don’t want to leave behind.
Living Word, I’m guilty of losing hope, of thinking only you can heal our planet, undo our mistakes. I want to throw down my gloves and abandon this garden you’ve given us. Help me to tend my part of the world—smooth over the stones, level out the hills—believing that we can care for the home you made for us. And may you find it, when you come, a place tended in love.