Mourn (Joel 1:1-12)

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Good morning church. It is, well, it’s good to be back. So it’s been a little while. Well, I’ve been out of the pulpit. So glad for the break, but glad to be back with you as well this morning, so you can go ahead and open your Bibles to Joel chapter one. Joel Chapter One is where we will be this morning. As you’re turning to Joel chapter one, you probably know the feeling of being jolted awake. It happens. You know periodically, but you know you where you move from that, that peaceful sleep to that shot of adrenaline instantly because smoke alarms going off, or you heard a noise, something like that kid is crying, whatever it may be. But there’s that, that shift again from from sleepy stupor to not just awake, but a heightened awareness because of what is going on that happens physically to us. But what about spiritually? I mean, how often do we need to be jolted awake spiritually as well, especially because we find the command throughout Scripture not to fall asleep. We’re supposed to be awake and alert. So you know, it’s a different experience to wake up in the middle of the night when you’re like, Well, I’m supposed to be sleeping now, versus to wake up in the middle of the night when you’re the night guard at the museum or something, and you’re going, I shouldn’t have been asleep in the first place and I heard a noise. So even more going on. That’s kind of what we need so often, spiritually, something to wake us. So how does God jolt us awake? And how should we respond? That’s really the theme of Joel in a lot of ways. So we are in this new series starting this morning in the book of Joel. We’ll be here just for five weeks. We read chapter one, verse one, just kind of give you it’s almost the title of the book, as it were, Joel writes the word of the Lord that came to Joel, son of petuel. And that’s kind of it. That’s what we know about the context of the book. Right there not a lot of information. So we don’t know anything else about who Joel is. We’re also not really given any clear indication of when this is even happening, when Joel is prophesying. We know that there was a locust invasion. Hence the graphic and all of that we’re going to get to that this morning. But locust invasions do happen with enough regularity that you couldn’t say so it must have been here. There are a couple of indicators, one of the primary ones being that the temple is actually there. Means there are a couple times when it couldn’t be but we are guessing to some extent, so most likely, we’re talking right around here, 500 so this is after the exile, after Judah has returned from Babylon and actually rebuilt the temple. If you can think of the prophecies of guys like Haggai and Zechariah, we’re probably sort of in that time. I’m gonna preach like that’s sort of where we are, but it’s not all that important. If it turns out it was 300 years earlier, or something like that. It’s actually a little bit helpful that we don’t have a really clear sense of what time this is, because it gives the book a timeless flavor, which helps us then to apply it to broader circumstances. It can speak to us today, and it can speak to us today. If you read in advance, we give you the bookmark so you can kind of read the passage in advance and meditate on it throughout the week. You may be wondering, why are we in the book of Joel? Exactly? Because it doesn’t feel all that relevant. Maybe when the cicadas were out made more sense. But even then, the cicadas weren’t exactly biblical proportion or anything like that. So we’re not in the middle of crisis, a national disaster like Jude is experiencing here. If I’d preached this during covid, we would all go, okay, I get it. You know, not locus, but a plague, similar sort of idea. But why now? The simple answer to that is because all scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. And when Paul says that in Second Timothy three, he’s writing before the New Testament has been, you know, finalized, before some of it has even been written, he’s talking about the Old Testament. He’s saying the Old Testament is beneficial for us as Christians, so that we may be thoroughly equipped for every good work that He has for us to do. And so this book prepares us for crisis, because crisis will almost certainly come, maybe national crisis, local crisis, or even personal crisis. We will be asking the question, and see how Joel helps us answer the question, What is God doing? And then, what should I be doing in response, that’s really what we’re going to be looking at. We get this as we start today with a series of summons like Joel, the Prophet, is calling people to pay attention to what God is doing. So we’re going to see these four summons. We’ll start with a summons to the nation as a whole. Joel, chapter one, we read verses two to four for us. Joel says, Hear this. You elders. Listen all who live in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your