Text: Joel 2:12-19
Facebook live: Return to the Lord!
12 “Yet even now,” declares the Lord,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
13 and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;
and he relents over disaster.
I remember vividly the day the World Trade Center was attacked. The buildings crumbling, the dust cloud rising, the tears and screaming seen in the faces of those on the News stories brought into our homes, along with the fear and uncertainty that followed.
Churches were flooded and Pastor Merrell opened Peace for a time of prayer and reflection. I came, as many did, looking for answers and lamenting to God all that had happened, asking “Why Lord?” and looking for comfort.
The people of Israel at times felt God’s wrath and loss. The prophet Joel in chapter 1 after successive swarms of locust’s devoured field, fruit, plants and trees leaving a barren land, scorched by the heat of the Sun, left a land destroyed, as if a vast army had laid it waste.
17 The seed shrivels under the clods;
the storehouses are desolate;
the granaries are torn down
because the grain has dried up.
18 How the beasts groan!
The herds of cattle are perplexed
because there is no pasture for them;
even the flocks of sheep suffer.
Joel 1:17-18
The Prophet calls the Priests to penitential supplication day and night to the Lord because the affliction to the land is not removed simply by mourning and lamenting what had happened.
We mourn and lament too what has happened to our land. The brokenness of people, the divisions in families, and the body of Christ is not immune. The locusts of society and the culture of hate has devoured the unity of peace and prosperity we’ve enjoyed in our land and we cry in grief at what has become of our hope.
Twenty years ago after 911 many people turned to the Lord. Today, many turn to the kings and the rulers, the politicians and representatives, the chosen and elite for hope and answers. While mourning and lamenting grew, churches closed or were greatly diminished in numbers and fear came upon many.
12 “Yet even now,” declares the Lord,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
13 and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
The Lord say’s, “return to me!”
Not with a change of fortunes, representation or leadership, but with a change of heart.
The children of Israel dealt with both public and private calamity, both national distress and private trials. We too have dealt with Civil War as well as World Wars. We’ve dealt with international terrorism and domestic conflict and attack.
And today we deal with cancer and Covid 19, knee replacements and dementia, glaucoma, cataracts and macular degeneration. The wages of sin are clearly seen in our lives today - but so often - not in our hearts.
13 and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;
and he relents over disaster.
Today is Ash Wednesday and we are reminded of the Lord’s call through the Prophet Joel that God’s children needed a new heart, a heart of repentance.
Not just sorrow that calamity had come upon them but:
Sorrow for the calamity that had separated God and man.
Sorrow that they had strayed and turned away from the Lord.
Sorrow that they had put their hope in Kings and princes.
Sorrow that they had trusted in themselves and not in the one who had created them and sustained them.
We too, as we come to repentance, must turn to the one we had abandoned.
Asking Christ to forgive our inequities
Asking Jesus to return to us
Asking Jesus Christ to be our Lord
Asking him to sustain and preserve us in body and spirit as we live and follow his word and by his Spirit to conform, comfort and lead us through this difficult time.
15 Blow the trumpet in Zion;
consecrate a fast;
call a solemn assembly;
16 gather the people.
Consecrate the congregation;
assemble the elders;
gather the children,
even nursing infants.
Let the bridegroom leave his room,
and the bride her chamber.
All will see and know when the Lord returns, from the nursing infants, the bride and bridegroom, the congregation and the people at the last trumpet sound of God. The Lord’s return in judgment is assured.
We begin our Lenten journey tonight as we again turn from self and turn to God.
As we together repent and receive the Lord’s absolution.
As we place our trust in his work in us and in our world, and as we joyfully walk once again into a future in his control.
18 Then the Lord became jealous for his land
and had pity on [you] his people.
19 The Lord answered and said to his people,
“Behold, I am sending to you
grain, wine, and oil,
and you will be satisfied;
and I will no more make you
a reproach among the nations.
Dear friends, Joy not in your repentance but in God’s mercy.
For the work of his Son our Lord Jesus begins in earnest as we together walk with Jesus to Jerusalem and the cross.
From the blessed exchange of his death for your death in sin and his life for your life in eternity, we look outside ourselves to the one who has returned to rescue you, and me and by his Spirit calls us all to Return to the Lord!
In the name of the Father, and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit!
Amen
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