“’The time will come,’ says the Lord, ‘when the grain and grapes will grow faster than they can be harvested. Then the terraced vineyards on the hills of Israel will drip with sweet wine.’”
- Amos 9:13
What is so amazing about the prophetic books to me is their ability to make us imagine. They make us imagine what could be, what is to come but is not yet here. They all have a particular message of hope, conveyed as 100% truth, and wrapped up in some beautiful imagery. They use the unlikely imagery, at unlikely times, to preach about an unlikely event all while Israel and Judah are usually messing everything up.
Amos is no exception, but he is an exceptional prophet. What made him so exceptional as a prophet is that he was not a prophet by vocation, he was not trained in some school, nor taught the religious law like some others would have. Instead, Amos is your average shepherd. It would be the equivalent of a floor level factory worker with only a high school diploma becoming a nationally renown evangelist. For just a couple chapters before our chosen verse today Amos says:
“I’m not one of your professional prophets. I certainly never trained to be one. I’m just a shepherd, and I take care of fig trees. But the Lord called me away from my flock and told me, ‘Go and prophesy to my people in Israel.’”
Amos 7:14-15
So, we get this feel that Amos is nothing all that special. His attire would have been subpar as a prophet, his staff would have been crooked, and his speech would have been plain. And yet, that is the voice that God called to speak against Israel’s sins and later proclaim a future hope of a perfect harvest.
Perfect Harvest:
Why do I keep calling it the perfect harvest? The produce was so bountiful that they could not even harvest it all and thus the hillsides were then dripping with wine. By some that kind of harvest could be considered a failure, get all the workers out there and harvest it all. Yet, that is because we usually are operating with a different idea of perfect.
Most of the time we view perfect as something that is static but needs to be achieved. Once we meet perfect than you cannot go further, nor is there really a possibility of messing up. But that view of perfect is not correct with we take a look at scripture. The Biblical view of perfect is different in that rather than something to achieve, it is something to be progressing in. Perfect is a matter of the journey, not the destination. Thus, as the harvest is ongoing, and out of the control of the Israeli farmers, the harvest is perfect. They will not have to starve or go thirsty from a poor year of farming, but instead God has blessed them and provided for them to a level that is absolutely perfect. The amazing thing is that this is the prophecy coming from someone who would have roamed those hills often. He would have been able to speak of it with his own personal hope and thanks.
Imaginative Harvest:
A lot of the beauty of this verse is that it is not just describing the past instance where Israel returned to the land and they were blessed by God’s providence. But it reveals the kinds of harvest God has before all of us who will live and dwell with Him in the New Earth. God will provide an exceptional harvest that you could taste in the air.
There is a lot of value in imagining what that future world is going to be like, for in imagining it you are being a theologian. What you imagine begins to really reveal what you believe about God and the kind of dream God is trying to actualize among us and inviting us to. Some picture a city in the clouds with streets of gold connecting the clouds. Other’s may picture a great city that does not look futuristic, but instead is like a revitalized Jerusalem.
Other’s see green pastures, beaches, mountains, and some other’s just nothing, but they describe it in sounds. Like the worship of various African dialects harmonizing with the energy of Latin American’s, all the while others joining is the singing. It may seem like chaos, but really is a global choir of united worship of God. Other’s it’s smells, taste, and experiences.
One can go on and one which how each individual pictures life in heaven. Whatever heaven is like, is will be an expression of who God is 24/7 for eternity. God’s providence will never cease or be upheld. For the harvest is perfect. God’s love will always be mutually experienced, given, received, and shared because of this new way of life presented here would lead to no scarcity of resources, no need to have power, and no need to be superior to another man or woman. Instead, there is a community of God’s chosen people, perfectly free to worship God, fellowship with one another, and enjoy true unity.
Here’s the trick, though that may be the future community that we cannot really live like yet, that is the very community we are called to live like right now. The church, and every Christian, should be trying to live in such a way that it is a gift of God to the world, providing for needs without ceasing, fellowshipping with one another on the shared unity of worshipping God that cannot be taken away, and finding ways to reconcile to one another to be like the not yet world now.
Final Blessing:
Amos reveals to us the ability of an ordinary person to have an extraordinary role in proclaiming God’s truth and revealing the imagination of the perfect harvest. That being a harvest of God’s great providence for God’s chosen people. It is a scene of paradise in which God’s plans have been completed and we can rest in a reconciled community with the purpose to worship. But for today, we try to live out that reconciled community today whether others are or are not Christian.
Now may the Lord of Life and Redemption be with you in every step, every breathe, and every heartbeat of your day.
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