ancestors? Tell it to your children and let your children tell it to their children and their children to the next generation? What the Locust Swarm has left the great locusts have eaten. What the great locusts have left the young locusts have eaten what the young locust. Have left. Other locusts have eaten. So you can see, Joel begins the book his prophecy by summoning the whole nation. He begins by talking to the elders. And elders back then were the rulers of the nation, so this was like Congress or something, as representatives of the nation. And then turns and speaks to everyone who lives in the land. So that would be all the citizens there. This is a general call that he is issuing. He’s saying something has just jolted you awake. And now let’s talk about it. Let’s process what exactly is happening. And so, Joel, the image I have in my mind, at least, is if you’ve ever been in a hotel where an alarm has gone off or something like that. Something like that, you know, somebody usually comes out and says, Oops, you know, this was a mistake, or starts giving instructions. Here’s where you need to go, like that’s what’s happening here. Joel is the one who said, I’ve got some understanding. Let me help you figure out how to respond to what is an unprecedented crisis. It doesn’t tell us what it is right away, right has anything like this ever happened? Tell it to your children, so it’s as yet unnamed, but he’s still saying, has anything like this ever happened, even within multiple generations? And go back to your ancestor. Did your grandparents talk about anything like this? And you’re gonna be telling it to your grandkids, because it’ll be so interesting. And if I’m right that this is taking place right around 500 then we’re talking about generations that have actually seen quite a bit too like these are generations that knew crisis, like Nebuchadnezzar, sacking Jerusalem, destroying the temple, the people of Judah being carried off to Babylon and then returning again and rebuilding the temple. That’s a whole lot that’s going on, and yet, Joel still says you haven’t seen anything like this before. Something big has happened, and it’s a locust invasion on a scale that is just unprecedented, coupled with, as we’ll see in the next couple of weeks, drought and fire as well. So all this is leading to an unparalleled famine. It’s so bad that you’re going to tell these stories to your kids. In fact, it’s interesting, God actually commands them to tell these stories to their kids. Why this passage here? It sounds a little bit like Psalm 78 which we’ve talked about here before, in the context of parenting, Psalm 78 begins, I will utter hidden things, things from of old, things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us. So there’s the generational passing down. We will not hide them from their descendants. We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, His power and the wonders he has done. Well, it makes sense in Psalm 78 because they’re proclaiming God’s deliverance, his mighty acts to save His people. But here, well, not so much. We’re talking about a really bad time. So why are they supposed to tell this to the next generation? The answer is that, because in both cases, God is at work. God is still active in history. He is the Lord of history, and he is doing something. So we need to pay attention, understand it ourselves, but then we need to teach it as well. If you’re a parent, much of your task is teaching your kids to see God’s work in the world today, His providence, his sovereignty, like we teach the Bible. Yes, yes, of course. Reminded a little bit of what Carl Bart, the Swiss theologian, used to say, you know, you preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other, and it’s not that they’ve got equal authority. Of course, nothing like that. But the whole point is we’re teaching the Bible in light of what’s going on, like, how does what this has to say affect what’s going on right now? And that’s what we do as parents, to see God at work and to see what our response should be to God’s work. And that’s exactly what Joel is pushing us to do. And he’s got the newspaper in his hand, and it’s big news, like big headline here, because this locust invasion, you notice, he mentions four types of locus. By the way, we have no idea what those locusts are, the young locust, the great locus, whatever. It just says, locust, Locus, Locus, Locus, four different words for locust. I don’t know, but you know, they knew back then, something like that. The point is, though, it was wave after wave after wave so that there’s nothing left to eat and there’s nothing left to plant for next year either. It’s very hard for us today, especially in the West, to understand famine like this, to imagine famine like this, I have had invaders in my garden this summer, in particular, the bunnies are everywhere, so I’m gonna be planting coyotes next year, and
