Campus Ministry Night
Joel 2:12-19
October 9, 2024
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The theme is this: Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love!
Tonight’s reading is the most famous passage in the book of Joel. What we heard tonight is the Old Testament reading for Ash Wednesday, and the passage that follows these words is the Old Testament reading for the Feast of Pentecost. These are some of our most cherished days in the life of the Church.
But there’s more! Every year during the season of Lent, we sing the passage that we just heard tonight; we sing it at the announcement of the Gospel reading each week. And that song is our theme for today: Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
What I learned this week about the prophet Joel, I pass on you, dear people of God. Joel is unlike the other prophets because he speaks so broadly. The other prophets deal with specific sins and with specific kings and with specific tragedies that the nation faces. But on the other hand, Joel speaks to everybody. The prophet Joel speaks to you.
As I prepared for this text, I noticed that there are five verbs that define Joel’s message. The five verbs are these: RETURN, RELENT, WORSHIP, SPARE, AND SEND. It’s actually pretty easy to memorize because the first two words start with “r.” And the last two words start with “s.” And right in the middle is the word we all know, “Worship.”
And I think that this passage in Joel is so famous because it expresses to us our lives in this world as Christians. The first thing that we must do is RETURN! Our text declares, “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” There are any number of reasons that people leave the church, and there are any number of reasons that we forsake our God. But here it is clear: Joel calls us to return to the Lord with all of our heart.
No, God does not want robots, followers that obey at all times. Actually our God wants us to love Him. Our God wants us to return home to the church. Our God wants us to return completely. Fasting can sometimes help us to refocus on our Lord. Certainly, weeping and mourning are common experiences in our human lives that often cause us to seek out Jesus. Finally, the last phrase is one of the best known: Rend your hearts and not your garments. The Lord does not want nakedness for its own sake. The Lord really wants repentance and faith.
As it says in the passage for our theme this evening, 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. Dear people of God, we do not return to a hateful God. We do not return to a God who kills us. When we return to the Lord, He is gracious and merciful. When we return to the Lord, He is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
That is our God. And He is our God who relents over disaster. That brings us to the second verb of our text tonight: RELENT! Joel declares to us these words, 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? These are magnificent words. Have we not seen it with our own eyes that God relents? Consider Noah, that when God destroyed the whole earth, He kept Noah alive.
Consider the slaves in Egypt, that after 400 hundred years, the Lord delivered His people out of certain destruction. Consider Nineveh, a city that did not deserve God’s mercy, and yet the Lord relented and did not destroy that city. Consider Jesus, that God relented and sent His own Son to give grace and to forgive sins and to save souls by His death on the cross.
This is why Joel calls us all to worship the gracious and merciful Lord. The next verb in our reading tonight is WORSHIP! Isn’t this the natural response in our Christian lives? We returned, and by God’s grace, God relented and did not punish us. Now it is time to acknowledge the Lord and to believe in Him. What I love about this passage is that when the people of Israel worship, they ALL worship. Listen to the detail of the procession of people who worship our Lord. Joel says, Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; 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. While we usually think of repentance in a personal way, Joel shows to us what repentance of an entire congregation looks like. Usually we focus on our own hearts and souls and what God has done for “me,” but here are words that remind us that the whole congregation returns and the God relents from disaster for all the people in the Church. We all gather together and worship the Lord.
And at that service, the priests preach, SPARE! What better sermon can we imagine than a “spare us O Lord!” sermon? Joel has moved us from Law to Gospel, then to worship and to preaching. Consider and imagine what a moment this was for God’s people. Joel writes, Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests weep and say, “Spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. When the preachers preach the fervent prayer of the people, that is much greater than torn clothes. When the preacher preach the fervent faith of God’s people, that is much better than a burnt offering.
This is our life as Christians. That the Holy Spirit calls us by the Gospel, enlightens us with His gifts, and sanctifies and keeps us in the one true faith. This is the beauty of our faith that day by day we return and repent. And that God loves us dearly. That the Lord relented and that He Himself delivered us from all the evils in this world. What Joel has preached we have heard and believed this evening.
What then is the final verb of our text? SEND! It is most common throughout the Scriptures that our hearts are changed completely and that we fervently follow the Lord. And it is just as common that the Lord sends us blessings that we do not deserve because He loves us. Consider these words from Joel’s passage this evening, “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.” What a Lord that we have! For the Christian life is never easy, and many times we have to start over believing in God and living for Him. But on the journey God will provide for us all that we need to support this body and life.
Why? That’s simple. Our God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. So as often as we sing this in the liturgy, and as often as we worship in this sanctuary, and as often as we return to this Lord, let us remember who our God is and how He has changed our hearts to the fervent faith that we have because of His grace and mercy.
In the holy name of Jesus. Amen.
Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog
The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack
Rev. James Peterson
St. John Lutheran Church
Curtis, Nebraska
©2025 James Peterson. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@msn.com
