God's Resilient Devotion

God’s Resilient Devotion - Joel 2:12-13

Read Joel 2:12-13

Joel 2:12–13 NIV

“Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.

Let’s Pray.

Ash Wednesday is an interesting observance in the calendar year of the church. It doesn’t have the warmth and joy that we celebrated just a few months ago at Christmas, and it doesn’t carry with in the feelings of hope and renewal that we get from Easter Sunday in just a short time. It sits somewhere in no-man’s land both in the space it inhabits on the calendar as well as where it sits in the hearts of most Christians. It’s just something that is there. It is marked, most notably, by the party that proceeds it on Fat Tuesday and the time of devotion we know as Lent. But, aside from those things, Ash Wednesday falls into that forgotten time and space until it comes up again the next year. So, what does Ash Wednesday really mark? What is the purpose of gathering here tonight and placing ashes upon our foreheads, and what can we learn from the observance of this ritual, and how can the book of Joel help us understand it more clearly?

The book of Joel is an incredibly overlooked book of the Bible. Most people forget it exists other than it’s one of those names towards the end of the Old Testament that we can actually read and pronounce. But, for most of us, it gets lost in that Amos, Malachi, Habakuk, and all of other names and it really shouldn’t. It’s a fascinating book of the Bible defined, primarily, by two poems. The first poem takes up chapter 1 and the beginning of Chapter 2, and we see the scripture we read this evening falling into that turning point as it shifts into the second poem that tells the story of Joel. Joel is unique in that we have no idea when it took place. We believe it was sometime during the Ezra-Nehemiah timeframe, but Joel doesn’t give us much to go on. He is clearly familiar with other writings from other prophets in the Old Testament and he is a biblical writer who is familiar with other biblical writings. Joel is also unique in that there is no direct sin of Israel that the prophet Joel is speaking out against. There is clearly a sin that has occurred, but we don’t know the exact sin as we do with all of the other Old Testament prophets.

But Joel takes this general shape and form. Joel assumes that we know the other biblical writings as well and we are aware that Israel has been in rebellion against God and has been consistently told to turn back toward the Lord or prepare to face His wrath. Joel begins his poems by talking about a famine that has been occurring in the region due to a hoard of locusts. These locusts are a plague similar to the plague of Egypt found in Exodus, but this time, instead of being sent against the people of Egypt for their sins, it has been unleashed upon the people of Israel. The locusts are described first as the insects we would think of, but Joel follows an apocalyptic type of format, continuously associating what is occurring with “the day of the Lord”. This is, accordingly, the day of God’s judgement upon the world and Israel with it. The locusts take upon themselves the resemblance of an army, the army of God, and they are being unleashed upon the people of Israel.

Unless they repent. This is what the prophet Joel is telling them. Repent! Turn from the ways you have been walking and return to the Lord your God! Have you forgotten what He did for you and who He is? His justice is coming, and it doesn’t matter who you are. In fact, the use of locusts throughout the Bible points toward the upside-down kingdom that God was trying to show us form the very beginning. The people of Israel thought they were God’s chosen and that had gone to their heads. They had forgotten why they were chosen and – more importantly – who had chosen them and what He had chosen them for. They began to just believe they were chosen. But what has God used to help them see who He is? Yes, Joel, but even within Joel’s account, God sent locusts to plague the Israelites. Why bugs? These are things that, on any given day, we don’t pay attention to, we step on, we kill and crush. They are less than meaningful to us, in fact, they are down right pests. Maybe for us, instead of thinking about locusts, we think mosquitoes or cockroaches… But God uses the least of these to remind Israel who He is and what he cares about.

God desires to transform our hearts and that cannot happen until we are reminded about who we are and who God is. We are the created, He is the Creator. We are from dust and ash and to dust and ash we are destined to return, but for God. But for the gift he gives us IF we will only repent and return to him once more.

So that is the message that Joel gives to the people of Israel: “Repent! Do not rend your garments. Rend your hearts. Don’t twist and turn the things of this world to try and change, instead, look inward and change your heart. Rend and transform your hearts to follow after My own!”

And here is the gospel message, here is what we need to hear in the midst of this wilderness of the Church Calendar, and amidst the wilderness points of our lives – those places where we deserve nothing more than an army of locusts trampling us. In the middle of all of this this is the Gospel truth summed up in two words, “Even now.”

No matter how far gone we are, no matter how much we deserve ashes and dust, God tells us, “Even now.” There is no such thing as too lost or too far gone because, “even now” we have the ability to return to God with all of our heart. To repent, to rend our hearts, and return to the Lord our God. Not because He’s pleased with us. Not because we did a good job. No, we deserve the locusts. We are sinful and we deserve a sinner’s death.

But God’s resilient devotion is greater than our own, and praise God for his endless devotion that He would offer the Israelites this forgiveness, mercy, and grace, just as he offers us all that same forgiveness, mercy, and grace bought and paid for on our behalf by His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.

This is the gospel message that Joel offered the Israelites, and we should take note of what happens next. Joel led the people of Israel – the priests and the people gathered together – in repentance. He gathers those from the elders, the children, the women, and even those infants they carry – none are apart from this gathering of repentance and, in verse 18, we see God’s ever-present answer: “The Lord was jealous for his land and took pity upon his people.” God banished the locusts from the land so that it could prosper again, and he drove the armies and the hordes away from the people of Israel so that they could find peace in the presence of the Lord once more because of His endless devotion and desire to wake us up to His wonderful presence.

So how is God trying to wake you up to His presence during this season? How is God going to use this Lenten season we are about to enter into to awaken all of us to his presence?

The answers to those questions are different for each of us, but they all carry with them the same promises. The first is that the Day of the Lord is coming. We should hear the words of Joel and not just think of them as a warning to a distant people in a distant past. It is a warning for us to hear now. The Day of the Lord is coming, and you are a sinner. So, hear this plea, “Repent. Return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. Even now, return to me. Rend your heart and transform it to be like mine. Because you may have started as dust and ash, but I have made you my sons and daughters. Return to me for I am gracious and compassionate. Know my Son who is gentle and humble in heart. Return to me because I am slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Return to me and you will not know calamity because you have been secured with, and you share in the victory I have secured for you in my Son. Return to me and know that I am your God, and you are mine.

Praise God for his resilient devotion and let us allow this Lenten season to be a time of repentance and a time to deepen our resilient devotion to our Lord God.

Let’s Pray.