Joel is a short book of the Bible—only three chapters. And it is fundamentally about how to respond to a time of crisis. What to do when tragedy strikes, when all seems lost.
The part of the passage that we read aloud is a beautiful narrative about God’s promises to us. But before we get into that, I think it is important to know the context. The prophet isn’t calling us to rejoice and be glad in an easy time. To praise God’s name when we have everything we want. This is in the context of devastation. Because even when all feels lost, we have hope in Christ. We are not alone. God will prevail. Righteousness and justice will prevail.
So let’s go back to chapter 1. The Book of Joel begins with a plague. You know something is bad when it rises to the level of being categorized as a plague. This wasn’t just a minor inconvenience or a predicament, but a catastrophic plague of locusts. There were waves of locusts that had come over the land. And not just one or two kinds of locust, but four varieties of locusts. Joel says “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) Until nothing remained. There was no food for anyone to eat, and there was no pasture for the cattle.
The rise of the locusts coincided with a drought, and Joel says “even the wild animals cry out because the watercourses have dried up.” This is an extreme famine—threatening the lives of the whole community, both in the immediate, because there were no crops, and into the future because of the loss of livestock. The severity of the catastrophe calls to mind for the people the coming apocalyptic “day of the Lord” that awaits them, with darkness, fire, and earthquakes.
Although locusts may not be a crisis with which many of us are personally familiar, we have other plagues and crises of our day.
Is anyone here familiar with the doomsday clock? It is a metaphorical clock set each a year by experts with knowledge of nuclear technology and climate science. By how close the clock is set to midnight, it indicates their judgement about how close humanity is to destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making.
Not to further stoke anyone’s anxiety, but it is currently set at 89 seconds to midnight. That is the closest to doomsday that it has ever been since its debut in 1947. The scientists on the board who set the clock cite warfare, climate change, artificial intelligence, and what they describe as the “threat multiplier” of “the spread of misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories” as the reasons for its alarming setting.
To briefly quote from the Doomsday clock’s 2025 statement, they said “This corruption of the information ecosystem undermines the public discourse […] upon which democracy depends. The battered information landscape is also producing leaders who discount science and endeavor to suppress free speech and human rights, compromising the fact-based public discussions that are required to combat the enormous threats facing the world.”[1] We may not have locusts (yet), but it is indeed scary and dire times, and the Day of Lord does feel near.
So how do we live faithfully as followers of God in this moment? What do we do?
Joel teaches us three steps to take in times of crisis and devastation: Lament, Repent, and Remember.
1) The prophet’s first response to this plague is to lament. Lament is a powerful form of prayer and communal witness in times of tragedy. We must name what the locusts have taken from us. We must name what is lost and grieve. This is how we avoid becoming numb or disassociating with our emotions and ourselves.
The Psalms give us template of prayers of lament and remind us that God can handle all of it—our pain, our fear, our grief, our anger. Don’t try to keep those things hidden away, share them with God and each other in prayer.
2) Following lament, the prophet repents. The prophet both calls the community to repent, and repents himself. There is no indication in the passage that the locusts were caused by sin. Sometimes, that correlation is clear, such as the sin of Pharoah causing the plagues in Egypt due to him refusing to let the Israelites out of their slavery. But here, we don’t know why the locusts have descended on them. And so often in life, we will never know the answer to the “why” questions. Why did I get this diagnosis? Or why is my child suffering in this way? Suffering is often not in response to sin, but it just is.
So the repentance is not necessarily to turn back the tide of evil in a cause and effect way, but it is a practice we should take daily to make ourselves right with God. To repent is to turn from sin back towards God. Examine within yourself where there is hatred instead of love, where there is selfishness instead of self-lessness. Where there is greed instead of generosity. Where there is pride instead of humility. Or where there is condemnation instead of grace.
In all of those places of your heart, return to the Lord.
Joel says that the way to repent is to “Rend your hearts and not your clothing”—meaning that God wants genuine change of heart, not something performative for others.
And when you do repent, God will forgive you. God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and full of love. God’s mercy is more powerful than his wrath.
3) Which brings us to the third response in times of crisis: Lament, Repent, and Remember. Remember God’s character. Remember that God is merciful and loving. This is the excerpt from Joel in your bulletin. Remember that God will keep God’s promises. “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Joel 2:32)
God will restore the land and make it abundant once more. God says “I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord your God…my people shall never again be put to shame.” God will repay you for what has been taken. God will build back up what has been torn down. God will always ensure Justice and mercy are done.
And as we remember God’s character, God’s deep and abiding love for us, and God’s power to make all things right, we can have hope. With the God of mercy, there is always hope.
God gives a magnificent promise—God says “I will pour out my spirit on all flesh: your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams and your young men see visions.” (Joel 2:28) This builds on many verses in the Old Testament about God dwelling with us not just in the temple, but within our very hearts.
And that is exactly what God has done through the Holy Spirit. On Pentecost, which was after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the Holy Spirit came upon the people described like tongues of fire. And when the crowd was trying to figure out what was going on, Peter explains by quoting from this passage in Joel. God has poured out his spirit upon all flesh.
God is not far off, but very near. Within our own hearts. And God’s spirit will guide and encourage us if we let her. We have the power of the Spirit in order to act and do God’s will of justice and mercy. And God will encourage and guide us every step of the way.
Let us pray:
Merciful God, Guide us to lament, repent, and remember. Let us not grow numb to the pain of this world. Help us to lament through our grief rather than become hard of heart. Support us in repenting every day and forgive us our sins. Help us to remember your character. We hold fast to your promise that you will restore what the locusts have taken. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.
[1] https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/2025-statement/