In the season of Lent, our merciful Lord invites us to return to him so that he can help us. God desires that we come back to life, back to loving and back to our best selves in the community of faith.
After two full years of pandemic difficulties, a thirty-second commercial ran across the United States. The narrator said, “We need to come back to feeling our best selves again ... Back to loving ... Back to life.” The message was positive, upbeat and almost spiritual. But it was not a religious organization that was sponsoring the commercial. Instead, it was the Jamaica Tourist Board, inviting people to come back to the island for a vacation. “While everyone has been impacted by the pandemic,” said the minister of tourism, “we want to let everyone know that Jamaica is good for the spirit.”1
The prophet Joel delivered the same sort of message to the people of ancient Israel. He lived in the time of a great locust plague, which was every bit as devastating as the coronavirus pandemic. Joel saw the plague as the beginning of the judgment of God, and he called for the entire nation to repent and come back to the Lord. “Yet even now, says the Lord,” through the prophet Joel, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment.” God wants his people to come back to him, not because he wants to punish, but because he wants to offer mercy. God desires a complete return, not just with fasting and morning, but with a change of heart: “rend your hearts,” says the Lord, “not your clothing.”
This is an attractive offer. Our gracious, merciful God wants us to return to him so that he can help us. “Come back,” God seems to be saying. “I can offer you something infinitely more valuable than a week in Jamaica. Come back to loving … back to life … back to feeling your best self again. All you have to do is return to me, return to me with all your heart.” It is not just the island of Jamaica that is “good for the spirit.”
Change is difficult
...approximately 1,349 words remaining. You are not logged in. Please see options at the top of this page to view complete sermon.
