Encore Post: The Jewish people prospered under the rule of Ptolemy and his descendants in Egypt. For a while, they ruled Palestine and more or less allowed the Jews to govern themselves. However, the Ptolemies lost Palestine in a war with the Seleucids — descendants of the Greek ruler of Syria, Babylon, and Persia. At first, the Seleucids continued the policy of the Ptolemies. However, King Antiochus IV Epiphanes decided to unify his empire under Greek culture.
Antiochus intervened in a civil war between Hellenizing Jews (those who favored adopting Greek culture) and traditional Jews, who favored obedience to the law of God. He outlawed Judaism and enforced it with severe persecution. He executed women who allowed their sons to be circumcised, forced Jews to sacrifice to Greek gods and take part in their festivals, and forced the eating of unclean foods. The last straw for the Jews, however, was when he erected an altar to Zeus in the Holy of Holies in the temple, sacrificed pigs to it, and brought temple prostitution into it.
The Jews rebelled under the direction of the priest Matthias and his sons, Judas and Simon. They became known by the nickname Maccabees (“hammer”), and the story of the war of independence they fought is told in the apocryphal books of 1 and 2 Maccabees. The festival of Hanukkah celebrates the rededication of the temple after it had been cleansed of the pagan altars and sacrifices by the Maccabees.
For one hundred years, more or less, the Jews ruled themselves under the descendants of Matthias, known as the Hasmoneans. They gained neighboring territories, including the Galilee. Jews from Judea, including towns like Bethlehem, resettled these areas. Likely, the great-grandparents and grandparents of Mary and Joseph were among them.
Note: This series of blog posts is available as a Kindle book and eventually as a print booklet at: Amazon.com: Preparation for the Gospel. Please note the author makes a small profit on the sale of this book.
Encore Post: Ptolemy I, one of Alexander the Great’s generals, claimed the throne of Egypt and painted a layer of Greek culture over the top of Pharaonic Egypt. He claimed he was a true pharaoh, which also his heirs did. He assumed the gods, trappings, and some customs of ancient Egypt. His dynasty lasted until the death of his descendant, Cleopatra, and the Roman conquest of Egypt.
His son, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, enriched the capital of Alexandria, building the two great wonders of the world — the lighthouse of Pharos, which guided navigation on the Mediterranean Sea for nearly 100 miles until its destruction in the 14th Century, and the Ancient Library of Alexandria. He became an aggressive collector of books, including the searching of incoming ships. Copies of these books were made, and the copy was given to the owner. The originals ended up in the Library of Alexandria. According to tradition, Ptolemy II commissioned the translation of the Old Testament into Greek. Known as the Septuagint and abbreviated LXX, this translation was quoted by the writers of the New Testament when they mentioned the Old Testament.
The Ptolemies were defenders of the Jewish people. As a result, the largest Jewish population outside of Israel settled in Alexandria. One of these Jews, Philo of Alexandria, became the most prominent philosopher of Judaism in ancient times.
God prepared the way for His Son when He installed the Ptolemies. They provided a home for his people where they could be safe, learn Greek culture, and be introduced to the Scriptures. With the translation of the Septuagint, he provided the Apostles with a tool accessible to the pagan world around them, where the church grew and thrived.
Note: This series of blog posts is available as a Kindle book and eventually as a print booklet at: Amazon.com: Preparation for the Gospel. Please note the author makes a small profit on the sale of this book.
Encore Post: Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia, one of the greatest generals in history, reigned in Macedonia and Greece beginning in 336 B.C. and reigned until 323 B.C. He conquered Greece, Persia, Egypt, and Palestine. As a student of Aristotle, he had a vision of extending the Greek language and culture throughout his lands and merging the peoples of his empire into a unified nation. At his death, the vision of a single empire died, but three large kingdoms, ruled by his generals and their heirs, emerged and established Greek culture throughout the Western world.
