The Trumpet Call of Advent

Where do you go? Where do you turn when life falls apart?

Many circumstances, situations, and choices can cause our lives to implode. A terrible accident, a sudden and life-threatening illness, losing your job, insurance, and home, losing your spouse or a beloved member of the family to death or estrangement, losing a substantial portion of your retirement income in an economic downturn or stock market crash, succumbing to an all-consuming addiction (and they come in many forms, not just drugs, alcohol, or gambling), these are just a few of the woes that can befall us. Most of these calamities are not of our own making although our choices may contribute to their gravity.

When calamity strikes, what do we do? Where do we go? To whom do we turn?

Ancient Israel found herself in such a calamitous situation. The Book of Joel is notoriously difficult to date. There are no clear historical references in the text. The historical context seems to be in the land of Judah following the return of the Jews from Babylonian exile.

The Jews of the diaspora must have returned to the promised land with high hopes. They would rebuild Jerusalem, erect the walls of the city again, and construct a new temple for the LORD. But they had not counted on a natural disaster of unimagined proportions. “Hear this, O elders, give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your ancestors? Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation” (Joel 1:2-3).

A locust plague and a drought descended upon them all at once. In 2020 we have witnessed this kind of plague in East Africa and parts of the Middle East. Titanic swarms of desert locusts resembling dark storm clouds have descended on these regions ravenously devouring everything in their path. In ancient Israel, the fields were stripped bare. The grain was destroyed. There was no wine or oil. The farmers and vinedressers were dismayed and wailed. Sown seeds shriveled in the parched earth. Sheep and cattle groaned for lack of pasture and water. Even the wild animals were in dire straits.

And there was a sense of foreboding, a sense that something worse might be on the horizon. “Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near— a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come” (Joel 2:1-2).

"The day of the Lord” was coming. The day of the Lord in scripture was a time or an occasion when the LORD would intervene decisively in history. It could be a time of salvation for Israel or a time of doom. Given the current circumstances, doom seemed more likely than not, but it was unclear; it was hard to discern what was coming upon them next.

Our circumstances as a nation are not as dire as the locust plague and drought that Joel described. However, we are living through a once-in-a-century event that has turned our nation upside-down. There were almost two hundred thousand new cases of COVID-19 in our country yesterday. Almost fourteen million Americans have been infected by the virus. Almost two hundred and eighty thousand have died of the disease. Health officials tell us that the darkest days are yet to come.

And then there is the economic toll of the pandemic. The economy has rebounded to a large extent, but the pandemic has caused many smaller businesses to shutter their doors, perhaps forever. I spoke yesterday to my son Jonathan, who lives in Seattle, Washington. Their neighborhood’s main thoroughfare (Ballard Avenue) that thrived with little shops is largely boarded up, and the homeless of the city are moving in. Aggravating the financial stress is the end of government assistance checks for the unemployed at the end of December. Things are rather bleak for the nation now. Although we have the promise of effective vaccines, we wonder what the weeks of winter will bring. We too have a sense of foreboding.

Israel was living in the ruins of a natural disaster. We are living in the ruins of a pandemic. What are we to do? Where are we to turn? Joel points us in the right direction. “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. 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? Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy” (Joel 2:12-16).

What should we do in December 2020? We should return to God with all our hearts. As modern people we think of the heart as the seat of emotions, but in biblical understanding the heart is the ruling center of our persons. It is the spring of all our desires and decisions. Soren Kierkegaard, the nineteenth-century Danish philosopher, wrote that “Purity of heart is to will one thing.” What we should do in this season of Advent is to return to God with a unified heart that is laser focused on God and God’s will.

We should also come to God with our bodies and souls. Fasting is a disciplined, physical denial of the self. Weeping and mourning include our emotions. With all these things, body, mind, and soul, we are to return to God. And our returning must be genuine. No outward forms will suffice. No amount of ashes, dust, sackcloth, torn clothing, or shaven heads will do. We must rend our hearts, not just our garments. And no one is exempt. The elderly, children, infants, even newlyweds must all turn to God (2:16). This is the trumpet call of Advent.

And when we return to God, we can be assured God will welcome us back because it is God’s nature to forgive and forget and restore. “Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing” (2:13b). God is inclined to turn and leave behind a blessing instead. God will restore all the years the locust has eaten. God will restore all the years that were lost. This can be true for us as individuals and as a society. As God speaking through the prophet Jeremiah says, “And ye shall seek me; and ye shall find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. And I will be found of you” (Jer. 29:13).

But whatever temporal blessings God imparts pale compared to the promise of God’s future. Joel 2:28-32a was the text for the first Christian sermon preached by the Apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost. “Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit. I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls” (Joel 2:28-32a).

The great and terrible day of the LORD is still coming. Jesus Christ will come again to judge the quick and the dead, but before that day, God will pour out his Spirit on all flesh. The promise is inclusive; everyone is envisioned. It is for sons and daughters, for old and young, for men and women, for slaves and free. We will prophesy, dream dreams, and see visions. Prophecy, dreams, and visions are all God’s means of self-revelation. The promise is that all will have a direct relationship with God. All will know God. Anyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved.

We are living in this time of blessing. Good Friday, Easter Sunday, the Ascension, and the day of Pentecost are all in the past. Christ has died, Christ is risen, and the Holy Spirit has been given. Still, it seems there is a fulness yet to come. We long for the day when old and young, men and women, the blessed and the oppressed will all return to God with their whole hearts and receive the blessing of the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps this should be one of our prayers during Advent and during the remainder of the pandemic. With the Psalmist we can pray, “Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved” (Ps. 80:19).

God is still the one who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. God is still the one who will restore our devastation. God is the one who will pour out the Spirit.

Let us remember that the present does not define the future. The harsh conditions of the moment are real, but they are not final. We still await the great and terrible day of the LORD, but we do so with hope for we have tasted the LORD’s Spirit and we know God is good.

So where do we turn? To whom do we go? Our only option is the LORD. “Come, then, and let us return unto the LORD: for he has torn, and he will heal us; he has smitten, and he will bind us up” (Hosea 6:1). God will yet pour the oil of the Spirit into our hurting hearts and restore all the years the locusts have eaten.

Thanks be to God. Alleluia! Amen.