Joel 2:23-32

23 Be glad, people of Zion,
rejoice in the LORD your God,
for he has given you
the autumn rains in righteousness.
He sends you abundant showers,
both autumn and spring rains, as before.
24 The threshing floors will be filled with grain;
the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.
25 "I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—
the great locust and the young locust,
the other locusts and the locust swarm ^[a]—
my great army that I sent among you.
26 You will have plenty to eat, until you are full,
and you will praise the name of the LORD your God,
who has worked wonders for you;
never again will my people be shamed.
27 Then you will know that I am in Israel,
that I am the LORD your God,
and that there is no other;
never again will my people be shamed.

The Day of the LORD

^[b] 28 "And afterward,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.
29 Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
30 I will show wonders in the heavens
and on the earth,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
31 The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.
32 And everyone who calls
on the name of the LORD will be saved;
for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
there will be deliverance,
as the LORD has said,
even among the survivors
whom the LORD calls.

The last week has been quite crazy for Californians and those who know and love them. The whole country has been caught up in the news of the fires which have swept across hundreds of miles of fields and cities. With the hot Santa Ana winds blowing in from the desert, the normally temperate 60 and 70 degree weather rose into the 90’s and 100’s. One spark from a tractor, one lightning strike, one fallen power line, one arsonist’s match exploded into a raging inferno. As 80-100 foot walls of flame approached homes, businesses, and fields, residents and firefighters alike fled.

Californians know that fires are disastrous. Only four years ago, we watched as fires engulfed 2,500 homes. As separate fires expanded, they joined together and flattened entire cities. Driving the once tree and house-lined streets, all you could see were charred remains and fallen ash. Houses were distinguishable only by the slight rises which had once been computers or refrigerators. Much of Southern California looks this way now. Houses that are being rebuilt from 2003 are threatened again, and crops are being destroyed.

Normally, as you drive along the valleys and coastline of Southern California, you pass miles of orchards, vineyards, and fruit fields. Now crops have burned. Over ½ of the avocado crop has burned. Apple, orange, and peach orchards, and strawberry fields have literally gone up in smoke.

It is right that as we wonder and fear the fires in California, our lectionary directs us to the book of Joel. Joel teaches us that both disasters and blessings reveal the glory of God.

As shocked and horrified as we have been during the fires of the past week, Joel was prophesying an even greater destruction in Israel. Before the passage we read this morning, Joel describes an invasion of locusts and calls the people to lament. Locusts can hatch and move through an area in numbers of thousands per square yard eating every living plant. Joel says that the first locusts came through and ate the plants, and a second, and a third, and a fourth wave swarmed through Israel eating whatever the group behind them had left. The vines were laid waste, fig trees were ruined, the bark was stripped off the trees, and the fields and grain were destroyed. Locusts leave a shortage of food in their wake, but four waves of locusts leave widespread famine in the land.

In the midst of the destruction, Joel calls on the priests and temple servants to put on sackcloth, the traditional mourning attire, and wail. They are to declare a holy fast and summon the elders and all the people to come to the house of God and cry out to the Lord. We understand Joel’s words, “To you, Lord, I call, for fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness and flames have burned up all the trees of the field. Even the wild animals pant for you; the streams of water have dried up and fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness.” (1:19-20)

As God responds to the people, we learn that God is at the head of the army of locusts calling the people to repent. The Lord declared, “Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.”

Our passage this morning is part of the Lord’s response to the fasting and praying of his people. “Be glad and rejoice in the Lord your God! for he has given you the autumn rains in righteousness. He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains as before. The threshing floors will be filled with grain; the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.” Rejoice. Rejoice? The land has been destroyed by the locusts, and the people and animals are starving. Rejoice? No crops means no seed. How will the people survive the coming year? Yes, rejoice. God will repay his people for the years the locusts have eaten, God’s army which God sent among the people.

God’s grace and mercy are abundant in the midst of his people Israel, for he will repay them for the years the locusts have eaten. God entered into a covenant with his people at Sinai after he led them out of Egypt and across the desert. God would be faithful to care for his people and bring them into their own land which would produce abundant crops. God would protect his people from the people groups around Israel, and he would make other nations afraid of Israel because of God’s presence and power among them. In return, Israel would love and worship God alone. They would obey his commandments and worship him faithfully, and as God’s people, they would be a light to the nations. Israel, however, stopped trusting God as soon as the covenant had been created. They turned to worship other gods, they were led astray by the people around them, and they stopped worshipping God and keeping his commandments. When Israel turned away, God brought armies or famines to discipline his people and call them back, and he was always faithful. He never left the midst of his people in spite of their unfaithfulness.