In 277 B.C., after years of civil war, the empire was divided into three hereditary kingdoms: one under Ptolemy in Egypt, Macedonia and Greece under Antigonus II, and the Seleucid Empire in Syria, Palestine, and Asia. These kingdoms shared the same language, Koine (Common) Greek, the same culture, philosophy, love of learning, and a similar appreciation for sports. Even the up-and-coming Roman Republic, which came early to absorb Greek colonies in southern Italy, came to appreciate much of Greek culture and to use common Greek to communicate with other nations.
God used Alexander and the Greeks, then, to prepare the way for the birth of his Son. Jesus may have taught in Greek and communicated in Greek. The New Testament was written in that language, and it used the Greek translation of the Old Testament when quoting Scripture. Paul also employed this language and its common culture to share the Good News of salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Because of this common culture, the disciples of Jesus established the church throughout the entire Roman world within one generation.
Note: This series of blog posts is available as a Kindle book and eventually as a print booklet at: Amazon.com: Preparation for the Gospel. Please note the author makes a small profit on the sale of this book.
Encore Post: When the Babylonians conquered Judah, destroyed the temple and the walls of Jerusalem, and carried off most of her people into exile, the people had a crisis of faith. How could they worship God without a temple where they could sacrifice? How could they relate to him at all? God sent prophets to help them work all this out. The result was the birth of a brand new religion — Judaism. A religion is a series of customs, duties, practices and rites that people do to serve their god or gods. It is a culture, really. God used Judaism as a place where true faith in him could be planted, nurtured, and grow, even when there was no temple, sacrificial system, and functioning priesthood to support it.
Judaism — especially the party of the Pharisees — was built on a devotion to the Torah. They read it, taught it, and even vowed to practice traditions that kept them from ever violating the commandments it teaches. To prevent accidental violation of a particular commandment, the Rabbis taught that you should follow a tradition stricter than the Law requires. So, for example, to avoid taking the name of the Lord in vain, they did not pronounce the name of God at all, but said Adonai — my Lord — instead. This practice is called “building a hedge around the Torah.”
During the exile, wherever ten men were available to worship (called a minyan), Jews would gather to pray on the Sabbath. These congregations became known by the Greek word “Synagogue” (“coming together”). When they built houses of prayer, these buildings became known as synagogues. By New Testament times, the worship service had settled into a pattern of saying the Shema (“Hear, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one”), prayer, readings from the Torah and the prophets, a sermon, and a benediction.
When Cyrus the Great ended the exile, not all Jews returned home. Some stayed in Babylon and Persia; others moved to Greece, Rome, and other parts of the world. The synagogue accompanied them, along with different aspects of Judaism. In these events, God prepared the world for the ministry of Jesus, the apostles, and especially the Apostle Paul.
Note: This series of blog posts is available as a Kindle book and will eventually be published as a print booklet on Amazon.com: Preparation for the Gospel. Please note that the author makes a small profit on the sale of this book.
[Forty-Fifth in a series of posts on Bible Stories] Encore Post: The people of Judah had returned from exile in Babylon. Through the Persian ruler Cyrus, the people had resettled in the promised land. They rebuilt the temple, although not nearly to the glory of Solomon’s Temple. They rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem — and their lives. And then the people felt forgotten and isolated, a small province of a vast and worldwide foreign empire. God sent the prophet Malachi. His name means Messenger, Angel.
Malachi assured Judah of God’s love, calling on them to repent, especially the priests. He then lifted their eyes to look towards the future. He would send another Malachi — a messenger — Elijah, to prepare the way of the Lord. He would turn their hearts to each other, so that the Lord would not need to destroy them completely. With that, the voices of the prophets fell silent. It would be at least four hundred years before God would speak through a prophet again.
The people would not forget this time. They would bring together all the prophecies and types of the Messiah and his Malachi — Messenger. They came to look for an earthly kingdom and the day of the Lord. And so they missed the return of the Prophets — a Son of Levi and David — a second Zechariah and his son, the last and greatest prophet. But that is another story!
