Joel
God's Hand in My History
Week of Monday, June 17, 2002
The prophet Joel drifts into and then out of the Biblical drama in
near total anonymity. All that we know about him comes from his very brief
prophecy, but that is next to nothing since the entire book takes only
about five minutes to read. His name means “Yahweh is God.” He tells us
that he is the son of Pethuel, but that is of little significance since we
know nothing about his father. Due to the several references to the
temple sanctuary (1:9, 13–14; 2:15), some scholars think that Joel lived
in Jerusalem, but that is only conjecture. Even the date of his prophecy
is murky, with scholars suggesting dates ranging from as early as 835 BC
to as late as 200 BC.
Joel does something that I have always wanted to do as a Christian
but have always felt reluctant to do. He takes an everyday occurrence and
makes a bold pronouncement that it was an act of God: the locust plague
that we are now experiencing is an act of divine judgment calling us to
repentance, renewal and redemption! Another way to say this is that Joel
takes a human experience and interprets it in a distinctly theological
way.
To modern, suburban intellectuals a locust plague sounds quaint
and hardly the stuff of divine judgment, but you would not feel that way
if you lived in an agrarian economy or if you grew up, say, as a Kansas
farmer. Joel describes a plague of locusts that devastated the land, the
economy and the entire people. Bark was stripped from trees, food
vanished, seeds shriveled, granaries stood empty, cattle moaned from
hunger and thirst, and streams evaporated into dry creek beds. With
memories of the divine plagues of Moses's day in their corporate mind set,
Joel then interprets this natural disaster as a theological sign. It is a
“day of the Lord.” While we might think of that term with rosy optimism,
Joel understands the “day of the Lord” as a day of dread, darkness, gloom
and blackness (the phrase is used six times: 1:15, 2:1–2, 2:11,
2:31, 3:14, and 3:18).
Finally, the people should understand this divine plague
as, ultimately, a divine invitation to turn to Yahweh for redemption and
forgiveness.
Can we do something similar today? Should we try? Just how
should we trace the hand of God in the daily events of our personal lives
or world history, whether large or small? As I write, a massive wildfire
20 miles long and 14 miles wide burns out of control south of Denver. It
has already destroyed over 100,000 acres. If it rains too little the
blaze might smolder all summer; if it rains too much the enormous ash
deposits might be washed into reservoirs and cost millions of dollars to
clean up. Is this the hand of God telling Colorado to wake up? But how
could that be with all those hundreds of Christian organizations based in
Colorado Springs?! Or maybe this was nothing more than a careless
campfire gone very badly awry. Divine judgment, satanic attack, or merely
human carelessness? Maybe none of those?
Or think back to the September 11 tragedy and recall all the
various theological spins that Christians gave to it, from the goofy to
the absurd to the thoughtful to the recklessly dangerous (as when Franklin
Graham told a CNN reporter that the United States should respond with
whatever means necessary, including nuclear weapons). To take a final,
entirely trivial example: one April in Michigan I was snowed out of some
golf plans. I returned to my office wondering whether Satan was
preventing me from a time of relaxation and fun, or whether Yahweh was
telling me to get back to work. Where is Joel when we need him?
As I think through the Scriptures I see many, different
perspectives used to describe everyday events. As a young boy Daniel
endured what might be called a savage act of ethnic cleansing, then ended
up as the prime minister in the enemy nation of Babylon. Joseph was a
victim of attempted fratricide. His brothers tried to murder him but
Joseph understood a larger, divine plan in these evil human acts
(Genesis 50:20,
“You meant it for evil but God meant it for good.”). Job was
ravaged by Satanic attacks, but we know something that he didn't, that
while God did not cause His problems He permissively allowed
them. Further, when Job pleaded to Yahweh for an interpretation or
explanation, he received the biggest brush off in Scripture: “Who are you,
you worm of a man, to question Yahweh?” When Rehoboam listened to the
foolish advice of his upstart peers rather than to the wise counsel of
experienced elders, and consequently plunged the nation into civil war,
the chronicler describes this as a “turn of events from the Lord”
(1 Kings 12:15).
What happened, says Yahweh, “was my doing”
(1 Kings 12:24).
And for a really confusing example, there is King David's census
of the people. 2 Samuel 24:1 indicates that this was an act of David
incited by the Lord, but 1 Chronicles 21:1 says that Satan
moved David to
do this. Somehow, all three interpretations were true: divine
intervention, human choice, and satanic temptation.
Who could forget the rebuke of Jesus when some well-meaning
theologians attempted to interpret a personal tragedy (a man born blind)
as a sign of God's judgment for personal sin (John 9:1–3)? No, said
Jesus, be careful about making such linkages. Similarly, when some people
suggested that some Galileans whom Pilate had murdered, or eighteen people
on whom a tower had fallen, were “worse sinners” than their neighbors,
Jesus rebuked them (Luke 13:1–5). The same is true regarding good
fortune; we should not assume that these are “better people” whom God is
blessing. Maybe great wealth, for example, is not a sign of God's blessing
but the result of excessive ambition driven by greed and accomplished by
human brilliance and hard work. Like a cancer victim whose deviant genes
suddenly switch to “on” after a lifetime of being “off,” or a person who
wins a lottery against astronomical odds, at times perhaps we do best to
understand things as inexplicable good or bad luck with no apparent
causation—God, Satan, or human choices.
Joel was a special instrument of God given unique revelations. I
believe that Christians today have sanctified hunches, inspired insights,
wise advice, and helpful suggestions when it comes to tracing the hand of
God in my daily life, but not divine revelations that you could equate in
importance with our Biblical canon (a few Christians disagree with me
here). Furthermore, I have seen far too much ignorance, sin and
foolishness in my own life to trust any prognostications that I might make
about just what it is that God might be up to in the life of someone, much
less in the events of world history.
Christians can say with confidence that nothing comes to us
outside the scope and care of God's redemptive love. This applies not only
to our little personal lives with all of their ups and downs, sins and
sorrows. It also applies to all of world history, for all of creation,
says Paul, looks forward to redemption (Romans 8:20–22). Joel has
prophetic concerns for “all the nations” (3:2, 9, 12) and not just a bad
summer of locusts in Israel. I love the words of the
hymn,
“Every joy or
trial cometh from above, traced upon our dial by the Son of love.” We
know that to be true, and we know that pure chance, divine intervention,
Satanic attack, and our own choices come into play. Sometimes we get
inklings how all of these fit together, but often we do not know exactly
how, when or why, and we never will.
But does that finally matter? I think not, because, like many of
the prophets, Joel wants to remind Israel that even in the midst of a
locust plague that signifies God's judgment, Yahweh always longed to love,
forgive and redeem them. His prophecy announced judgment but also
redemption, for Yahweh called the people to “rend your hearts and not
merely 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” (2:12–13). He even longed to restore to His people all
that the locusts had destroyed (2:25) and, in the very last verse of the
prophecy, to “pardon their blood guilt” (3:21).
What Yahweh gives us, then, is a compass with the magnetic north
of His love to point us in the right direction, not a road map that
explains and interprets every detail and bump in the road. Miraculous
intervention, our own choices good and bad, spiritual warfare, and even
some form of inexplicable chance all come into play. Every once in a while
we might venture with confidence to explain how, but more often than not
we can't, and Jesus reminds us that sometimes it is best not even to
try. But Joel reminds us that divine love superintends all of our history,
whether personal, national or cosmic. Of that you can be sure.
The Journey with Jesus: Notes to Myself
Copyright ©2002 by Dan Clendenin. All Rights Reserved.
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