1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word on this Ash Wednesday is taken from Joel 2:12-19. It’s entitled, “Return to the Lord, Who is Gracious.” Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. It begins as a distant hum and a shadow on the horizon. The sound grows until it becomes overwhelming. The shadow darkens until the sun disappears. Countless generations around the world knew exactly what it meant. A plague of locusts—what we would call grasshoppers—is coming, and death and destruction are coming with it. Though few of us have lived through such an attack, go back a generation or two, and they knew it all too well. Go to certain parts of the globe today, and they still know it all too well.
3. Your parents or grandparents would have known a plague of locusts. The deafening buzz, the darkened sky, hairs standing on end from the vibration on your skin—and it all meant DEATH! We have our pesticides, but for generations before us, there was no escaping the deadly destruction created by a plague of locusts. They consume everything. Everything you’ve planted, everything you expected your family to eat, everything upon which you depended to keep you alive for the next year—it’s all gone. When you know what a plague of locusts can do, all it takes is the faint hum and slight change in color on the horizon to strike fear. As fear mounts, hope departs. Where can you turn? You turn to the Lord. When all seems hopeless, the Lord brings hope as He calls you to return.
4. The Lord inspired his prophet Joel to warn his people of an impending horde. Joel proclaims: “What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten” (1:4). Joel is delivering more than a lesson on various locusts. The stockpiling of one type of locust upon another heightens the hopelessness. From the cutting locust to the swarming locust to the hopping locust to the destroying locust—as soon as one wave passes another comes. The destruction will be complete.
5. Why would the Lord allow such destruction to be visited on his people? To call them to repentance. They have pinned their hopes on that which can’t deliver. They have trusted in that which will fail them. And the stakes are even higher than ruined crops. This is but a picture of the end-times judgment. Locusts threaten earthly life and bring distress that passes in time. Joel warns the people of the Lord that judgment is coming that brings eternal death. Joel proclaims: “The day of the Lord is great and very awesome; who can endure it?” (2:11). The answer: No one can!
6. This is the difficult context into which the familiar words of Ash Wednesday are set. Every year when Lent arrives, you can count on the voice of the Lord through his prophet Joel. “Return to the Lord, your God” (v 13). “Return” is a standard Hebrew verb for repentance. But it also has a common usage that describes repentance. It commonly means “turn.” That is repentance—turning away from sin.
7. Joel is not only calling his contemporaries to turn away from sin. He’s calling you as well. Your sin is unique to you. Temptation got the better of you today in one way, and it got the better of me in a different way. But there is still commonality with our sin. It always involves trusting in something else more than the Lord. The question each of us must ask is this: “Upon what have I pinned my hopes rather than upon the Lord?”
8. There’s nothing new under the sun. You fall prey to the same temptations that have bombarded all generations that have come before. Joel didn’t name specific sins for which judgment was coming at that time, but their sin was in line with ours. Common among the prophets is condemnation because of financial prosperity. The problem isn’t money. All that we enjoy is a gift from God. The problem is when the gift becomes the focus of our hope rather than putting our hope in the giver. When that happens, hope changes with the financial times. But when hope is pinned to the giver, to the Lord, then hope is complete.
9. The temptation is ever present to pin your hopes to financial prosperity. It happens personally. Just like the family that is devastated by an army of locusts wiping out their crops and along with it their financial stability, so you have known the fear of having your financial security ripped away. A job is lost. Savings are wiped out by unexpected medical bills. The economy turns south and along with it your client base. Such loss is all too real. The Lord is not distant to your loss. But when the loss exposes that your trust was in your financial security rather than in him who provides it, his call is clear. Turn from your sin. Put not your hope in that which will fail.
10. It happens corporately as well. It happens to us collectively in the church. When things are humming along, when the annual budget is running in the black, we’re at ease. But when there’s red ink, when there’s talk of “reduction in force,” then there’s tension. “How will we keep afloat?” And then the accusations begin. “It’s the pastor’s fault; he’s not charismatic enough.” “It’s because of the cold reception visitors receive from those in the pews.” “It’s the lack of generosity and sacrificial giving among some members.” That’s what happens when you pin your hope to the idol of financial prosperity. As soon as the tide of finances ebbs, we turn against one another. But with the idol gone, you can hear the voice of the Lord, “Turn from your sin.” You are called to live in dependence on the Lord. Your hopes will be dashed when they’re grounded upon what will not last. So, Joel proclaims, “Turn from your sin.”
11. Joel knows that turning from sin is also a return to the Lord. Listen again to Joel’s familiar words for Ash Wednesday: “Return to the Lord” (v 13). You aren’t just turning away from death and destruction. You are called to return to the life and joy of him who is your true hope and who is worthy of your trust.
12. God is worthy of your trust and hope because of his character. Listen to Joel. “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” (Joel 2:13). This is the kind of God you have. He is not cruel. He is not filled with unending anger. He is the opposite. He is gracious and compassionate, “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Ps 145:8). This is not only his character. It’s his very identity.
13. It goes back to Exodus 34. Moses is up on Mount Sinai after he had smashed the tablets of stone upon which the Lord had written the Ten Commandments. Moses is saddened by the idolatry of the people. He has every reason to expect that the Lord will be full of anger. So, the Lord reveals to Moses who he truly is. He hides Moses in the cleft of a rock so that his holiness doesn’t kill Moses. And then he passes by Moses, allowing him to look upon the Lord’s back. As he passes by, the Lord proclaims his name. When you have the Lord’s name, you have him. His name bears his identity. As he passes by Moses, the Lord proclaims his name saying, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex 34:6).
14. That is the eternal identity of the Lord. He proclaims and he reveals his gracious nature in Christ. If you want to see who the Lord is, look at Jesus. Moses looked upon the Lord’s back. You look upon Christ. He won’t hesitate to point out your sin, wherever you’ve pinned your hopes other than in him, and call you to turn from them. But that is all so you might hear Christ say, “Return to me!” You know what you’ll find in him. You’ll find that he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
15. You’ll see his gracious character throughout Lent. You’ll see it as we continue to hear him say, “Return to me!” And each week we’ll hear why his call to return is so blessedly beautiful. You’ll hear him constantly calling you to turn from destruction that you might return to him.
16. You’ll see his gracious character throughout Lent as you follow Jesus to the cross. Christ’s suffering and death reveals his very being by how he responds to your sin. He calls you to repentance, but he also dies that you might be free of that sin. There at the cross, you will see destruction, but from it flows hope—a certain hope that can’t be shaken. So, even when all seems hopeless, there is hope in the Lord who dies for you!
17. Joel sees the army of locusts on the horizon, but he proclaims hope. You see financial destruction, not just on the horizon, but right here and now. But, there is hope. Hope has a name—the Lord Jesus, a God gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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