Someone shared this today and though I agreed with the basic premise in the very back of the statement, something bothered me about it. The main sentiment is absolutely true, that the “festivals” that Christians observe in this season are not YHWH’s festivals. And YHWH certainly isn’t served by them. Yet this isn’t the primary intent of that scripture that was referenced.
The statement that YHWH made, and which is referenced here, via the prophet Amos, referenced from chapter 5 of the scroll in which his message was written, has a more contextual meaning related to the text as a whole, not an isolated one about pagan festivals. That more contextual meaning is that a wayward observance of His Shabbatoth and Chagim (Festival) days is worthless and even abominable to Him... maybe as worthless and abominable to Him as an observance of festivals invented for other deities, such as Christmas or Easter.
This will make a lot of people chagrin, but those are the people that likely most need to hear this. The overall theme in Amos’ message was not about idolatry — that theme is there for sure, but it isn’t the primary theme. The most prominent theme in Amos’ ministry was one the sheer importance of social justice — and the great sin that is its converse: the mistreatment of the poor and debt enslavement of your fellows. This was an important theme in both the Northern Kingdom of Yisrael and the Southern Kingdom of Yahuda (Judah), because in both of these territories, mistreatment of the poor, debt slavery, indentured servitude, and real full-on slavery (as in ownership of human beings) was a plague with the face of the mundane for the well-to-do in these two countries. But it was particularly a problem in the far wealthier Northern Kingdom of Yisrael, which is why Amos, a man from the Southern Kingdom of Yahuda, was sent there with this message.
Amos starts off by preaching to the citizens of Yisrael as any street corner preacher would do — he comes up with a rhythm and a catch-phrase, and uses it to first draw in crowds by calling out the enemies of Yisrael for judgement. That catch phrase runs along the lines of “For three transgressions, and for four...”, and is followed by the name of the nation which shall be judged along with the reason, i.e. their sins. As Amos calls out first Damascus, then Gaza, Tyre (three nations of the Phonecians), Edom, and Ammon and Moab (countries we know as Jordan today), one can picture his crowds of Yisraelis growing large and cheering at his pronouncements for judgement so far has been on their enemies. Then Amos takes a pivot point and calls out their relative and neighbor, the Southern Kingdom of Yahudah (Judah), for its violation of His Torah. At this point in history, Yisrael and Yahudah were already well separated, and there was little love lost between them, so this would have resonated true to many of them, yet it was also preparing them for a judgement to be given to them for more specific variants of that very reason -- the violation of His Torah. Since Amos himself would have had the accent of that country, this would have impressed these citizens of the Northern Kingdom of Yisrael all the more for willingly criticizing his own country. The cheers were likely deafening.
And then Amos drops the bombshell, the real message he was intending to deliver all along. The previous pronouncements were certainly true, as no legitimate prophet is going to speak in YHWH’s name a false prophecy, but clearly these pronouncements were intended to build the crowd so that Amos could deliver the message that he was actually sent to deliver. We read that message here:
"This is what YHWH says: 'For three transgressions of Yisrael, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample the heads of the poor as dust on the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. Father and son sexually use the same girl and so profane my qodesh name. They lie down beside every altar wearing garments that they took in pledge. In the House of their Elohim, they drink wine taken as fines.'" (Amos 2:6-8)
There is what we are expected to glean as Amos’ primary message. The complaint and judgement he brings from YHWH is about how the Kingdom of Yisrael oppresses the poor and needy among them. Many of these statements are made in a targeted fashion to demonstrate that Yisrael was in fact doing the opposite of what the Torah commands when they violated the needy among them and took advantage of them.
For instance, when Amos quotes YHWH as saying that "they trample the heads of the poor as dust on the ground and deny justice to the oppressed", this is being pointed out as a direct violation of the Torah’s own precepts to treat the poor fairly and justly, and never to deny them their rights:
"You shall not subvert the rights of the poor among you in their disputes or in their legal cases!" (Shemot / Exodus 23:6)
When YHWH states that father and son sin by sexually taking the same woman, this is not merely a statement against the Torah’s command for father and son not to sleep with the same woman. Though that concept is there, this is far more specifically calling out that a woman from a needy family, who was "sold" in a sense for marriage cannot be instead mistreated as a household prostitute, yet that seems to be precisely what was occurring. The Torah commands that when a woman is taken in as a potential wife, she must become a member of the household and be treated as one:
"If a man sells his daughter as a slave, if she does not please her master who has chosen her for himself, if he designates her for his son, he shall treat her as a daughter." (Shemot / Exodus 21:7-9)
Then we get to the issue of the garments at the altars. This too is a pronouncement against the continued holding of the clothing of the poor as surety for a loan or a debt, something YHWH made very prohibitive in His Torah:
"If you lend money to anyone among My people with you who is poor, if you ever taken their cloak in pledge, you will return it to him before the sun goes down. Because that is his only covering, and it is his cloak for his body. In what else would he sleep? And if he cries to Me, I will hear, for I am compassionate." (Shemot / Exodus 22:25-27)
YHWH makes his case against Yisrael, accusing them of selling "the needy for a pair of sandals”, and this is particularly telling. The scenario Amos is referring to is something this: Some less fortunate Israelite needs to provide sandals for his family and wants to buy them on credit. He uses his harvest as the guarantee, but the seller knows the harvest might fail and wants more solid collateral. Children were often the collateral because the poor had little else to offer of value, and so their need would press them to put those children up for that collateral, while the parents hoped the harvest wouldn’t fail. But sometimes it did, and when it did, those children would become slaves and leave their families. They were literally "sold for a pair of sandals."
So the primary issue in Amos’ message is clearly the mistreatment of the poor. YHWH makes this Amos’s primary complaint and the core of his message to Yisrael. And that is the context we must place YHWH’s latter words into as Amos delivers them, the words that were shared to me in the meme-ish image someone shared with me:
“I hate, I despise your Chagim (religious Festivals)! Your assembling together stinks to Me! Even when you bring Me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them! Though you bring Me 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! Instead, let justice roll like a river, and righteousness like an endless stream!” (Amos 5:21-24)
Notice that these are YHWH’s Festivals being talked about here — not the pagan festivals of other deities like Christmas or Easter. These are offerings being made to Him, celebrations done on His behalf and at His command, and yet He’s having none of it. As He ends His statement here, He notes explicitly that righteousness is lacking — justice is lacking. And that theme continues throughout Amos, exploring how the aspect of mistreatment of the poor provokes a promise of unrevokable judgement, and how this behavior has interfered with the relationship between YHWH and His people. YHWH is saying here that observing His Chagim (Festivals) is meaningless to Him when your behavior outside of those Festivals is one of mistreatment of the needy and the most displaced among you. He goes on to say that He rejects all forms of worship given in their current spiritual state of being, including their observance of His Chagim (Festivals), and nothing can remedy it except for a rejection of their ill behavior to the poor and needy among them: “Instead, let justice flow like a river, and righteousness like a constant steam!”
Whether we care to understand it or not, the term "righteousness" here definitely refers to the treatment of the poor among Yisrael and Yahuda. That’s because the Hebrew root term, "tsadik", and it’s expression as "tsedekah" means more than merely obeying commandments for performing rituals. It refers to an open generosity, especially with your own money, especially towards the needy. The primary reason that YHWH hates their observance of His Chagim (Festivals) was in their habitual behavior outside of the Chagim (Festivals) — and that behavior is what defines the nature of their observance of the actual Chagim (Festivals).
"Listen to this, you who rob the poor and trample upon the needy! You cannot wait for the Shabbat day to end and the Chagim (Festivals) to end so you can get back to cheating the helpless! You measure out grain with dishonest measures and cheat the buyer with dishonest scales! You mix your wheat with chaff swept up from the floor! Then you enslave people for one piece of sliver or for a pair of sandals! ... I will turn your Chagim (Festivals) into mourning days, and all your singing into weeping. I will make all of you wear sackcloth and shave your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day...'" (Amos 8:4-6, 10)
What YHWH is clearly saying here is that His Chagim (Festivals) cannot be observed to Him when you are mistreating your brothers or taking financial advantage of them. You can’t celebrate the end of slavery by observing Pesach when you are debt enslaving or literally enslaving the needy among you over their basic necessities. You cannot observe Sukkoth, a time that looks back to Elohim providing for His people in the Desert while living in Sukkoth (a form of tents made of tree branches and leaves), when you hold back food from your fellow man and reduce him to homelessness. You cannot properly observe Shabbat if you are denying rest to the less fortunate among you. When you behave this way, you cannot truly observe His Observances! They are no longer His Shabbatoth and Chagim when you do this... they become your versions, they become Sabbaths to slavery, Festivals to Mammon, and He utterly rejects them.
Some will point out that YHWH goes on to state that their idolatry is a key factor at the end of the chapter, but the majority of the text of Amos leading up to the referenced statement makes the context clear that a big part of this idolatry is their service to wealth, as if it were a deity. The pursuit of money at the expense of their less fortunate brothers is their idol. Besides this, even when worship of foreign deities is called out in Amos, it is in the context of how dedication to them has corrupted the disposition of the people to the poor among them.
