The Ashes of Lament

Joel 1:1–20 NRSV

The word of the Lord that came to Joel son of Pethuel: Hear this, O elders, give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your ancestors? Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten. Wake up, you drunkards, and weep; and wail, all you wine-drinkers, over the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth. For a nation has invaded my land, powerful and innumerable; its teeth are lions’ teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness. It has laid waste my vines, and splintered my fig trees; it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down; their branches have turned white. Lament like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth. The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests mourn, the ministers of the Lord. The fields are devastated, the ground mourns; for the grain is destroyed, the wine dries up, the oil fails. Be dismayed, you farmers, wail, you vinedressers, over the wheat and the barley; for the crops of the field are ruined. The vine withers, the fig tree droops. Pomegranate, palm, and apple— all the trees of the field are dried up; surely, joy withers away among the people. Put on sackcloth and lament, you priests; wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, pass the night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God! Grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God. Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord. Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes. Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God? The seed shrivels under the clods, the storehouses are desolate; the granaries are ruined because the grain has failed. How the animals groan! The herds of cattle wander about because there is no pasture for them; even the flocks of sheep are dazed. To you, O Lord, I cry. For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flames have burned all the trees of the field. Even the wild animals cry to you because the watercourses are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

On April 15, 2019, the world watched in horror as flames engulfed Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. For over eight centuries, that cathedral had stood through wars, revolutions, and countless generations of worshipers. It was more than a building—it was a sacred memory carved into stone.

That night, people lined the banks of the Seine River singing “Ave Maria” through tears. Some prayed. Others just watched in silence. It wasn’t only the loss of architecture they were mourning—it was the loss of something beautiful and stable in a world that feels increasingly fragile.

And then, the morning after, a photograph began to circulate around the world. The sanctuary was still thick with smoke and ash. The roof had collapsed. The pews were covered in debris. But in the middle of all that ruin, a single golden cross still stood on the altar [show image of Notre Dame cross]—untouched by the fire.

That image became a kind of collective lament. It said, “Something sacred has fallen.” But it also whispered, “Hope remains.”

And that’s where we begin this series: in the ashes. Not pretending we’re fine, not rushing to fix or explain the pain, but simply naming what has fallen, what has broken our hearts, what we grieve and then sitting in the silence with God.

Tension: A Land Laid Waste

When you open the book of Joel, you’re stepping into a moment when the people of God are standing in ruins—not the ruins of a fallen city yet, but the ruins of a land stripped bare.

We’re not entirely sure when Joel lived. Some scholars place him early, others later. But what we do know is that Joel’s words rise from a nation that knows what it is to lose everything.

These are the descendants of exiles—people whose grandparents were dragged off to Babylon, whose temple was burned to the ground, whose identity as God’s chosen had been nearly erased.

By the time Joel is writing, they’ve returned home—but “home” doesn’t feel the same. The walls are rebuilt. The temple is restored. But spiritually, they’re weary.

They are living in the midst yet another cycle of pain. For hundreds of years this nation had faced promise, deliverance, destabilization, and then destruction. Generation after generation had experienced this cycle, it was written into their experience, their traditions, their story, and their scriptures. Each time their fall felt worse then the last.

So yes, they’ve been delivered from the hands of Babylon, just as God had promised. Yes the walls and the temple and the city were rebuilt. But they know what teeters on the edge when they, as a people, start to get comfortable. Destabilization and destruction.

And then, the locusts come. Wave after wave after wave.

“What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten; what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.” (Joel 1:4)

Every field, every vine, every fig tree—gone. This wasn’t just an inconvenience. It was a national trauma.

An agrarian people without crops meant starvation. A priesthood without grain or wine meant worship itself had stopped.

In Joel’s world, the locusts weren’t just insects—they were symbols of everything collapsing. They were a mirror of exile all over again: the feeling that what you’ve built can be wiped away overnight.

Truth: Israel’s Story of Loss and Return

If you trace Israel’s story through the Old Testament, you’ll see a painful rhythm: abundance leads to complacency; complacency to neglect; neglect to collapse.

