We have the Good News (4th Day 57)

I hate, I despise your religious feasts;
I cannot stand your assemblies.

Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.

Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps. (Amos 5:21-23)

There was a time in Israel’s history when she was very prosperous due to alliances she made with foreign countries that worshiped false gods. And, as a matter of course, Israel’s priests practiced religion by performing all the appropriate rituals, but in their hearts, they were evil. They oppressed the poor and cheated the helpless. As a result, God sent Amos to prophesy. The verses above are the words of the Lord. Simply going through the motions didn’t cut it.

I love the Old Testament, as I do the New Testament, because they are the Word of God. But as I read the Old Testament, I sometimes feel it is the bitter before the sweet. Jesus and the Good News is the sweet, and the build up to the New Covenant is the bitter.

Don’t get me wrong, without the Old Testament, it would be hard to understand and appreciate the grace God made tangible through Jesus. Jesus is the New Covenant, the promise of redemption, the guarantee of salvation. But those words are meaningless without comparing them in context with the Old Testament.

I guess the really hard thing about the Old Testament is that it so accurately reflects our own images as if in a mirror. The good thing is that we have the Good News, the promise of forgiveness, redemption and salvation through our faith in Jesus, God incarnate.

I once heard a pastor tell what he thought it would be like on Judgment Day. He said that Jesus would speak on our behalf to the Father saying “he or she wasn’t really that bad a person and should be let into heaven.” I was disappointed with that comment because that is not the message of the Good News. Instead, I think that Jesus would tell that Father that “this one believed in me and therefore, by our promise, this one’s sins are forgiven.” That’s the Good News.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that who ever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

Praise God Almighty.

De Colores,
BillWV88