What God is looking for (Joel 2:1-17)

Those of us who live in New Zealand remember well the first couple of years of Covid, when the country tightly shut its borders and anyone entering had to endure two weeks in a quarantine hotel in strict isolation. Despite all precautions, Covid occasionally got out into the community, usually in Auckland, leading to the city’s lockdown from a few days to a few weeks. I was living there at the time and still remember the sinking feeling I had every time the alert came through on our mobile phones, a shrill tone with a notification that Auckland was going into lockdown. Much as it was unwelcome news, being prepared to act when the warning came saved lives and protected us from worse disaster.

Locust plague and the day of the LORD

For Israel, the alarm was usually sounded from the walls on a ram’s horn alerting the city of impending enemy attack (Joel 2:1). The prophet calls the people to take note, to recognise that the present disaster is but a foreshadowing of the future day of the LORD. In dramatic language, Joel describes the locust attack evoking the darkening of the sky from the swarm (Joel 2:2), the whirr of many wings and the crunching on vegetation that are like the rattle of chariots and the crackling of fire (Joel 2:5). Strikingly, these images of clouds and thick darkness (v.2), fire (v.5), quaking earth (Joel 2:10) are also evocative of theophanies (when God appears; see at Sinai, Exod 19:16, 18, 20), but this is God coming in judgment, not in vindication as it was popularly believed of the day of the LORD. The attack is relentless, like the march of armies (Joel 2:7-8); there is no evading it, nowhere to hide or escape (Joel 2:9). It is an apt image of inevitable catastrophe, inevitable because the Lord Himself is behind it, the ‘army’ is His army (Joel 2:11).

‘Return to Me’

And yet, and yet, ‘even now’, declares the LORD, ‘return to Me’ (Joel 2:12)! The Hebrew shuv (‘turn’ or ‘return’) is a call for repentance, though there is no specific sin mentioned. Fasting, weeping and mourning, as well as the ritual tearing of garments (Joel 2:12-13) were common outward expressions of grief and humility before a holy God. However, such externals must be done with an attitude that involves the whole person. The ‘heart’ in Hebrew thinking represents the mind and will, so the exhortation for the people is to put God in the centre of their thinking and make Him and His ways their priority, to grieve and humble their very self (‘rend your heart’, v.13). This is so essential that all, even the very old and the very young need to gather and the normal rhythms of life, like the joy of a wedding, must be set aside for this higher priority (Joel 2:16).

The merciful character of God

The message of our reading is simple. When we get complacent, even as God’s people, and our priorities shift from Him onto our comfort, our material or emotional well-being, then we are on the road to disaster. True and flourishing life – irrespective of circumstances – can only be found in Him. Events that shake our world on a personal level or on a larger scale are opportunities to understand what truly matters to us and to realign our lives with God’s will. For those who have made wrong choices with consequences of their own making can still hope for restoration if they repent. Neither will God respond with mercy only in the distant future at the final judgment; rather restoration of life already begins in the here and now (note the hope for the grain and drink offering, a current concern; Joel 2:14 cf. Joel 1:13). At the heart of Joel’s message is the merciful and fiercely faithful love of God, His deep compassion that responds to our turning to Him with disproportionate and undeserved grace (Joel 2:13-14).[1]

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[1] The reference to God ‘relenting of evil’ (Joel 2:13) means that in response to repentance, God is willing to reconsider (i.e. relent) and not bring about disaster. The Hebrew ra‘ah means ‘bad’, which can have moral connotations (i.e. evil) or simply refer to something unpleasant or uncomfortable, i.e. a disaster, as here.

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