As most of you know, I’m a news junkie. Especially national and international news. Right now the 2024 presidential election is front and center on all the news feeds. The border crisis vies with the Ukrainian War for second place, while hovering ominously in the background is the growing threat from China, whether it’s Taiwan, the South Asia Sea, the theft of technology, espionage, or a potential economic collapse. And the primary public reaction to the last two is typically American: we go all ostrich and ignore it.
Americans have this bizarre notion that war is an anomaly, an unforgivable interruption in what ought to be an eternally peaceful and prosperous existence. Whenever they can get away with it, people everywhere have a strong tendency to hide their heads in the sand. And Americans have more excuse than most. We’ve been pretty prosperous and peaceful for a long time, compared to a lot of other places in the world. On the other hand, we’ve had a war in every generation. Our country began with the revolution, of course, and then the war of 1812. Thirty years later the Mexican-American War was followed rather closely by the Civil War, followed by the Spanish-American war, World War I, etc. etc. Even the Cold War wasn’t what you could really call peaceful. Remember the duck-and-cover air raids and the Cuban missile crisis? But we always forget. On 9/11, most people were really surprised. I wasn’t. Well, at the magnitude, yes. But Tom Clancy had recently written a best-seller with a jet flying into the Capitol building, and back before terrorism we had hijackings. And when I was a kid living in South America, there was an epidemic of bombing USIA binational centers all over the world. Ours was one of them. As a matter of fact, my Dad’s center was hit twice. Every generation has its enemies and its terrors.
But every time disaster strikes, whether it’s natural or man-made, our leaders shout, “Nothing like this has ever happened before!” We may mourn for her fallen and flock to our churches, we may call our stockbrokers with orders to sell. There’s a brief spurt of interest in fire-proofing - or flood-proofing - or chemical attack-proofing - our homes. Emergency rooms put new procedures in place. But you know what? it doesn’t last. People get tired of living at a peak of preparedness. And too many believe with Henry Ford that “History is bunk.” And so the next calamity is just as big a surprise as the one before.
That’s why no one really knows when Joel lived and wrote. Because every generation, in both Israel and Judah, had its own disaster - or two - and so Joel’s words were always applicable. No one really even knows who the invaders he was talking about were. In the first chapter of this book, a horrifying description of the destruction of the land by a mighty army of locusts: “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.” [Joel 1:4]
Some scholars keep it simple, saying that Joel is only talking about a plague of locusts. But locusts came around periodically, it was hardly unheard of... so others say the locusts are a metaphor for a real invading army, maybe the Babylonians - who eventually did conquer the city of Jerusalem. Of course, it could have been the Assyrians rom the previous generation, who were even worse than the Babylonians. But whoever the enemy was, it was really scary. “A nation has invaded my land, powerful and innumerable; its teeth are lions’ teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness...a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come.” [Joel 1:6, 2-2]
Whichever kind of attack they had suffered, an army’s weapons crushing walls and buildings and people, or nature itself getting revenge on its occupiers, the prophet Joel had heard from God. This was, he proclaimed, the Day of the Lord, the day of reckoning, the day that the people would be judged and found wanting. And it’s worth our taking a second look at it, because the more we do the more we find there is to learn from it.
As I said at the beginning, we forget danger and disaster as quickly as possible. How many Californians are already planning to rebuild in the same fire-threatened territory? How many of New Orleans’ residents rebuilt eight feet below sea level? How many Judeans went right back to the same behavior that Joel told them was the cause of the devastation that surrounded them?
Now, America does not stand in the same relationship with God that Israel did. The covenant community is not the nation, but the church. And the church is worldwide. But whenever and wherever disaster befalls, God is in control, and it is always pleasing to God when we assume he is speaking to us. It is always appropriate to examine our consciences, to repent, and to ask for mercy. It is especially appropriate when our enemies call us godless.
“Yet even now," says the LORD, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the LORD, your God.... 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. 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?’" [Joel 2:12,17]
Let me say that again:
“Why should it be said among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’“
In today’s text we see that God does relent. He restores his people. Not only does he heal and restore the land, and provide them with food, he also restores the covenant and their spirits. And many American Christians see - even amidst all the bad news - the hope of revival. I too hope and pray that this will be such a time, a time when no one will ask “Where is their God?” But... are we ready?
Once upon a time the Swiss made the best watches in the world. It was the Swiss who invented the minute hand and the second hand. They discovered better ways to manufacture the watches’ gears, bearings, and mainsprings. They led the way in waterproofing techniques, they came up with the idea of self-winding models. In 1968, the Swiss dominated the market: they made sixty-five percent of all watches sold and raked in about ninety percent of all the profits.