so I’ve gotten no zucchini yet this year. It’s like a huge bummer. Usually zucchinis grows like a weed. They keep eating them. I find them on my driveway, my cucumbers as well, so I’m not able to do my pickles, which is, it’s heartbreaking. Okay, fine. So. But you know what I could do instead? I could run to Aldi or the other Aldi or jewel, or the other jewel, or Pete’s or marianos, all of which I could walk to and buy pickling cucumbers and make more pickles, right? Like we’ve got options, still, they didn’t have options. There was nothing else. This is it. There’s now no food. People are going to die as a result. So this is almost worse than exile, which, again, some of them lived through. But even in exile, at least they had food. I mean, Jeremiah 29 when God’s promise he’s going to prosper the people and all that. What did he do? He says you’re gonna be in Babylon, plant gardens and eat the produce. At least that’s pretty good. I’d rather eat somewhere else than starve to death here, and that’s what the nation is experiencing. So when disaster threatens, this summons that Joel’s offering. When disaster threatens, when disaster hits, wake up. Wake up. Be jolted awake spiritually. Look around, see what God is doing. And that’s why we have this prophetic summons. There is meaning in history, like God reveals himself in his actions. That’s why so much of the Bible is narrative, by the way. So study it, study his actions, at least pause and ask the question, when disaster hits, is God trying to get my attention? You just got to ask the question, same thing again. You wake up in the middle of night because you heard a noise. What do you do? You don’t jump out of bed. You go, what was that? Is this something I need to care about? Or not? Can I just go back to sleep. And so it is with us again, even with with personal disaster, if it’s a job loss or a health crisis, or there is a natural disaster, political disaster, something like that that’s happening, ask the question, pay attention. We see this in Israel’s history. You’re point to a lot of different examples, but here’s just one, after a major defeat militarily, actually in a civil war, because this is the book of Judges, which is Israel’s moral Nader Civil War. It says this, they’re just defeated. Then it says, Then all the Israelites, the whole army, went up to Bethel, and there they sat weeping before the Lord. They fasted that day until evening, and presented burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to the Lord. And the Israelites inquired of the Lord, isn’t that interesting after this disaster that they’ve suffered? They don’t check their military strategy, they check God’s will. And what Joel is saying here is, it’s not the time to research pesticides. It’s time to search the Scriptures. What is God about? And it’s worth asking ourselves then, like, is this your first instinct when disaster hits? I mean, think back the most recent disaster. What most of us would think of would be covid, of course. So when covid hit was your first question. We had a bit of a wind up, of course. You know, like late January, in the middle of March, we were kind of all wondering how this was going to shake out, but when it hit, was your first question, Lord, what are you doing? What do I need to know here? I remember so clearly being in Journey group as this was all unfolding, and one of the guys in my group at the time said, You know what our response should be right now? It’s to pray, to lament and to repent, because that’s what you did, scripturally speaking, when disaster hit, is that what we were doing? Or were we wondering, how is this gonna affect my job? How’s this gonna affect you know, what are we gonna do with the sermon series? Now we’re gonna get to finish it because we’re not able to meet in person, but we get logistical, we probably need to get theological. So it’s safe to say that this is not usually our first instinct, and it wasn’t for the Israelites either, which is the whole reason they needed a prophet to summon them. We were slow to wake up. This is like when you hear the noise at night and the wife is panicking, and the husband goes, I’m sure it’s nothing, and rolls back over and goes to sleep. The nation is going to roll back over and go to sleep, and Joel is there shaking the nation awake? No, like we gotta, we gotta do something. That’s the general summons. But after this general summons all people, Joel addresses three significant groups in turn, and that’s what we’re going to turn to now. So first group that he talks to is the revelers. We’ll see what that means here we keep reading verses five to seven, wake up, you drunkards and weep wail, all you drinkers of wine, wail because of the new wine, for it has been snatched from your lips. A nation has invaded my land, a mighty army without number as the teeth of a lion the fangs of a lioness. It has laid waste my vines and ruined my fig trees. It is stripped off their bark and thrown it away, leaving their branches white. So Joel begins these