Daily Lesson for November 14, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Joel chapter 2 verses 12 through 19:

12 Yet even now, says the Lord,

   return to me with all your heart,

with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; 

13   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. 

14 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? 

15 Blow the trumpet in Zion;

   sanctify a fast;

call a solemn assembly; 

16   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. 

17 Between the vestibule and the altar

   let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep.

Let them say, ‘Spare your people, O Lord,

   and do not make your heritage a mockery,

   a byword among the nations.

Why should it be said among the peoples,

   “Where is their God?” ’ 

18 Then the Lord became jealous for his land,

   and had pity on his people. 

19 In response to his people the Lord said:

I am sending you

   grain, wine, and oil,

   and you will be satisfied;

and I will no more make you

   a mockery among the nations.

Just this past Sunday we commemorated the end of World War I — a war that was said to end all wars. Today, however, marks the 78th anniversary of the Blitz bombing which destroyed Coventry Cathedral in Coventry, England just two short decades after the signing of the Armistice. The two wars together brought more destruction and death upon the earth in one century than all the other centuries of the world combined. Our inability to end the horror of war is a story of national and international hubris and the fundamental unwillingness to repent of pride and arrogance.

Today’s Lesson from the book of Joel comes today to show us another way. Here is a prophet calling upon its people to repent of its way, to lament its own dehumanization and cruelty, to accept its own complicity in evil. Here is the Prophet showing the people the way out of its self-destructive hubris and towards a saving humility. 

These are not just lessons for the past. These are lessons for today. Arrogance is never the way forward. And neither is vengeance. These things are not life living. They always end in destruction and self-destruction. Jesus said, “In those days the hearts of many will turn hard.” Our hard hearts must be softened and rended, that we might let love, and mercy, compassion, and forgiveness come in. These are things which make for peace.

We enter now this season of national Thanksgiving, proclaimed by our great leader President Lincoln who knew much about war and death. At the end of his Thanksgiving Proclamation Lincoln referenced the “the lamentable civil strife” in which the nation was engaged, and encouraged all citizens to pray for “the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation”  that the country might fully enjoy “peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.”

These things are gifts from God above.  And yet even now, they can still be ours should we humble ourselves and together seek them as a nation and as a people. 

It is never too late.