When the people repent and turn to God, he promises to repay them for the years the locusts ate. In spite of the people’s failures, God sends his merciful gifts. The people, not God, are guilty for the famine. It is the people’s unfaithfulness which has required God to use the locusts to bring them back. Still, God repays Israel in abundance. God says that he is sending grain, new wine, and olive oil to satisfy the people. The threshing floors which were empty during the famine will be filled and the presses will overflow with oil and wine, and the people will praise God. They will know that God is present with his people and that there is no other god.

God continually has to teach and train his people to love and serve only the Lord. Joel’s proclamation that the people will know that God is “in Israel, that [he] is the Lord your God, and that there is no other” (vs27) hearkens back to God’s redemption of Israel in the Exodus. The Exodus is the defining event in Israel’s history, and it reveals God’s presence to both Israel and Egypt alike.

When God promised that he would deliver Israel from the hand of Pharaoh, he proclaimed, “I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.” (Ex 6:6c-7)

God also sent Moses to Pharaoh, declaring that the Egyptians will know that the Lord is God when he performs signs and wonders in their midst. (Ex 7:5) Even though the Israelites had been living and worshipping God in Egypt for generations, the Egyptians did not recognize the Lord as God. Ten times God manifest his power in Egypt, by turning the waters to blood, bringing forth frogs, gnats, and flies, and finally the death of the firstborn children. Only through the 10 signs did the Egyptians recognize the authority of the Lord.

It seems that even hundreds of years of God’s presence in Israel had not taught them to trust only God, but God promises that after the terrible day of the Lord, his people will know that the Lord is their God and they will never again be put to shame. Israel will finally worship and trust God alone for their strength and salvation. They will know both the power of his armies and the majesty of his gracious provisions.

As Israel learns to trust God alone forever, they will become like the prophets in Israel. “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.” (v28-29) Joel, and the other true prophets in Israel, were the men and women who served God even when the rest of Israel was worshipping other Gods. They listened to God’s voice and spoke his words to the people to call them back from their idolatry. The prophets proclaimed both God’s judgment on and God’s restoration of Israel. They knew the Lord and walked with him. God’s Spirit was poured out on the prophets, speaking God’s word to them. God knew his prophets and his prophets knew him.

God’s promise to send his Spirit on all people, both male and female, young and old, rich and poor, means that God’s people will hear his voice. They will follow him and speak his word to the rest of the world. Even when others turn away from God, his people will worship him faithfully.

In that day, God says that he will perform wonders in the heavens and on earth, “blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” The world as we assume it is, the natural laws which science teaches to our children, become void in the hands of the creator. God’s wonders vividly display his power and majesty for all to see. The wonders are more evidence to convince us that the Lord is our God and there is no other.

And if we doubted that these are signs to us, we can be reassured by their parallels in the Exodus account. The first sign God performed in Egypt was turning all of the waters to blood. Normally clean drinking water and abundant water for crops became undrinkable and toxic blood. In the last sign before the Passover, God turned the skies dark for three days. None of the Egyptians were able to see or move about while the sun was darkened. And the fire and billows of smoke are reminders of the Passover when the people slaughtered a lamb and roasted it over the fire. While the fire also displays God’s presence among his people: when the Egyptians chased the Israelites out of Egypt, God appeared in pillar of fire between them, so Israel could safely cross the desert.

Joel proclaims the word of the Lord as the anticipation of future events where God’s people will finally trust him alone, but the New Testament proclaims the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy. At the crucifixion, the skies turned dark from noon until 3:00 in the afternoon, and on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out on the church. Both men and women proclaimed the arrival of the kingdom of God and called Israel and Rome to serve Christ as their Lord. They proclaimed his resurrection and recounted his teachings and miracles.

We have seen the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and we can rest in the promise that we will never again be put to shame. Though the world tries to silence and shame the church by killing her prophets, their deaths are witnesses to the world of God’s presence in the midst of his church. In 2 Timothy 4, Paul tells us from prison, “For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day – and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” (4:6-8) Paul has faithfully served God and proclaimed the resurrected Jesus Christ to the world. He knows that his death will not put him to shame put will be a further witness to the majesty of God. And we who faithfully follow in Paul’s footsteps in following Christ and proclaiming the power of his resurrection will also declare that we have fought the good fight, we have finished the race, we have kept the faith. Praise be to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.