specific summons by addressing an unexpected group. Now the word drunkards here, it might be a little bit harsh. You could translate it as something more, like just people who drink. Imbibers, something like that, is what one commentator said, but maybe it is drunkards as well. In either case, this is a relevant message, right? Because we’re maybe talking to a group that has checked itself out of reality, that can’t even wake up because they’re passed out from drinking too much, from self medicating in the face of disaster, or we’re talking to a group that’s just enjoying the good life. This is like the cocktail crowd, something like that. That’s why I said revelers here. That’s kind of the group. But whichever one of those Joel was speaking to specifically, this is a group that’s going to be hard hit by the locusts and the drought, because no grapes on the vine means no new wine, which is what they would drink. Now, vines and figs, which are mentioned here also are a frequent Old Testament symbol of prosperity. So I, like just coincidentally, came across this in my Bible reading plan this week. I was in second Kings, and it says, you know one of the promises you’ll eat fruit from your own vine and fig tree. That’s how you know you’re being blessed by God. That’s what happens vines and figs. And so the ironic reversal of those images shows the the breadth of devastation. Like Herbert Hoover, President in 1928 ran his election campaign was the promise of prosperity, a chicken in every pot, two cars in every garage. Then 1929 came, hoping you remember your history, and so the next president ran on an ironic kind of campaign idea. We didn’t use it, but it’s almost as if it’s saying The problem here is that we got a chicken and no pot, no cars in the garage, and the garage is falling down through disrepair anyway. That’s what Joel has just said. All these promises of prosperity, we’ve got the opposite happening right now, and that’s true of wine as well. Like look how wine is spoken of in Scripture. Here’s Psalm 104 celebrating God’s bounty, it says he makes grass grow for the cattle and plants for people to cultivate, bringing forth food from the earth, wine that gladdens human hearts, oil to make their faces shine, and bread that sustains their hearts. So God’s bounty includes wine in particular, that brings gladness to human hearts, which means the locusts and eating the grapes. They’re like un gladdening human hearts. They’re causing hearts to despair, especially among the revelers, the ones who drink. That should shock the revelers awake, like the smoke alarm is blaring. We’re in a pun fully intended, sobering moment here they should wake up. Can’t numb themselves to the disaster anymore, because this locust invasion is so bad, it’s compared to a military invasion, which is itself, then compared to a fearsome beast, like we’re just stacking up images for how bad this is. It’s a mighty army without number, which makes sense again, of the four waves of locusts that have come and they’ve stripped everything bare. This is how locusts work, by the way. So here’s a quote from someone in the 16th century in Europe, but describing a locust invasion, they write this, they began to arrive there one day, at nine in the morning. Till night, they did not cease next day. By 6am they began to depart, and at midday, not one was there, and not a leaf remained on a tree. At that moment, others began to arrive and remained until the next day, and these did not leave any corn with a husk nor a green blade. Thus they did for five days, one after the other. That’s exactly what Judah just experienced. So no wonder Joel says that this invading army, these locusts, have stripped even the bark and left the branches white, because that’s all that last group got to eat. The situation is hopeless. So even if you’re the sort of person who’s always partying getting drunk, in part so that you can ignore the world’s problems like it’s going to catch up to you. At some point it will catch up to you, which means there’s a better option. Don’t stick your head in the sand or try and drown your sorrows in the bottle, but wake up. Pay attention. What is God doing? What is he trying to tell you?
And it is kind of a two fold message, because, of course, we see that God, he seems to be bringing judgment here. We haven’t actually heard that yet. By the way, he has not said, because of your sin, the locusts have invaded the land. I see more of that next week, but, or the week after? I mean, we don’t know that yet, but God seems to be bringing judgment, and maybe that would be the one lesson we’d hear. But don’t miss the grace in this passage. Also, did you notice what Joel says verse six? And Joel again, he’s speaking though the Lord’s words. This is the word of the. Through Joel, a nation has invaded my land, not your land, my land. God is saying, This is my place, my people. You can see his covenant commitment, even just in that one little pronoun. He cares what