Revised by Tyler Mayfield (6/24)
Call to lament and repentRepentance is a central biblical teaching. All people are sinful and God desires that all people repent of their sins. The Hebrew word for repent means to “turn away” from sin. The Greek word for repentance means to “change on’e mind,” more specifically, it means…
When great tragedy occurs, a natural impulse is to lament, to cry to God for help, and to complain about one’s circumstances. Joel calls the people to such a lament. Yet, in our day, people of faith are often discouraged, directly or more subtly, from a vigorous, accusing lament. Complaint or lament should be seen as a deeply faithful and biblical response to injustice and difficult times. Sometimes, it is appropriate to repent if people have brought their trouble on themselves by their own behavior.
Why should they repent?
One curiosity regarding the Book of Joel concerns the fact that the prophet calls upon the people to repent but does not give any specific reason for such an action. What have the people done? It is not clear. Another way to think about the call to repent is to focus more on the Hebrew word’s meaning of “return.” The people are called not necessarily to repent of sin but to return to their God and their faith practices.
The Day of the LordThe Day of the Lord, in prophetic writing, is the day of judgment when God will intervene directly in world affairs. As described in Zephaniah, for instance, God will sweep everything away. In Matthew’s gospel God is described as gathering the elect on the day…
The world has many flaws, the wicked prosper while the innocent suffer, the bad guys often win the wars, and death hangs over the head of everyone. And so, people of faith long for a time when God will come to fix everything once and for all. When that day, the Day of the Lord, comes, will it be a good time or a bad time? Joel sees the Day both as a time of judgment and as a promise of hope.
Hope has the last word
Prophetic books often contain words of dire warning if people do not live in obedience to God. Or, as in the case of Joel, terrible things have already happened, probably as the result of human sin. The prophetic books, however, almost never leave the people without hope. Joel, like other prophets, ends with hope, both in 2:18-27 (regarding the locustsLocusts are a type of grasshopper (which, along with wild honey, comprised John the Baptist’s diet). A swarm of locusts is the eighth plague before the Jews left Egypt in Exodus. The book of Joel takes place in the aftermath of a plague of locusts,…) and 3:18, 20-21 (regarding the final vindication of Israel).
Natural disasters as messages from God
Natural disasters are a common occurrence in every age–floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, or the scourge of crop-eating insects. Did God have a part in sending the disaster? How do we know that? And what is the message that is being sent? Joel, as people do in our day, sees the locusts as a punishment from God, though he never states clearly what sin might have caused it.
