Now is the Time to Turn

Scripture: Joel 1: 11-17

Sermon: Now is the Time to Turn

Topics: repentance, challenges, mockery, lent

Preached: March 6, 2022

Rev. Mike Abma

Preamble: This Lenten season we will be receiving visits from various Minor Prophets. You know what they say about the Minor Prophets – they’re like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.

This morning our visit is from the prophet Joel.

Joel is a prophet surrounded by mystery.

We know very little about the prophet Joel.

We do not even know what time period he prophesied in.

Perhaps that makes what he proclaims somehow fitting for any time.

Before getting to our main Scripture reading, let me give you some snapshots from early in Joel.

Joel 1:4

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.

Locust. Those plant-eating flying grasshoppers that reaped destruction wherever they went.

Joel is clearly describing Nature out of whack.

Nature is off kilter.

We in the 21^st century should be able to relate.

Just a few weeks ago, the United Nations brought out a Report on Climate Change. This report described our climate as out of whack,

causing nature to be out of whack

causing the displacement of millions

and adversely affecting billions.

Joel speaks of not only Nature being out of whack,

but of the Nations being out of whack too.

We hear this in snapshot # 2

Joel 1: 6

For a nation has invaded my land,

   powerful and innumerable;

its teeth are lions’ teeth,

   and it has the fangs of a lioness.

How can we hear these words today without thinking of the powerful and innumerable number of Russian forces now invading the land of Ukraine.

For the prophet Joel,

all these calamities in nature,

and all these calamities among the nations,

were about to bring devastation and destruction.^[1]

For the prophet Joel,

all this pointed to the Day of the Lord.

Another way of expressing that Day is to call it

the Day of Reckoning, or the Day of Judgement.

This is how Joel puts it later in chapter 1:15

Alas for the day!

For the day of the Lord is near,

   and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.

The prophet Joel wants us to know the Day of the Lord is near.

And what should our response be?

Joel presents two challenges in light of that coming Day.

The first challenge it to us – to the people of God.

Here is how he describes that challenge.

I. Joel 2: 11b-15

Truly the day of the Lord is great;

   terrible indeed—who can endure it?

¹² Yet even now, says the Lord,

   return to me with all your heart,

with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;

¹³   rend your hearts and not your clothing.

Return to the Lord, your God,

   for he is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,

   and relents from punishing.

¹⁴ Who knows whether he will not turn and relent,

   and leave a blessing behind him,

a grain-offering and a drink-offering

   for the Lord, your God?

Return to the Lord your God.

That is the great call of the prophet Joel.

Return to God.

Do so with great feeling – with weeping and mourning.

But also do so with actual actions – with fasting, and with setting aside

whatever sin hinders us from following the Lord.

Whatever sin hinders us from truly loving God and caring for his creation.

Whatever sin hinders us from truly loving our neighbor and treating them

like the image-bearers of God that they are.

That is what we will be doing this season of Lent –

we will be listening to the Minor Prophets

as they tell us what sins we need to set aside.

As they tell us what parts of our life we need to rethink,

and re-evaluate, and reform.

The call to Return to God is not a call to return to a hard, and harsh, and punishing God. No, Joel reminds us that the call to return

is made to a Prodigal People who have wandered away

from a loving Father who patiently and eagerly waits for their return.

This Father is gracious and merciful.

This Father wants nothing more than to wrap his arms around us,

and to embrace us in his love.

This, then, is the challenge to each and every one of us –

Return to the Lord your God.

We say the same thing at our Ash Wednesday service:

Repent and believe the good news of the gospel.

That is the first challenge of this passage.

But there is a second challenge in it.

II. Joel 2: 15-17

Blow the trumpet in Zion;

   sanctify a fast;

call a solemn assembly;

¹⁶   gather the people.

Sanctify the congregation;

   assemble the aged;

gather the children,

   even infants at the breast.

Let the bridegroom leave his room,

   and the bride her canopy.

¹⁷ Between the vestibule and the altar

   let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep.

Let them say, ‘Spare your people, O Lord,

   and do not make your heritage a mockery,

   a byword among the nations.

Why should it be said among the peoples,

   “Where is their God?” ’

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

Notice how Joel describes the people’s repentant response.

The trumpet sounds, and everyone gathers together.

Everyone.

The old and the young.

The children and the infants.

Even the newly married, the bride and the groom, join in.

That is something, because in Jewish culture, the newly married got a pass on practically everything the first year of their marriage.

The point is that everyone gathers for this service of repentance.

Everyone gathers because everyone must return to the Lord.

But then the priests — those standing between God’s people and God –

then the priests issue a challenge to God.

The challenge is this:

O Lord, spare your people.

Do not let your people be a mockery.

A mockery.

How would Israel become a mockery?

Israel would become a mockery

by being left utterly poor and hungry from the locust plague;

and by becoming totally helpless and at the mercy of an enemy army.

That is how they saw themselves becoming a mockery.

We might not think of locusts or armies as the cause of our mockery.

But we know what natural devastation and military destruction looks like.

And on a very personal level, I think we all know what mockery means, what it looks like and what it feels like.

We learn the harsh meaning of mockery at a tender age.

Any time any kid is picked on for being different,

for wearing the wrong clothes,

eating the wrong food,

speaking the wrong language,

shunned because they are poor,

any time we see anything like this,

we see mockery in action.

Mockery is when we are made to feel weak, helpless,

and perhaps most painfully of all,

when we are made to feel utterly alone.

Mockery ultimately makes us feel worthless, like a nobody, with no dignity left.

In the end, mockery makes us feel shame.

No wonder the priests of old challenged God.

In their repentance, they knew they deserved God’s displeasure.

And yet,

they did not want to become a mockery.

They did not want to become a laughingstock.

Nobody wants this, ever. Not back then. Not now.

GOD’S RESPONSE

In the Lenten season, we remember.

We remember how God responded to this challenge.

We remember that instead of us becoming a mockery,

God himself came

and allowed himself to become a mockery in our place.

We remember what happened.

We remember that Jesus was arrested and abandoned.

We remember that Jesus was battered and bruised.

We remember that Jesus was bullied,

that he was made to wear a scarlet robe

and forced to put on a crown of thorns.

We remember that the soldiers

mockingly knelt before him

and they mockingly shouted “Hail, King of the Jews.”

This is the Lenten picture of our Lord:

exposed, isolated, thoroughly degraded, and painfully mocked

as people shouted

“Where are your friends now?”

“And where is your God now?”

CONCLUSION

God took up the challenge not to make us a mockery.

He took up that challenge more personally and more painfully than we can imagine.

He took up that challenge out of love for us, his people,

his Prodigal people.

In Jesus Christ, God has taken up his challenge.

And now, our challenge remains –

will we return to the Lord our God?

Will we return with all our heart?

AMEN

1. I should note that some commentators think the locusts are a metaphor for an invading army, and other commentators think the invading army is a metaphor for the locusts. In this sermon, I am entertaining both kinds of catastrophes. ↑