While God was silent, he was not absent or idle. In the time between the testaments, God began to prepare the ground for his prophets — and for his Son. The next few posts will delve into the methods he employed.
[Forty-Third in a series of posts on Bible Stories] In the years and generations following the initial return from exile, Jerusalem was still a shell of its former self. The city had few inhabitants. The evidence of Jerusalem’s destruction was everywhere. Jerusalem was still a dump of rubble. To make it worse, the city had no continuous wall around it.
Nehemiah was a descendant of the tribe of Judah, who still lived in Susa and worked for the Persians some generations after Cyrus decreed the Jews could return to Jerusalem. In the twentieth year of Artaxerxes’ reign, Nehemiah received his brother Hanani, along with other men who had returned from Judah.
Their message was stark: “Those who went back are in trouble and great shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.” That news cut Nehemiah to the heart, and he broke down into prayer. Nehemiah took on the role of mediator. Like Moses many centuries before him, and Daniel of more recent memory, Nehemiah confessed the sins of the people of Israel to God. He acknowledges how horrible Israel had acted against God and asks Him for mercy (Nehemiah 1:7-11). After his prayer, Nehemiah writes, “Now I was cupbearer to the king.”
Serving as cupbearer gives Nehemiah unrivalled access to King Artaxerxes. The king could see Nehemiah’s feelings on his face. Nehemiah requested permission to inspect Jerusalem. He wanted to rebuild it. Similar to Cyrus, Artaxerxes not only allows him but also sends him with proper letters and orders to cut wood for the gates of the temple and the walls. In fact, Nehemiah became the governor of the region.
However, life was not easy for Nehemiah. He faced opposition from Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite from the very beginning. These men desired to see Jerusalem continually in a state of disrepair. However, Nehemiah trusted the Lord was with him in the work he desired to accomplish. Nehemiah says it this way: “The good hand of my God was upon me.” Under Nehemiah, the wall was rebuilt, but it was not easy. They faced opposition the entire time. In the fourth chapter of his book, Nehemiah describes how the workers carried a sword on their side and took shifts, working or holding spears in case of an attack.
Nehemiah’s book is not simply about the wall, though; Nehemiah also discusses the efforts he made to care for the poor in Jerusalem. The nobles were committing the same sins as their fathers, or worse. The poor were being sold as slaves. Nehemiah put an end to that. He did not exact the food allowance usually granted to a governor.
The book ends with Nehemiah’s last reforms, one of which probably sounds harsh to our modern ears: the Jews divorcing foreign wives. However, from a theological perspective, we might be able to understand this. Nehemiah feared the people might fall into the idolatrous past of their ancestors. This concern seems valid as the priesthood had become corrupted, for one priest was the son-in-law of Nehemiah’s opponent, Sanballat the Horonite.
Now you might wonder what is “Christian” about Nehemiah? There is plenty. We can and should see Nehemiah as a Christ-figure. He is zealous for Jerusalem. He wants the city to be secure. He also faced great opposition. He even faced false witnesses who said that Nehemiah had set himself up as king. Nehemiah was not a king, though he was from the tribe of Judah. He was also a very devout follower of the LORD. Nehemiah helped Jerusalem celebrate the Feast of Booths, and Nehemiah 9 is one of the most thorough “creeds” found in the Old Testament.
Finally, the wall itself needed to be built so that Jesus could die outside its gates. One of the charges against Jesus was that he was a rebellious son. Deuteronomy 21 tells what should happen to a rebellious son: he should be brought to the elders at the gate, and there they shall stone him. While Jesus was not stoned, he was hung on a tree. That tree was outside the gates of Jerusalem.
[Fortieth in a series of posts on Bible Stories; First in a series of posts on Zechariah] The prophet Zechariah may not be as well-known as Isaiah or Jeremiah, but the authors of the Gospels in the New Testament frequently allude to Zechariah. In fact, scholars argue that Zechariah, after Psalms and Isaiah, is the next most alluded to book of the Old Testament.