But all that changed. A dozen years later they controlled less than ten percent of the market. In the two years between 1979 and 1981, 50,000 of the 62,000 Swiss watchmakers lost their jobs. Why? Very simply, the Swiss had ignored a new development, the quartz movement, which had, ironically, been invented by a Swiss. Because it had no main-spring or knob, they couldn’t see its potential. It was too new, too different, too much of a paradigm shift for them to accept. Seiko, on the other hand, embraced it and, along with a few other companies, soon became the new leader in the industry. When change is afoot, you have to have your eyes open and be ready to move. One of the truths I live by is, “The worse things are, the more likely it is that God is about to do something spectacular.” But you have to keep your eyes open, or you’ll miss the train.
There are three things we have to do in order to be ready to move when God’s spirit does.
First of all, there has to be an outcry of repentance.
Interestingly enough, in the present we have two completely different sets of prophets proclaiming the need for repentance. Should we listen to the ones that say we deserve to be hated because we are colonial oppressors, or to those who say it is our immorality and self-indulgence that have brought our current enemies upon us? I’d be inclined, myself, to check out the truth claims of both sides before coming to a conclusion. It’s a good idea to make sure that we’re repenting of the right things.... It’s really easy to mistake our own opinions for God’s. But no matter how you answer the question, repentance is - like being poor in spirit - an absolute, non-negotiable requirement in order to prepare us for action.
A key characteristic of the kind of repentance that God’s people engage in is that it leads to hope.
As God’s spirit begins to move, people become more aware of the presence of sin not only in the world but in our own lives, but this awareness brings with it not fear or helplessness but a strong, real, confident hope. Our repentance is a little like a bath taken after a hard day’s work at a dirty job. You need more than just a quick shower; you have to go for a real pore-opening workout. So we toss our grimy clothes in the basket, we soak and scrub, but not in the kind of ineffectual revulsion that haunted poor Lady Macbeth - you remember her cry, “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand....” On the contrary. We know that we have the promise of new clothing, Jesus Christ himself, provided by God for a new day.
But the bath won’t do you any good if you’re going to take the new suit out and wallow in the mud again. It’s going to get dirty - just like clothing gets dirty just in the wearing of it. That’s why we confess our sins every week - it’s like a daily shower. But the old cliche “confession is good for the soul” can’t take the place of true repentance. Confession can be as shallow as simply saying “yeah, I did it;” repentance means turning away from our sin: resolving not to do it again. Repentance requires digging a little deeper, not being content with a superficial swipe at the week’s accumulation. It requires serious self-examination and willingness to change: not just the way you act, but the way you think.
The second prerequisite for catching God’s moment is to look for and believe in restoration. “I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent against you.” [Joel 2:25] But the restoration that God promises us doesn’t look like yesterday. We aren’t going to get the 50’s back. Or even the early Church. God’s restoration looks like tomorrow. “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” [Is43:18-19]
We need to be looking for signs of God’s acting among us, even if they’re a little different from what we’re used to, and hook up with what the Spirit is doing. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean singing worship choruses and buying an overhead projector, but it does mean looking for new opportunities for ministry in the world. There are so many places where the gospel is needed, where people are crying out for the grace and truth of Jesus Christ - there might be a crack in the culture that wasn’t there before - and we need to be ready to take advantage of the opportunities God gives us. Or it might be an opportunity to re-examine our own lives. Anyone who lost something precious can - after repentance - count on God to restore - something - but not the same thing. We have to be willing to look forward, not back.
That means we have to hold everything we have lightly. Our possessions, our habits, our cultural biases - all these things are temporary. The only thing that doesn’t change from age to age is the Word of God - that we hold onto at all costs. But we have to know both the living and the written Word well enough so that we don’t mistake our preferences for God’s. And in order to grasp a new opportunity we may have to let go of some old favorites.
The third thing we have to be on the watch for is revelation. Not a new truth, but the eternal truth repackaged in what might be some unfamiliar ways. God is likely to speak through some very unlikely sources. “Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit.” [Joel 2:28-9]
The Jews in those days would have believed in listening to the old men... after all, they were the repositories of the wisdom of the ages. Everyone knew that you should listen to your elders. But no-one would have paid any attention to some punk kid with green hair and a nose ring, much less a female slave! Pay attention to the unlikeliest people and places. God specializes in the unexpected. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” [Is 55:8]
Joel goes on to warn the people that God’s power - as well as his will - will be revealed in some amazing and unusual ways. “I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes." [Joel 2:30-31]
But do we really want to wait until then? Isn’t what we see around us in our world enough to warn us that God is not happy? Are we going to respond, or forget as soon as possible and go back to our old ways?
Repentance - restoration - revelation. These are the prerequisites for revival. They are acts readying us for the new things God is doing in the world.
The silver lining in the clouds on the horizon is that God gives us plenty of warning, and plenty of time, and the promise of a restored future - if we listen, and act.