The people forget who they are—and then in the ruins, they remember.

Joel stands in that long pattern, but what’s remarkable is that he doesn’t jump to blame. He doesn’t say, “This happened because you sinned.” He says, “This has happened. Now, let’s cry out to God together.”

He’s not a finger-pointer; he’s a pastor. He’s teaching the people how to lament together.

He calls for priests to weep, elders to gather, children to fast. This isn’t a quiet personal devotion—it’s a public cry of the people of God.

He’s showing them—and us—that grief belongs in worship. Because when lament becomes communal, it turns grief into solidarity.

Making It Real: The Ruins of Today

We may not be farmers watching our vineyards dry up, but we know what it feels like to lose.

We know the locusts of our own lives—those moments when something sweeps through and takes what we thought would last. Maybe for you, it was a loved one. Maybe it was a marriage. Maybe it was your health, your security, or your joy.

Maybe it’s just this low ache of the world right now—violence, division, weariness—that makes everything feel fragile.

It’s been a really difficult year for our church. We have lost so many people that we thought we’d have for much longer. Our friends, our siblings in Christ, people who showed us what it meant to love God and love people. We didn’t just lose acquaintances. We have lost people who changed our lives for the better. Each one striking a harder blow than the last, right into the open wounds of our hearts.

Our fields may look different than those in the highlands of Jerusalem, but the devastation feels the same. And Joel’s first move is not to fix it but to name it. Because lament is how faith breathes when the world burns. It’s the first language of hope.

The God Who Grieves

What’s most striking about Joel’s opening chapter is that God does not silence their lament. He doesn’t rush to fix or rebuke it. He listens.

One of my favorite things about our Holy Scriptures is that they encourage and amplify the voice of lament. They celebrate it as a valid and trustworthy human emotion. But more than that they give us an understanding of the God whose image we bare through the act of lament and the emotion of grief.

From the beginning, God has been a God who grieves. He wept over Cain and Abel. He grieved when His people chose idols. He groaned through the prophets when injustice filled the land.

And when Jesus comes, that grief takes on flesh. He weeps at Lazarus’ tomb. He laments over Jerusalem. He cries out on the cross.

Our lament is not foreign to God—it’s shared by Him. That’s what makes that golden cross in Notre Dame’s ashes so powerful: it’s the symbol of a God who stays. When everything else burns, He remains.

Transformation: Meeting God in the Ashes

After the fire at Notre Dame, they began sifting through the wreckage piece by piece. They found chalices, art, and stones blackened by soot but not destroyed—each one telling a story of endurance.

That’s what lament does. It slows us down long enough to see what’s left.

And when we do, we find that the cross still stands. In the middle of the ruin, God is there.

Joel ends chapter one by saying:

“To you, O Lord, I cry.” (Joel 1:19)

Even in the ashes, there’s relationship. Even in grief, there’s prayer. That’s where healing begins.

The Practice: The Ashes Journal

So this week, we begin The Ashes Journal.

Every day, set aside fifteen minutes to sit quietly with God and ask:

“What grief am I carrying that I’ve never named?”

It might be recent, or it might be something you buried years ago. You don’t need to fix it. Just name it. Write it. Let your page hold what your heart has carried.

Then pray this breath prayer: Inhale: “You are near to the brokenhearted.” Exhale: “You save those crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18)

Grief doesn’t separate you from God. It’s one of the places where He meets you most tenderly.

Closing Word: Hope in the Smoke

When Notre Dame burned, five years later the rebuilding finally began. But that cross—the one that stood in the ashes—never left. It remained the centerpiece of the restoration.

That’s our story, too. Our faith doesn’t deny the ruins; it declares that God still works in them.

So don’t rush to skip the ashes. Don’t run past the grief. Sit in it, name it, write it down. Because the same God who rebuilt Jerusalem and raised Jesus from the tomb is still bringing life up from the ashes— one tear, one prayer, one breath at a time.