happens in his land, like a father cares what happens in his home, which is exactly what Jerusalem is, by the way, God’s home at this point. Psalm 135, verse 21 Praise be to the Lord from Zion. That’s the mountain on which Jerusalem was built, to him who dwells in Jerusalem. So he does care what’s happening in his home. Which takes us to the next section, by the way, which is the summons to the city. May read verses eight to 10 for us, Joel says, more like a virgin in sackcloth grieving for the betrothed of her youth. Grain offerings and drink offerings are cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests are in mourning. Those who minister before the Lord, the fields are ruined. The ground is dried up. The grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the olive oil fails. So what’s interesting here is the command mourn is given in the feminine singular, like Hey lady, mourn, is what it says, which makes sense under the image, mourn Like a Virgin in sackcloth. Who is the lady that we’re talking about? The lady is Jerusalem, because the word for city in Hebrew is feminine, feminine singular. So there you go. And we actually often refer to Jerusalem as a virgin daughter again. Just happened to read this week Second Kings again, 19 verse, 21 virgin daughter Zion despises you, speaking of the invading Assyrian army. Virgin daughter Zion, so the city of Jerusalem there, again, called a virgin daughter. That helps us understand the context of this stanza here, this next summons is to the city folk. It’s to the people who live in the capital, Jerusalem, which is the seat not only of the government, but also of the temple. How should the people of Jerusalem respond to this invading locust army? Well, the proper response, Joel says, is mourning Like a Virgin groaning for her betrothed. Now, things worked a little bit different. Back in Israel at this time, it was a, it was kind of a two stage marriage, so you would get engaged, but the engagement was way more significant than it is for us today. It was actually a kind of marriage, you know this, by the way, because you know the Christmas story. So Mary and Joseph are engaged, and then Mary’s pregnant, and Joseph says he’s going to divorce her. We think you don’t have to divorce her. You’re not married yet. You’re only engaged. Well, yes and no, you were mostly married at that point. So what would happen between the engagement and the actual wedding? The bride would make herself ready. The husband would go away to prepare, including, by the way, like building a home for his new family. So that’s the stage we’re in. You can imagine the excitement The bride is preparing. She knows who she can marry. She’s maybe seen how she’s gonna live in she’s like, picked out curtains and stuff, like she has seen her future life. And then her betrothed meets with an untimely death. Think of the grief that she would feel, and what Joel says is that’s how you should be grieving now. Judah the grief and the despair that Jerusalem should feel. Why not? Because they’re hungry, but because there’s nothing to offer the Lord, there’s nothing no sacrifice to bring in to the temple. Any longer, the locusts have devoured the food for the sacrifice. So there’s no wine for a drink offering, no grain for a grain offering. We’ll see next week. There’s not gonna be animals for much longer, either. So there go any of those sacrifices as well the entire cultic system has been cut off. The offerings have stopped, and it is difficult for us in a New Testament context to appreciate how awful this would be to wake up to realize you sinned yesterday, and there is now no way to make atonement for that sin not knowing what tomorrow will bring. Like if we had a grain and grape shortage today, maybe we wouldn’t be able to celebrate communion together again. We did experience this during covid. We weren’t gathered together, so we weren’t taking the Lord’s supper together, since it’s a family meal that’s bad, right? Like I mourned not being able to take communion with you during those months when we weren’t meeting. It’s bad, but it’s a sign and a seal communion. It’s not atonement. We still had our salvation in Christ. So comparison for today, an analogy would be a little bit more like if there was a penicillin. Shortage when your child had a bad infection, that would be the feeling of urgency you would have, like, I don’t care if this shortage is gonna go away, I need it now today, so that my child doesn’t die. Only we’re not talking about physical death, we’re talking about spiritual death, which is even worse. That’s the grief that the nation is experiencing, should be experiencing. And can we just say, in light of all that, it is worth pausing to revel in the glory and sufficiency of Christ’s death for us, the fact that we don’t have to worry about that his sacrifice, once for all time, means it is done. It is finished. No natural disaster can threaten our salvation right into Hebrews