As Yeshua said, we cannot serve Elohim and monetary or physical wealth. YHWH will not share your devotions with a love of money and wealth anymore than He would share your devotions with other deities. That is the real message of Amos, and that is the real target of YHWH’s words spoken via his mouth about "hating your Chagim (religious Festivals)". Observing Christmas and Easter are clearly great sins because their origins are in idolatry, and YHWH clearly states within His Torah that He rejects and forbids using idolatrous customs in worship of Him. But keeping His Chagim (Festivals) when we are out of step with His sense of Torah by mistreatment of the poor is equally a sin — in fact, no matter how we get the time or rituals right, we are not observing His Chagim (Festivals) any longer when we serve Mammon on the side. So many are worried about calendars these days -- and they should be to some extent of course worried about getting the appointed times right -- but I see far less worry among those who call themselves Torah observant believers in the testimony of Yeshua HaMashiach for how the poor among us are treated.
I think Yeshua's parable of Eliezer (Lazarus) and the Rich Man really repeats this lesson. The Rich Man almost certainly observed Elohim’s Festivals and Shabbatoth, made generous offerings, and had a public visage of righteousness. But when he found himself separated from the bosom of Abraham on judgement day, it was made clear to him that his behavior towards Eliezer and others like him made those acts meaningless:
"There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Eliezer, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
"The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. Experiencing torment in death, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Eliezer by his side. So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Eliezer to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.'
"But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Eliezer received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.'
"He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Eliezer to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.'
"Abraham replied, 'They have Mosheh and the Nabiim (Prophets); let them listen to them.'
"'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'
"He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Mosheh and the Nabiim, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'" (Luqas / Luke 16:19-31)
The Rich Man thought he was already in the bosom of Abraham. He was a Jew, and he had a public persona of keeping the Torah, but he was willfully impotent on important aspects, aspects of Torah he chose to ignore. Among these are the command to lend without interest to the poor, not to oppress the window or fatherless, and not to oppress the foreigners in his land. When he realizes his fate is sealed, he pleads for his family ... but YHWH is unimpressed. "They have Mosheh and the Nabiim (Prophets)", the rich man is told. But the Rich Man knows that his family won’t get that message from the Torah or the Prophets — they are also willfully ignorant. Like him, his family knows about the Torah, and as Jews, they keep the Shabbatoth and Chagim (Festivals). But their willful ignorance of the need to treat their poor brothers and sisters with righteous generosity, something the Torah makes utterly clear, will be their undoing.
Yirmeyahu (Jeremiah) concurs with Amos and Yeshua on this teaching, that keeping the rituals and Shabbatoth (Sabbaths) and Chagim (Festivals) and making the sacrifices and offerings at the Temple, and even exclusively worshiping only YHWH alone, won’t save you if you are ill-behaving towards the less fortumate among you. Worshipping YHWH alone and properly according to His Word is extremely important, but that worship is null and void to YHWH when the righteous treatment of your fellow man is lacking
"Do not trust in deceptive words: 'The Temple of YHWH! The Temple of YHWH! The Temple of YHWH!’ If you truly change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and do not follow other gods to your own harm, only then will I allow you to live in this place, in this land that I gave your ancestors, forever and ever. But look, instead you trust in deceptive and worthless repetitions. Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal, and go after other deities you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears My Name, and say 'We are safe, safe to do these detestable things!'?" (Yirmeyahu 7:4-10)
The point here is that YHWH's favor isn't invoked by observing His rituals yet ignoring His moral precepts. There is no special chant nor are there any special words you can repeat, as if casting a spell, that will gain His favor. We need to really be careful in this regard. Yeshua’s statement that many will come to him in that day calling him "Master" and yet he doesn’t know them is a very telling statement. These are people who did great works in his name — even miracles. Yet he never knew them. Yes many of those will be typical Christians who believed the Torah was dead and they didn’t have to observe it. But as time goes on I’m more and more convinced that many will be Messianics who thought they were fully observing Torah by keeping Moedim, Shabbatoth, and Chagim but forgot to be kind to the poor and needy, forgot to love even the foreigners as themselves, or as is more pertinent in the here and now, actually supported and encouraged their leaders in their activities antithetical to these maxima. Both groups are "workers of Torahlessness". Both groups don’t know they are Torahless. Sadly, both groups will face the fate of the Torahless.
It hurts my heart, but I think when Yeshua says "many" in this case, it’s the great many — the great many who scream out their cliches — "The Temple of YHWH!" in Yirmeyahu’s day, or "The Cross of Jesus!" among the Christians, or "The Festivals of Elohim!" among Messianics and Jews— as if these were afterlife insurance policies, or magic words that will save them when they don’t live by the core essence of the Word of YHWH. What we are being told here in the most dramatic of ways is that they will not!
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