Advent 12…You Can't Hide

My son delighted in the naughty when he was a teenager. Or we assume he did, because he was mightily naughty. His bedroom was in our basement, and at the foot of the stairs (right to family room, left to his room) we had hung a crucifix Jesus. There's no cross on this piece, just the Jesus. It was found in a dump in Japan and is a beautifully crafted piece of art…only the cross is gone. So it is mounted in a beautiful frame, and the foot of the stairs was its home.

So he asks/tells me one day, "Mom, move that Jesus. I'm tired of him looking at me all the time." And I,  in the most empathetic, motherly way possible, snort with laughter and reply, "And then what, you think if I take the inanimate picture down that God won't be able to see what you are doing and who you are?" The conversation ended…with a door slam if I recall correctly. And if that's not right, there were enough door slams to assume that's how it ended.

Amos has the same conversation, backed up by Psalm 18 and 147. "And where do you think you can go to escape God?"

Though they dig into Sheol, from there shall my had take them; though they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down...

We and our sin cannot escape God. We cannot hide our sin in our middle-class respectability, in our church membership, in gated communities that keep us "safe" from sinners, in our exclusion of those different from us, in our refusal to let go of our security for the security of others. God will find us and God's hand will draw us out.

Then what? I don' t know. I think it might not be pretty. But I know after the time of exile Amos warned about the people sang songs again:

When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.            Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy;                  then it was said among the nations, "The LORD has done great things for them."          The LORD has done great things for us, and we rejoiced. (Psalm 126)

A repeated theme, judgment and hope in two sides of the same coin. "Where can we go to escape God?"