says, We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus, Christ, once for all, and think of what that does to us. Then when disaster strikes, Paul says, it Who shall separate us from the love of Christ Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword, by the way, those are all the things that would threaten to stop the sacrifices from happening in the temple. But in light of what Christ has done, the climax, the fulfillment, the culmination of the sacrificial system, we can answer the question, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Thanks be to God with no one and nothing. That’s good news, but it doesn’t change our needed response here still, like some things are different, yes, but some things are the same. If the people of Jerusalem can’t offer the usual sacrifices, the priests aren’t making the sacrifice. Well, what are they doing? Then? Exactly what service should be happening in the temple? Now it’s clear. It’s time for a new service. It is time for lament. We’ll actually see the lament service next week. That’s what our passage is. So if you’re prepping for next week, you’re going to just keep in mind that’s what you’re seeing. You’re seeing the the worship service when its focus is lament. But basically what lament is is crying out to God, mourning, as the passage has it, wailing, asking, why? Grieving, the current circumstances. So let me ask you now, is there room for lament in your prayer life? Like we know God is good all the time, but that certainly doesn’t mean that our circumstances are good all the time. There’s very real pain, very real sorrow, very real reason to lament. Is there room in our corporate worship life for lament? We did just a little bit this morning. But I mean, what would it look like for us to come together? Maybe we forego music, or at least the songs we sing are a little bit different. Maybe they’re not the happy, clappy not the happy clappy ones. They’re ones that cause us to reflect. Is there room for lament? Now it is true, and one of the reasons we do happy clappy songs, of course, is that our sorrow is mitigated by the joy of the resurrection of Christ, Jesus. We always have that hope. Yes, but we have hope because we don’t yet have the fulfillment of that hope. You don’t hope for what you have. Paul tells us in Romans eight the citizens of Jerusalem should mourn. They should mourn like the priests who are feeling the effect of the famine because their daily rhythm has been wrecked. They should mourn. Like the land itself actually verse 10, when it says the fields are ruined, it actually says, literally, the ground mourns. Some of you, if you’re looking at a different translation, may actually even say that the ground mourns. The ground is crying. At this point. Makes sense again. Paul tells us Romans eight, that creation itself is groaning, longing to be redeemed. That’s what’s happening here. We should be mourning like them. There is another group that’s mourning because the fields are ruined and because the ground is mourning, and that group is the people who work the fields and live on the ground. And that’s our last group here. So our last summons, summons to the country, verses 11 and 12
despair. You farmers wail you vine growers grieve for the wheat and the barley because the harvest of the field is destroyed. The vine is dried up and the fig tree is withered, the pomegranate, the palm and the apple tree, all the trees of the field are dried up. Surely the people’s joy is withered away. So we get the same basic command, right whale, grieve. Makes a lot of sense for the farmers and for the vine growers, their livelihood has perished. The city folk might not feel the devastation completely yet, but the farmers know how. Bad it is, and they know how bad it’s going to be as well. The locusts and the drought have killed it all. I mean, look at the list here. Like ages keep saying it’s all dead. Everything is dead. This is not an isolated thing, like we had the avian flu. Was it last summer we had the avian flu. Maybe was one before that, and a bunch of chickens died, and eggs got really expensive, so you bought cheese instead, like, who cares? But it’s all gone. They were not talking about an isolated shortage. It is all gone. Every tree. That means that what happens come harvest. The harvest is usually an occasion for joy. They had harvest festivals commanded in Scripture even, which is the time of celebration. But if every part of the harvest is gone, what then? Like picture a German town during Oktoberfest. Whole town come together in the city, the town square, but there’s no beer, there’s no sausage. In fact, there’s no food of any kind, like what then I said in the last section, it’s time for a new worship service. Well, Joel seems to be telling us it’s time for a new festival here as well. Festival. It’s a time to gather, but to mourn, to cry out, to pray. Now we really don’t do festivals like this as much today, but within Chicago and Lollapalooza is happening