Amos 4:12: “Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: [and] because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.”
I suppose like most people I read this passage about God telling Israel that he will rain destruction upon them like He did with their enemies and when I get to the words prepare to meet thy God I automatically assume it is a warning. It is just a part of our English language so often portrayed in Hollywood films as the villain is ready to reign his final blow on our hero he says: “Prepare to meet you maker.”
Our church just had a special weekend seminar on prayer. If I learned anything from this is that we need to take prayer seriously. We need to prepare for prayer. Somehow we lost that specialness of prayer and the fact that our church wanted to kick off the new year with a season of prayer only confirms to me that we have a pastor who really hears from God.
I was reading in the Talmud in Sabbath 10a this morning and I ran across an interesting take on those words in Amos 4:12. They did not say prepare to meet your God as an ominous threat that they were to get ready to meet their ultimate fate, but rather that it means just as it says, you must prepare yourself before you meet God. This explains why the orthodox Jews wear distinctive clothing when they pray. The type of clothing is usually cultural but nonetheless there is special clothing to be worn when you call upon God. In fact the Septuagint renders this as prepare to call upon your God. Just as you would dress up to meet an important person like a perspective employer in a job interview. You are going to make sure you are well groomed and wear your finest clothes as that interviewer will potentially play a very important role in your life. By wearing you finest clothes you are conveying to the interviewer that he and that interview are very important to you.
So why not wear your finest when you approach God. People used to dress up for Sundays, men in suits and ties and women in their finest to go to church for this very reason. Of course that was not the reason on everyone’s mind, they dressed up because their culture told them that this is what they were supposed to do.
I am not advocating that we all go back to suits and ties on Sunday. I hate wearing a tie. I never understood why we had to wear a rag around our necks anyways, if maybe to have something handy to blow your nose and why wear a jacket for any reason other than to keep warm. It’s cultural and thank God our culture does change. Still, I believe there is something to this idea of preparation for prayer. The Talmud, the Targums and other Jewish works clearly teach that one prepares themselves for prayer and they use Amos 4:12 as a proof text. We should prepare to meet or call upon God. Orthodox Jews will wear their kipah or distinctive clothes all the time to remind themselves that they are also prepared for prayer.
This word prepare in Hebrew is kun which means to prepare but to be prepared in the sense of doing battle. The word comes from an ancient Semitic root for attack, slaughter, or be smitten. It was used in battle to exhort the armies to stand firm, establish themselves and be ready to do battle. In other words kun which we render as prepare means to prepare yourself for something very serious. We are not to take prayer and calling upon God lightly. The whole point of this verse is that we are not to pray and call upon God lightly. This is a serious matter when we come to the throne of God.
We have lost that somehow in our worship. We approach God as a best bud, a pal, how you doin’ old boy. But what happens when a husband and wife want to be together and celebrate their relationship? They will plan a special evening, vacation or a time together, they will make preparations. They don’t come back from the gym stinking to high heaven and go off to McDonalds. They spend considerable time in preparation. They are properly bathed, they pick out their best wardrobe, they make reservations at the fanciest restaurant, and the husband may even have the car detailed. They do all this because they want their time together to be something special, something they will always remember because their relationship is the most important relationship in the world to them.
When was the last time you and God had a prayer date together. A time when you prepare for prayer. You read the Word of God, you examine yourself, you confess your sins, you make things right with those you offended and then when your soul is smelling sweet after being properly bathed did you ever think to maybe put on some special garment, a prayer shawl or a hat? The Talmud in Shabbath 10a tells of a rabbi who word special stockings when he prayed. Another wore a special belt. Some wear a neckless, bracelet, ring something that they put on to say, “God this is it, this is my way of showing how special you are.” It is something that you wear only when you are with God and no one else. For me it is a baseball cap. In private I do wear a kipah. Since I am not Jewish I will not wear it in public unless I go to a Messianic meeting or a synagogue.
I believe our Jewish brothers have much to teach us about prayer. I challenge you to show God how special His relationship is to you, to find something special to wear when you go to God in prayer, just something between you and God to say; “Hey, I wear this for you and no one else, I do it because you are special to me and when I call upon you I want you to know just how special and what a privilege it is to call upon you.”
Recent Comments