Zechariah’s ministry is a full-throated proclamation of the coming Messiah, though you might not catch all the images that Zechariah draws upon to speak of Him and His coming. Let’s start at the beginning and work through the book and acknowledge some of the images that proclaim the work of Jesus.
The very name Zechariah bears great meaning: YHWH (The LORD) Remembers. Zechariah begins his book by telling us when the Word of the LORD came to him. It was in the days of King Darius, following Cyrus’s call for the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple (Ezra 1:2, 2 Chronicles 36:22-23). Ezra tells us that Joshua, the High Priest, and Zerubbabel, the appointed governor (and descendant of David), oversaw the rebuilding of the altar (Ezra 3). Yet, it appears that at the time of Zechariah’s ministry, the temple rebuilding was not yet complete.
The Lord God called two men to serve as His mouthpieces during those days: Haggai and Zechariah. They both speak about the rebuilding of the Temple. Zechariah’s book begins with the people acknowledging they were falling into the same temptations and sins of their fathers. Zechariah recalls the very words of 2 Kings 17:13 and exhorts the remnant to differ from their fathers and believe the Word being spoken in their hearing.
Zechariah served the Lord when much of the Old Testament was already written, meaning he had many of the books (save for Malachi, who follows his ministry) at his disposal. I will do my best to highlight when Zechariah alludes to or quotes other passages of the Old Testament. I will also mention when the NT authors dive into Zechariah.
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
I know that you are familiar with blue-colored paraments for the season of Advent and purple-colored paraments for the season of Lent, as you see here. But did you know that there are pink colored paraments? Or rather, I should say that we do not call it pink, but we call it “Rose.” You may not be aware of it as far as paraments go, but you are aware of it in terms of the Advent wreath. We have three candles that are blue and one that is rose.
Why do I bring this up? Well, there are two Sundays in the Church Year where “Rose” is the color of the day. One of those Sundays is in Advent, when we light the rose candle. And the other Sunday was this past Sunday during the season of Lent. This practice is meant to emphasize “rejoicing” and “joy.”
And it is especially important during the season of Lent. Lent is well-known as a repentant season, sackcloth and ashes and the whole bit. But right in the middle of the season is this message of joy. In the middle of the forty-day fast is a moment of feasting, of rejoicing at what the Lord has done for us.
The text from Zechariah for us today fits perfectly during this particular week. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Rejoice, o people of God! Again, I say, Rejoice! Break the fast! Worship the Lord. Serve the Lord with gladness. This message from Zechariah is so different in tone from all the rest of the Minor Prophets that we have read and pondered this year. While we did hear the words of Micah that prophesied about Jesus’ birth, today we hear the words of Zechariah that prophesy that Jesus will die.
Or rather, we hear about the arrival of the king, a king who we know is about to die. Zechariah says, Behold, your king is coming to you;righteous and having salvation is he,humble and mounted on a donkey,on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Dear people of God, you hear these words every year on Palm Sunday, and that day is surely drawing nigh for us in a week and a half. The King, greater than David, greater than Solomon, greater than Herod, is coming to you. I ask you, would you be excited if the President was coming to your house? I imagine you would want to clean the house and prepare the grounds for his arrival. That would be a big deal for any one of us.
And we would probably ask, Why is the President coming? I just mind my own business, I just work on my farm. But that is the point. The King is coming to earth to save. The King is coming for you. But this is where our preparations would go overboard. If we were expecting the king, we would plan the best food and have the best furniture for him. But your Lord is so much different than a President. Your Lord is in fact a humble King, one who rides on a donkey, and a small one at that. I mean, this is no bullet-proof motorcade. The King Jesus comes riding on a donkey, and His donkey would probably love to meet your donkey.
