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And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Amos 7:8a The prophet Amos is called to speak both law and gospel into the lives of God’s people that they would not only see their sin but also their Savior – God Himself. Today at International Lutheran Church, we reflect on this vision and how it speaks to us today of God’s righteousness that calls us to account but also reveals to us the riches of God’s grace in Christ.

Many of you have heard me speak of my growing up in western Iowa, and how that included many weekends at a lake home that my parents set as a project for themselves and for us to construct together as a family. To be completely accurate, my father was an animal nutritionist by trade and an entrepreneur in the animal feed industry. He was not a carpenter, nor the son of a carpenter. But growing up on a farm in the Midwest in the early thirties, everyone was a “Jack of all trades” so I have been told. So my father wasn’t the least bit anxious about taking on a building project of this magnitude. Because of this, I learned exactly what a plumb line was at an early age. A very simple tool used by every stone mason and carpenter to tell immediately if something was absolutely vertical. Like a level that tells you if what you are doing is horizontal, a plumb line is an obvious and unforgiving proof of the vertical nature of the wall or window that you are working on. Its mechanics were a simple piece of string and a hefty weight to make it taut. Gravity did its part to ensure accuracy. In the end it shows you exactly how askew you are, and thus you are able to make immediate corrections and new alignments.

When the LORD God gives Amos the vision of a plumb line, He was showing him exactly how His people were measuring up. It was judgement and without partiality. Just as the plumb line does not lie, so God’s own action to stretch out His “Plumb Line” showed His expectations, but even more caused us to measure up.  As Jesus hung from the cross, in His flesh He revealed God’s righteousness and also fulfilled that righteousness in us by making us measure up. He made us right so that in us God’s grace might be revealed to all the world as Paul explains in Ephesians 1:3-14.

Just as God showed Amos the plumb line, the very measure of His righteousness, He also points us to the righteousness that He has “plumbed” in the midst of us all through His Son so that our hope would be in Jesus. In Him we measure up!

Pastor Carl