right now. I believe if you’ve ever had the misfortune of being on a train when Lollapalooza is happening like you know what this looks like, but imagine everyone going to Lollapalooza, but there’s no music, there’s no drugs or alcohol, there’s no dancing, but this group of people has gotten together just for a time of sober reflection, like that’s what’s going on here. In fact, it says the very last sentence of our passage, that the people’s joy has withered, just like the crops, and that’s what should happen again. That is the proper response, to mourn, to wail, to grieve. That is our big idea. Then kind of pulling us all together. It’s been there all along. You’re not gonna be surprised by it, the big idea, when disaster comes, mourn your sin and the world’s brokenness. When disaster comes and it will, and whether national, personal, whatever it may be, mourn, mourn your sin and the world’s brokenness. Why do I mention both of those? By the way, it’s because we can’t always connect the dots with a straight line between our sin and the disaster we’re experiencing. Sometimes God brings disaster into our lives because of our sin. That is the exile, for example, because of your sin, that’s it. Babylon is going to saturation. You all going to live in Babylon for a while. But other times we can’t make that connection, necessarily. That’s the message of the book of Job, of course, and why Job’s friends got it so wrong. John chapter nine, who sinned this man or his parents that he should have been born blind, and Jesus goes, I’m not sure you know what you’re talking about. You should listen more. So we can’t all each other. So what happens? Sometimes disaster just comes because the world is broken, because sin is in the world, not because of a specific sin. So that’s why we’re going, we’re waking up, going, what’s happening here? Lord, how should I respond? I know my response is mourning, and I can always mourn my sin. I can always mourn the world’s brokenness. Pay attention to what God is doing. Wake up. Let the disaster jolt you awake. C, S, Lewis said that pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. So God uses pain to jolt us awake, and that’s a good thing. This is a hard sentence, but it’s true, pain is a good thing. Even Medically speaking, pain is a good thing, because pain is the symptom that lets you know that something is wrong. Usually, the very worst diagnoses are the ones where you didn’t feel anything wrong, and then it’s too late, the cancer has already spread, something like that. Pain is a good thing. It’s true spiritually as well. It clues us into what the underlying problems are. And so when God permits even brings disaster trouble into our lives. It is an act of love to wake us up, if you don’t know God, and it is an act of love, and that he’s giving you time to respond, time to repent, before it is too late. If you do know Jesus well, then it is disciplined. The Lord disciplines those he loves. Now what’s writer to Hebrews says, quoting from Proverbs, my son, do not make light of the Lord. Discipline, and do not lose a heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves. He chastens everyone he accepts as his son. Endure hardship. Is discipline. God is treating you as His children. It’s a good thing. God will use it for our good, and part of that good news is that his grace is sufficient. He wakes us up. We mourn our sin, but when we repent, God forgives, as we’ll see even later in the book. Again, we got Christ’s sufficient sacrifice once for all time. So wherever you are spiritually, you’ll be here this morning, a skeptic, you know, arms crossed, really hardened to the message. You could be a seeker, asking questions, what about this whole Christianity thing? Or you’re here as a mature believer. It doesn’t matter when disaster comes, wake up, wake up, mourn, cry out to God and again, this is a good word for us, because it’s not our first instinct, and think back to 2020, again. 2020. Was a year to lament, and we had covid, then we had the racial division and unrest, and then we had all the political division with the election and whatnot like this was I’ve talked to a lot of pastors who say was their least favorite year, and all their ministry. I can agree with that, by the way, what got you through those dark days, truly, what got you through those dark days? You’re thinking back to it, because our instinct in moments like that is anger and activism, and that’s what our country did, right? That’s what our culture did, for sure, anger and activism, our instinct is not lament and prayer first, at least not saying there’s no place for anger. Certainly we there is a place for righteous anger. We see it in Jesus’s life. Certainly there is a place for activism. But that comes after, after we’ve sought the Lord. I know other people speaking to one of the younger members of our congregation this week in light of this passage, and he was saying that after the attempted assassination of