In fact, the Lord God does not come to earth to fight. He is not a King of war, but of peace. A King of war would come with sword and shield and helmet, but your King comes to you to bring peace. Zechariah says this in a few ways when he says of the Lord, I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations. In other words, Jesus the King is coming to end the battle between Jacob and Esau. He comes to earth to end the war between Cain and Abel. When you think of these words of Zechariah, remember what Pilate asks Jesus “Are you the King of the Jews?” And Jesus says, “My kingdom is not of this world.” Jesus the King does not come to wage war and to gain territory. Jesus the King came to earth to bring peace and to save souls.
His kingdom shall be the whole earth. His kingdom shall be saved and they shall believe in Him. That is what he means when he says, His rule shall be from sea to sea,and from the River to the ends of the earth. Too often, we think only about ourselves, like the people of Israel did. All they wanted was a political leader. Instead they received a heavenly leader. And we too want a political leader for our nation, one that will bring peace to nations and one that will protect us from the enemy. And yet this reading for today tells us in a word that God so loved the world, from sea to sea, from the River to the ends of the earth.
He came for all people regardless of who they are. And he comes to save. That is something to rejoice greatly about. That is something to shout aloud to those who will hear it. But do not forget. Your King is coming for you, to make you His Christian subject. Your King is coming humble for you to ride with Him to heaven.
know, Your King has already come to earth to shed His blood and by that blood to bring peace and to set the prisoners free. Hear the Word of the Lord: As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. In case you did not know, the “waterless pit” is instead the pit of fire, or rather the depths of hell. And your King by His Blood has rescued you from it and set you free.
And His sermon to you is simply this: Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope! Return to the church and sing. Return to the sanctuary and be at peace. Return and rejoice! For you are right now prisoners of hope. You live in the world, but have been set free to live in heaven forever. And you have no more enemies, for you today hope in the Lord who has come for you and who has promised to come again for you and me and for all those who believe.
Behold, your king is coming for you, humble and riding on a donkey.Rejoice and be glad. Eternity is yours.
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The theme of today’s sermon is this: The Day of the Lord is certainly frightening, but not for us.
What will the Last Day be like? This is a natural question for all Christians. It comes up regularly. The rest of the Bible stories have happened already, and they have been written down. We have read them or heard about them, and we know them. There is nothing “frightening” about the stories about King David. He was king, and now he isn’t. History has moved on. But there is a genuine curiosity: what will the Last Day be like?
And there is something “frightening” about prophecy in general, because in some cases, the events foretold have not happened yet. In today’s case, Zephaniah reports to us in detail about the judgment side of the Day of the Lord. He speaks to those who have not obeyed the voice of the Lord and those who are not saved from the judgment. Zephaniah is a prophet at the same time as Jeremiah, and the two of them are facing a nation that has rebelled against God. Babylon will overthrow them.
And so, as you might imagine, these preachers were heavy on the Law and light on the Gospel. They were calling to repentance God’s own people, that they would believe in Him and trust in Him. There are four parts to Zephaniah’s message today.
There will be punishment.
There will be repentance.
God will find every soul.
God is the Lord.
First, there will be punishment. Zephaniah is like a father who wants his children to listen or like a teacher who wants the students to quiet down. Zephaniah says Be silent before the Lord God! This is not a time for prayers; this is not a time for singing and dancing. This is not a “Be still and know that I am God” moment. This is a “sit down, don’t talk, and listen to me” moment for Zephaniah to God’s people.
Zephaniah preaches: For the day of the Lord is near; the Lord has prepared a sacrifice and consecrated his guests. The prophet starts at church, as most preachers do. And for the people of that day and time, the day of the Lord was the Day of Atonement that we learned about in Leviticus 16. The day of the Lord was a holy day set aside for God’s work. And we think the same thing. That we come to church for God to work among us. That we come to church and that He consecrates us for His service in the world. That the Lord is the sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins.
