The Wednesday of Ember Week in September
Posted on September 23, 2026 by under
Scripture: Amos 9:13-15 (NKJV)
9:13 “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “When the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him who sows seed; The mountains shall drip with sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it.
14 “I will bring back the captives of My people Israel; They shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; They shall plant vineyards and drink wine from them; They shall also make gardens and eat fruit from them.
15 “I will plant them in their land, and no longer shall they be pulled up from the land I have given them,” says the Lord your God.
Devotion
Much as in Joel 2, Amos 9 paints a picture of the Messianic Age. Such spiritual richness abounds that seedtime and harvest overlap, and the grapes of the great mountain vineyards are so fat with juice that wine flows down the hills without requiring laborers to tread the winepress. It is altogether a time in which it becomes clear to all who don’t let their prejudices and preconceptions cloud their vision that salvation is simply provided by God apart from our works, and whatever works we do seem as play because God so richly provides!
These Ember Days of Autumn may not always see such joy in the physical realm, yet we know that it is true: since Adam’s sin drove him from the Garden and we were born in his image, we have not deserved whatever good we reap, so every bit of it is by God’s grace alone. We thank Him for the crops now being harvested and for those who have worked to bring them to fruition and bring them to us. We are reminded that, while we deserved only grief and shame in the spiritual realm, it is the realm in which we never truly need to suffer want in any way. Instead, when our eyes have been opened by the Law to see our need for a righteousness that we can in no way provide, that hunger and thirst is readily satisfied in Jesus, whose righteousness ever abounds.
Collect: We beseech Thee, O Lord, that our weakness may be upheld by Thy healing mercy, so that what of itself is falling into ruin may be restored by Thy clemency; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Collect for the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Lord, we pray Thee, that Thy grace may always go before and follow after us, and make us continually to be given to all good works; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