Trump, his generation just turned to dark humor all the memes that came out at that point. That’s a really common one for us as well. To check out more the revelers. Approach to all of this, I don’t want to really engage with the brokenness of the world, so I’m just going to kind of laugh at it and hope it goes away, instead of lament and prayer. Of course, even now today, there is much to lament. We’ve got conflict in the Middle East, in Ukraine and Ethiopia and elsewhere. We’ve got natural disasters enough lately it’s been tornadoes and mudslides across the world. We’ve got sin and injustice, and many of you are experiencing it personally. Maybe it is job loss or health crisis or relational conflict. What are you doing with it when disaster comes, mourn your sin and the world’s brokenness, feel the full force of what’s wrong with this world and run to God in lament and petition. But we run to God in lament and petition, even as we remember the unshakable joy we have in Christ, who has given us new birth into a living hope through his resurrection from the dead, I am so glad I get to preach this passage in a New Testament context after Christ’s death and resurrection, it changes everything. This is a heavy, dark passage, not going to get better either. Okay, it’s a heavy, dark book, and it’s not usually what we want to think about. Like some of you complain, we’ve literally had people leave the church because we preached the prophets, and the prophets are depressing and hard to hear because they talk a lot about sin and judgment. So this is a heavy, dark passage, not what we want to think about, even if it is necessary, because, again, it’s the symptoms that help us understand the underlying cause. But the good news is we don’t have to stop in the heaviness and the darkness.
The greatest cause for lament the world has ever known was the murder of God’s son that is sin and the world’s brokenness at its extreme to the nth degree, and yet look what God brought from it, our salvation out of that darkness, our salvation in this life and in the life to come and the life to come is A really important part of it like we know how the story ends. The whole reason we can endure hardship is discipline is because we know it doesn’t go on forever. We know what comes next, that God is simply fitting us for heaven to live with him there. So we mourn and lament, but we do. Not lose hope. God has already won the victory. Sin and brokenness have been defeated. So we wake up, pay attention, mourn and lament, but God has turned our mourning into dancing. We can enter in like in a New Testament context, it’s always a festival. Even when there is a famine, we always have cause to celebrate. Julie read it for us earlier. Isaiah, 61 this is, by the way, the passage that Jesus quotes for himself. This is what I came to do. Luke, chapter four, when he begins his ministry, the spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to comfort all who mourn their sin and the world’s brokenness provide for those who grieve in Zion to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. What does that look like for us now in this kind of Holy Saturday, sort of moment. You know what I mean by Holy Saturday. Christ is killed on Friday, and he’s raised in resurrection power on Sunday. And then there’s Saturday. It’s just this day in between. We live in the in between. Time between Christ’s first coming and His Second Coming, sin and death have been defeated, but the finality of their defeat we haven’t experienced in its consummation just yet. This is what it looks like, mourning and joy commingled. So even in our joy in Christ, in our salvation, in the resurrection, we mourn our sin and the world’s brokenness, but even in our mourning, we have the joy of everlasting life, the hope of Christ’s death and resurrection and our life with him. Let’s pray, Lord. We do lament so much of what this world is. We grieve our sin, a sin that is so grievous that we couldn’t even deal with it. You had to send your son to deal with it for us to live the life we should have lived, and then die the death we deserve to die, so that by his taking our place, we could take his place and be welcomed again as your children by repentance and faith, we grieve our sin. God, we grieve the effects of sin in this world, the brokenness of creation that leads to natural disasters and injustice and evil and wickedness so prevalent among humanity, that leads to so much pain and devastation in so many lives. And we cry out, Lord, with many faithful people have gone before us. How long, Lord will you leave us? Will you forsake us? Forever? We know the answer is not. And so we pray with the early church even so Lord Jesus quickly come and set all things right again. But now in that between time, to help us, Lord, to mourn, to pray, to wake up, to pay attention, to see what you are doing, and to respond as you would have us respond in hope and faith and love. We ask this in Christ’s name. Amen.