But instead of promise, Zephaniah prophesies punishment. He says, “I will punish the officials and the king’s sonsand all who array themselves in foreign attire.I will punisheveryone who leaps over the threshold,and those who fill their master’s housewith violence and fraud. What we notice first is that Zephaniah blames the leadership. Don’t we know that to be true? As goes the leader, so goes the army. Or put another way, If the shepherd falls, the sheep will be scattered. Or even one more example, the sins of the father will be punished to the third and fourth generation, to his own wife and their children. Zephaniah rightly punishes the leadership for getting God’s people into this mess.
But you might ask, How did the leaders get the nation into this mess? Zephaniah claims that they “wore foreign attire” and “jumped over the thresholds.” Wearing foreign attire in this context does not mean wearing something made in China. What it means is that they were trying to live like the world. They were walking away from God and trusting in themselves. As to “jumping over thresholds,” this was a pagan religious practice of the Philistines. And the point of that is this: that the leaders were worshipping false gods and leading the people astray from the Old Testament Church.
That was the message that the people needed to hear. And they had to be silent and listen up to Zephaniah when he preached it. But on that day, the Day of the Lord that Zephaniah is talking about, it will not be silent. He says, “On that day a cry will be heard from the Fish Gate, a wail from the Second Quarter, a loud crash from the hills. Wail, O inhabitants of the Mortar! It is almost as if Zephaniah is waving his hands while he is preaching. For there are cries and wails and loud crashes in every direction. It would be the same as if I said, There is a cry from Farnam and there is wailing from Curtis, and there is a loud crash from Hayes Center. Wail, O inhabitants of Stockville!
This is not just screaming at the top of the lungs. This is repentant prayer or fearful prayers to God on the Last Day. The Lord shall return for judgment and, like I said at the beginning, it will be frightening, but not for us. We will not be screaming or wailing or worrying and running. We will be waiting and hoping and seeing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on that day. The day of the Lord surely is a day of punishment, but it is also a day of repentance and prayer. And for us, the day of the Lord is the day of great hope.
But what Zephaniah says next is my favorite part. For on that Day, God will find every soul. Like a shepherd looking for his lost sheep, God will search the world for believers. Like a father trying to find his children in the dark, our Lord shall check every house and every corner for those who are His. Like the angel of death at the Passover, the Lord will pass over our homes and spare us and deliver us from this valley of sorrow.
But for those who do not believe in God, Zephaniah says, At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the menwho are complacent. In other words, you cannot play hide-and-seek with God. Just ask Adam and Eve. The Lord finds every soul, both the sheep and the goats. And he will punish the self-righteous, complacent modern-day Pharisee characters of every nation. For they thought that heaven belonged to them because of their good works. But they rejected the good work that Jesus Christ did on the cross. They thought that they had riches enough to earn glory, but they will go away sorrowful like the rich, young ruler. For they reject that Christ for our sakes became poor so that we might become rich in grace and God’s mercy.
The Day of the Lord is certainly frightening, but not for us. The message is simple for us: On that Day, God is the Lord! We believe that because on that cross, Jesus Christ paid for our punishment and our guiltiness. Jesus Christ was both High Priest and sacrifice on that day of Atonement. He made the sacrifice because He is the sacrifice.
Instead of us, Jesus was punished by the men of foreign attire, Herod and Pilate and Caiaphas. At Jesus’ death, there was no leaping over thresholds, only the temple curtain torn in two and access to God made forever possible. The old religion was fulfilled and the new testament enacted in Christ’s own body and blood for the forgiveness of sins.
That day of the Lord when Jesus died on the cross extended far past the Fish Gate and way further than the Second Gate and up and down every hill on the earth. For the death and resurrection of Jesus changed the whole world then and now and forever.
And when God Himself shall search this house with lamps, He shall find us, quietly, patiently, fervently worshipping Him. He shall find His Church upon the earth here and there and throughout His creation. And we shall not be frightened, for the Lord comes back for us to take us home on the Last Day.
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.
