Joel 2: 23 – 32
2 Timothy 4: 6 – 8, 16 – 18
Luke 18: 9 – 14
The message of salvation cannot be separated from the vindication of Israel. As I have said before, the highly individualistic approach to the Gospel encouraged by an over-correcting zeal during the Reformation, lost sight of this.
The prophet
Joel says, 23 O children of Zion, be glad
and rejoice in the Lord
your God;
for he has given the early rain for your vindication,
he has poured down for you abundant rain,
the early and the later rain, as before.
And vindication doesn’t mean a kind of come-uppance for the nations who have persecuted Israel, although they certainly focussed on that. It means the fulfilment of their mission: to be a light to the Gentiles.
Peter, in his great Gospel sermon at Pentecost, quotes verses from Joel that come a little later in our Old Testament reading.
As hinted at, what is meant by this is that the culmination of Israel’s calling is the proclamation that Israel’s Messiah (Jesus) is Lord – that’s the first thing. Also that the call both to respond to, and proclaim this message is what God’s people are all about.
It is important to understand that the proclamation of the Gospel is so important to God, that Satan will do anything to stop it.
That’s why Joel says
25 I will repay you for the years
that the swarming locust has eaten,
In other words, there have been tough times and God will rescue them, from the pressure of constant opposition.
It is also why Paul says to Timothy
17But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth.
The reason Paul is given strength is so that the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it.
Israel was called to be a light to the Gentiles (sometimes translated ‘nations’) but she had been distracted from her task which was eventually fulfilled in the life and ministry of Jesus, a ministry to which each of us is called.
It will involve being distracted, but with God’s help and encouragement we can all do it.
God’s word to you and me is
- 25 I will repay you for the years
that the swarming locust has eaten,
- I will stand by you and give you strength, so that through you the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it.
It doesn’t matter that you have never shared the message before. You might have tried once or twice and been put off by a lack of response or even ridicule.
The important thing is that we realise that in sharing the Good News, we are participating in the great culmination of history, that we are part of God’s Master Plan to rescue humankind from its own blindness and corruption.
Don’t let anything stand in your way as you determine to be someone who shares the Good News, and it’s never too late to learn. It is the single most important way in which we can serve others.
The Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost in order to embolden the preaching of, and a response to, the Gospel. This is what the prophet Joel was looking towards in the words of our reading this morning. It’s what Paul understood to be the very essence of his ministry.
Our hope lies in our recalling and exercising that ministry.
Being the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff is a good thing – that is what a focus on justice is. But far better to be the fence at the top of the cliff, transforming society by sharing the Gospel.
Amen