Text: Joel 2:12-19
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
Remember, O man.
Remember the Word of the Lord: “Return to the Lord, your God, for He is
gracious and merciful,” as says the prophet Joel. Joel was originally preaching to the Israelites,
warning them of the coming disaster if they did not repent, but assuring them
of God’s grace to those who would indeed “return.” And the prophet continues to preach that God
is “slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over
disaster.”
How often we forget that disasters are not merely the work of nature, or of
world leaders, or of the devil, but that God permits “disaster” as a way to
discipline us: His chosen and beloved people.
God permitted the northern kingdom of Israel to fall for the sake of the
remnant in the southern kingdom of Judah.
God permitted Judah to be taken captive to Babylon so that idolatry
might be purged away, and a faithful remnant would return. God permitted that remnant to reject our Lord
Jesus Christ so that people of all nations might be made disciples through the redemptive
washing of renewal of Holy Baptism and the wondrous and mighty preaching of the
Gospel, dear friends.
And so we should listen to Joel, for his preaching is the very Word of God.
We
have lived through, and continue to struggle with, various disasters in our own
time. The entire world has struggled
with the pandemic, its aftermath by those in power, and now the threat of world
war. The church struggles with assaults
from the world, both from the outside: threats of fines, of jail, and even of
death at the hands of ungodly governments, as well as disasters within the
church: from those in authority in our ecclesiastical hierarchy and in various
church institutions, like our universities.
We need to listen to the preaching of Joel, which is, God’s Word, dear friends,
both the severity of the Law, and the sweetness of the Gospel. We are not merely victims of unrighteous politicians
and bureaucrats. We are perpetrators of
disaster on ourselves: by our own faithlessness, by our sinfulness, by our
laxity when it comes to the Word of God.
Disaster has a way of calling us out of our mindless obsession with the
passing pleasures of this world, and refocusing us to what Jesus called the
“one thing that is necessary.”
For in returning to the Lord, Joel asks: “Who knows whether He will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him.” Indeed, we don’t know the hidden will of God. But the Lord does offer us hope – and not merely hope in this fallen world, where the Word of God is trodden on, and where warfare rages, where those in power abuse the Bride of Christ – but in eternity, where the promise of God is given to us by means of the cross, in Word and Sacrament, in receiving the Gospel of forgiveness, where the disaster of eternal condemnation is turned away relentlessly in favor of grace and mercy and redemption.
“Blow the trumpet,” says Joel, and “consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly.” We have done this not with trumpets, but with bells. We have called you together, dear friends. We are consecrating the congregation and assembling the elders, the children, and “even nursing infants” to remember.
“Remember, O man, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” And we also call you from the eldest to the youngest to remember your baptism, for you are redeemed, O man, by water and the Spirit, through the cross of your Lord, who died for you, so that God will relent, and eternal disaster is averted in favor of “everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.”
Joel
continues to speak to us by the Spirit’s inspiration, to pastors and to people,
“between the vestibule and the altar, let the priests, the ministers of the
Lord, weep and say, ‘Spare Your people, O Lord, and make not Your heritage a
reproach, a byword among the nations.’”
All of God’s people take up this prayer that the world should repent of its mockery: “Where is their God?”, but rather see the Lord’s jealousy and His “pity on His people.”
For we know that He hears our prayers, dear friends. The ashes of repentance on your forehead are stuck to you by means of oil – the same oil with which we anoint the newly baptized, as a reminder of the Anointed One, our Lord Jesus Christ. And those ashes of repentance, and that baptismal oil, bear the shape and sign of the holy cross: a memento not only that you will return to mortal dust, but also a reminder of our Lord’s complete and total defeat of death at the cross, and His glorious resurrection and promise that makes us sing: “Though I lie in dust and ashes / Faith’s assurance brightly flashes: / Baptism has the strength divine / To make life immortal mine.”
Joel’s preaching of the Law leads us to the Gospel, to the Good News of Christ, dear friends, to hope in the midst of disaster, and to joy in the midst of sorrow, to forgiveness in the midst of sin, and life eternal in the midst of death temporal. “The Lord answered and said to His people, ‘Behold, I am sending you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations.”
Come out of the Babylon of this world, dear friends, from the rottenness of our culture, from its crass and vile depravity that surrounds even Christian people on our televisions and screens, in our speech and actions, in the way we present ourselves to the world, in our eagerness to be accepted, in our compromises with the devil, in our forgetfulness of God and His Word, of the cross, and our Lord’s passion and death. And most of all, let us turn away from the disaster of our forgetfulness of the blessings and promises of God: the grain and wine of the sacrament of the altar, and the oil of Holy Baptism, and the preaching of the Word by which “you will be satisfied.”
Come out of Babylon, dear brothers and sisters, and indeed, let us “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. 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?”
Remember, O man.
Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment