Tag: minor prophets

The Years the Locusts have Eaten

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Our oldest living grandparents have never seen anything like this. The alcoholics can’t drink it away or numb it. It’s making history and parents imagine what they’ll tell their children or their children’s children in days to come. A new dread has overtaken the land—so unknown that people feel powerless in its wake. The grief for all that’s been lost is so painful it feels like a virgin widow mourning her husband instead of enjoying her wedding night. Our pockets are so empty there is nothing to put in the church’s offering plate. The store shelves and market stands are empty. Our joy feels withered, like fruit on the vine in drought.

Worldwide 21st century pandemic, or the first chapter of Joel? Both.

The Old Testament prophecies of Joel are easy to overlook. It’s a short, 3-chapter book in the minor prophets about a locust plague that decimated the land and its people. It’s very apocalyptic and, honestly, hard to relate to—that is, unless you’ve lived through a global calamity yourself.

Reading Joel in the shadow of international tragedy was a unique experience. The first half chapter summarized above left me wide-eyed with shock. This ancient text came alive now that I shared a similar experience with its original audience. The first chapter goes on to describe religious leaders in open anguish before their people, and fasting and repentance because no one knows why calamity has struck except for our sin. The food sources are dried up. The land and its people and animals all go hungry and are left parched. There’s a fair bit of aimless wandering, widespread suffering, and storehouses and gathering places left empty and in ruins.

All of those experiences sound so familiar. No matter how much bread we bake or research we read, we can’t ignore that we still don’t understand what is happening around our world, nor how to stop it or minimize the damage. Our economies are crashing. Our marketplaces have empty shelves too. Our religious leaders desperately try to point us back to God, but the places of worship lie empty. Here in Uganda I’ve seen the empty market stalls. The land isn’t suffering here, as under a drought, but the livestock are thinner and sicker as limited resources have been given to people instead of land and animals.

Joel closes chapter 1 speaking about fire that has devoured the fields. We joke about our world being on fire. We have seen protests and riots, because the world has slowed down its spin enough for us to step back and notice our oppressive systems. Violent and opportunistic crime is on the rise as people become more desperate with hunger and poverty. People starve in slums and refugee camps. Treatable diseases are overlooked and untreated more than ever as our hospitals fill with pandemic victims. Global mental health is in crisis. Dictatorial governments have seized even more power. Marginalized people who already lived on the edge struggle for plain survival. Our world IS on fire.

A theme from the first chapter of Joel rings true for us too: large-scale disaster overlooks nothing and no one. The land in Joel’s day was ravaged by drought, famine, and locusts. But it wasn’t just the food that was affected—young and old, wealthy and poor, people and animals, land and water—all suffered. Even though our pandemic has been a global health disaster, it has hit our economies, governments, communities, and every other sphere of society, with crippling force. Every sector has taken a beating. All the destruction and brokenness has left our literal and metaphorical fields dried, shriveled, and unprotected: just waiting for fire to blaze through and pile calamity upon calamity. Catastrophe reminds us how little control we actually have.

But chapter 2.

The second chapter of Joel reminds us that the Lord is in complete control. Yes, he sends the locusts. Yes, he is holy and just and must punish sin. But he is also merciful and good.

The chapter opens with a nightmarish horror scene. Alarm bells ring and trumpets sound to announce an invading army, but the army is locusts. They black out the sun and moon and break over the mountaintops like a grisly dawn. The land that was lush like Eden before them is a barren desert waste behind them. They move and sound like an untamed wildfire crackling and leaping, like soldiers whose formation is not broken by obstacles, enemies, or defense walls. They pour over and through everything and the earth quakes beneath them.

These images depict the utter helplessness Joel’s people felt in the face of their plague. Nothing could stop the onslaught, and nothing was spared in its path. The locusts even crept into homes through windows, like thieves in the night, violating any sense of privacy or security the people felt. There was no refuge.

But then comes the great parenthesis of Joel. Between talks of plague, judgment, and devastation, the Lord gives an offering of mercy: “Even now, return to me with all your heart…,” “tear your heart and not your garments.” Why? Why should the people trust to the mercy of a God who has only measured out judgment? Because of the ancient name of God, the name he gave to Moses in the burning bush as he was sent to deliver God’s people from slavery.

Return to the Lord your God

for he is gracious and compassionate,

slow to anger and abounding in love,

and he relents from sending calamity.

Who knows? He may turn and have pity

And leave behind a blessing…

Joel tells us that this wrathful God shows grace and compassion. His anger is slow, but his love overflows. He can cancel calamity. And if you return to him, he may himself turn and deliver blessing instead of punishment. Joel tells the people to gather, young and old. No one is exempt. Help along the tottering elders. Bring in the nursing babies. Interrupt the honeymooners. Weep openly as a people. Repent of your sin and pray for the Lord to spare his people, not to prevent their shame, but the Lord’s. Beg him to relent so that the world will know the Lord’s character and his unchanging love for his people.

Then, Joel says, the Lord will reply with abundance. Food will once again be plentiful in the land. The people and the whole land and its animals can rejoice. The rain returns. The storehouses and places of harvest are full.

Unlike Joel’s people, we are not under the Old Testament covenant promises. Our plague is not necessarily covenant punishment. But the book’s prophecy is filled with God’s truths nonetheless. We too have faced nightmarish scenarios as Coronavirus has overtaken the land. We feel helpless and desperate. We don’t know how to halt it, or how to stop up the holes in our defenses. Our homes don’t even feel safe after we were locked inside them and our privacy and security there feels violated.

Our situation is not the same, but the Lord’s character IS. He is still gracious and compassionate. He is still merciful. Our lives, too, have been interrupted and changed. But just like Joel promised, ‘normal’ can return and we can live in abundance. Disaster has made us desperate, and in our desperation we have new reason to turn to the Lord.

It is here in narrative that the Lord says something startling: “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten.” What does he mean? How can you repay devastation, lost life, trauma? He quickly answers with a beautiful passage that gives me chills. Peter quotes it at Pentecost.

And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth… And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the survivors whom the Lord calls.

Wow. Will the Lord repay in material abundance after a calamity? Perhaps. But he promises an even greater repayment for the trauma we have endured. If we repent, if we use this calamitous interruption to dig into our own hearts and submit them to the Lord, he will repay us with his Spirit.

The years the locusts have eaten—the difficult days we have experienced—will be repaid. Many of us have found a deeper relationship with God during this time of confusion and tragedy. Our life is enriched for the time we have spent with the Lord. We can use the interruption and the unquestionable grief and fear to drive us deeper into our need for Him and his constantly present Spirit with us.

Not only that, but this is a time of new pioneering for our churches. As they have closed and services have moved online or into homes, we have sifted our ‘religious practices.’ What church traditions are actually life-giving to us? Which ones prop up unnecessary cultural habits we can do without and still have abundant life with the Spirit of God? We have seen and felt the Spirit moving amongst God’s people as we have worshipped at home or with our own instruments together with our families and small communities. This is a time of refreshing and renewal—a time of God pouring out his Spirit abundantly on his people who seek him and repent of the hidden sins these times have forced us to face.

Yes, the Lord sent the locust plague to Joel’s people, and yes, he sent the Covid plague to us. The third chapter promises judgment on the Lord’s enemies just as the first two chapters promise it for his own people. He abhors the sins of selling people or trading them for goods. He is disgusted when defenseless people are abused and taken advantage of. The Lord prepares for war on his enemies and will scythe down even the most powerful among them like grass in a field. Where wickedness is ripe, the Lord is ready to cut it down.

But that does not mean he is not merciful. God is just and cannot abide sin, but he delights to show grace. When he does, the world stage will know of his unconditional, redeeming love to people who rely on him to save them. Unlike with the locust plague, God promises this time during judgment that he will dwell with his people and be their place of refuge. He is sovereign over the disasters of the world. But he is also sovereign over their outcomes. The Lord delivers us. He fills us with his Spirit. He gives us life abundant after calamity. He offers hope. He repays the years the locusts have eaten.

In His Embrace

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Names are important in the Bible. They don’t just denote a person; they describe the person before he or she even gets a story explaining who they are or how they act. Just think of all the naming stories in the Bible. Jesus and John the Baptist’s names are given straight from the mouths of angels. Mothers frequently name their children in reference to their situations or the Lord’s action on their behalf (Hannah, Rachel, Leah, Eve and Sarah, for example). Think even of the creation story and how the Lord names the things he creates and they come into being because the name uttered from his mouth is so powerful. Or remember when Adam named the animals, in that action both knowing their natures and exercising humanity’s dominion over them. Point is, names matter.

And the prophets are no exception. Isaiah means The Lord Saves. Ezekiel means God Strengthens. These guys’ names encapsulate the message they bring and the nature of the messenger. So I was reading Habakkuk… and I read in a commentary that his name was probably a Babylonian word that meant ‘potted plant.’ I don’t know if you’ve read that book lately, but there’s nothing about potted plants in there. Absolutely nothing. If you wanted to really stretch it (we’re talking contortionist-like stretching), you could say that the end of the book, when Habakkuk talks about flourishing no matter the circumstances, is about living well away from your homeland—flourishing like a potted plant. But… I don’t really buy that. And anyway, I found another explanation of Habakkuk’s name recently that I like better. Who knows, maybe after you hear my theory you’ll think it’s just as much of a stretch as potted plants, but I’ll give you the goods and let you decide.

I’m no Hebrew scholar, so I use websites (like Biblehub.com) to help me when I want to know a word. Habakkuk’s name, directly transliterated from Hebrew looks something like Chabaquq (put a little phlegm in your throat for that first consonant sound). There’s another Hebrew word quite similar to Habakkuk’s name. In fact, the actual construction of the name intensifies the meaning of the word it seems to be built on. The Hebrew word chabaq (don’t forget the phlegm) means to embrace, or to hug. If you know me, you know that when I found that out, it felt like Christmas. Haha 🙂

I really struggled a few years back when I returned from a month-long trip to Romania. I had grown very attached to people I didn’t know if I’d ever see again, and I had fallen in with a culture which expressed everyday affection through lots of hugs and kisses. When greeting a new person—stranger, relative, friend, foster-parent, believer, communist insurgent, it didn’t matter who—you gave them two real kisses, one for each cheek, and a big warm bear-hug. And it was a completely normal thing to hold someone’s hand, no matter how well you knew them. I was a touchy person before that trip, but when I returned, I felt starved for human contact. I came home from immersion in a body of believers who expressed their connectedness through physical affirmation. And no one did that here. In the States people look at you weird if you hold a friend’s hand and you aren’t dating them. They tend to back off when you go in for a hug unless you’re a very close friend. And kisses are reserved only for the most intimate relationships: family or significant others.

So when I returned from Romania I worked hard to fall back into this distanced way of life. And many of my friends and family worked hard to give me extra hugs or extra meaningful ones. As I grieved for a people I felt like I had lost and for the physical connection to loved-ones around me, I decided to do a word study in scripture for words like hug, kiss, and embrace. My search came up pretty dry. I barely found anything in the Old Testament, and in the New most references were to the prodigal son story or to holy kisses among the believers. And some of the OT references were talking about kisses from prostitutes or from Solomon’s personified Folly. Not too encouraging. I wanted to find instances of God personified, physically caring for his people and showing his love to them tangibly. I couldn’t find it. I guess that goes to show what happens when you come up with your own idea and dig through scripture trying to find things to prove your own point.

I will say this, though. As the Body, we are connected, and we should care enough about each other to hug our brothers and sisters and welcome them in close to us. I have noticed since my return from Romania that we, as the American church, often don’t like to let people in. It’s a fairly universal thing that no one likes to reveal themselves at their ugliest, but we’re extra good at hiding those parts of us in America. We don’t like accountability, confession, or vulnerability with each other. So we don’t comfort each other like we should because we don’t know each other’s struggles. We’re all hesitant to share our difficulties for fear that people will see us broken and judge us for not quite having this Christian thing worked out. But I’ll let you in on a secret: we are all of us broken, every one, and the Body is supposed to care for its members by sharing burdens and joys alike. Scripture does back me up on this point. Maybe we should take a cue from those holy kisses in the NT and, if not physically enacting that culture’s expression of the Body’s intimate bond, we should at least welcome each other deep into our lives.

Now, with some distance on the situation, I realize that the NT rarely speaks of God personified, because he came in the person of Jesus. There was no need to personify Him anymore. We had the Incarnation. And the OT was just the beginning of the revelation. God wanted to show himself to his people as a Mighty commander of armies, a fierce judge, a creator of cosmic scale. He wanted his people to know him for his holiness and his power, not his desire for a personal relationship with Him. That option died at the Fall, and was not available again until Jesus came. So, of course I wasn’t going to find passages going on about a loving father who embraces his children or kisses their heads as they sit in his lap. In the Old Covenant mind, God is holy, awe-inspiring, terrible, and unapproachable. Sin is gruesome and not allowed in his presence. He was a gracious God, but instead of tender scenes with the Father, the OT depicts scenes like those of Is. 6, where the last thing anyone wanted to do was get anywhere near YHWH.

So, now back to my point, after what was perhaps too protracted of a back-story. Habakkuk’s name uses as its root the Hebrew word for ‘embrace.’ If prophets’ names describe what God does to or for his people and his prophets, what is a book on judgment doing coming out of the mouth of a man named Huggy (not to be confused with the diapers)? I think Habakkuk is one of the most brilliant names for a prophet given in the OT for not a few reasons.

First of all, think of what a hug is. When you hug someone you welcome them into your private, personal, intimate space. It’s a defenseless gesture, too; neither you nor the other person can protect yourself. And in real embraces, not those silly Christian side-hugs, you learn a lot about the person. You can tell if someone’s muscles are tensed because they’re angry, stressed, defensive, or shocked. You can tell how fast they’re breathing and how fast their heart is beating. You know immediately after a hug if a person is agitated or calmed. Often, you can feel a person relax into a hug as they let themselves be comforted by someone who cares about them. In embracing someone, you come intentionally and fully into their presence.

That still doesn’t explain Habakkuk though. He was a watchman on a wall, not an over-zealous Walmart greeter. But I think it does explain him. In Habakkuk’s book, he asks God a question about justice among his people. He sees the poor among them mistreated and neglected. He asks God why and how he can allow such injustice to go on. Habakkuk got a little more than he asked for. God tells Habakkuk that He’ll do an amazing thing among his people (1:5). But then God goes on to explain that his definition of amazing means suffering and exile and war and even more injustice. God will bring a nation against the Israelites to conquer them and exile them from their homeland in judgment against the injustice Habakkuk remarked on. Habakkuk responds, not questioning God’s right to do as he pleases, but questioning why God would use a nation even more wicked than the Israelites, and why he would dole out punishment indiscriminately to the righteous and unrighteous. He ends his question with a beautiful statement (2:1) of his trust in God’s judgment and humble acceptance of whatever answer God will give him. In time God responds, affirming his holiness and power, and reminding Habakkuk that he has an ordered plan in all of this; that in the end He will punish the wicked for their deeds. If the Lord’s answer wasn’t breathtaking, Habakkuk’s response certainly is.

He offers a prayer to God in chapter 3. His humility is striking. He conjures up awe and communicates the Lord’s terrific power as he explains that he and his people will accept whatever comes from the Lord’s hand. His closure in verses 16-19 is the kind of beautiful that makes a grown man cry. The whole book is wonderful, and I encourage you to read it when you have a few minutes. But these four verses are well worth committing to memory. Habakkuk says that no matter what happens—even when the food runs out and calamity comes—he will rejoice in the Lord. He’ll take joy in the One who saves him. He won’t just accept it. He’ll be happy it about it, the deep-down kind of happy. I’ve often wondered before what wells of trust and understanding of God’s character he pulls this confession from. How can he be broken over the suffering he sees, know that the Lord will bring even more, and commit to be full of joy over it?

Because of his name. Because, even though Habakkuk spent his time in a watchtower instead of a temple, he spent his time in the Lord’s presence. His whole book is a book of prayer—of speaking with the Lord, watching the Lord, waiting on the Lord, listening to the Lord, understanding the Lord. He spent his time fully and intentionally engaged in the Lord’s presence.

In His embrace.

His name is perfect. Habakkuk spent time with the Lord in prayer and understood His character, will, and plan all the better because of it. And Habakkuk knows that he will rejoice in the future, no matter what comes, because he will still be in the Lord’s embrace. He says so. In 3:19, after his wonderful confession, he says that the Lord is his strength. He’s spent so much time in the Lord’s embrace he knows that’s where true strength and comfort come from. And in the end, he trusts the Father who wraps him in an embrace, because He knows the character and the heartbeat of his God. He breathes the Father’s breath after him. He understands why. And he trusts the One who protects him in His arms.

I pray for you, brothers and sisters, as I hope you will pray for me, that you will learn to live fully and intentionally engaged in the Father’s presence through prayer. That you will, like Habakkuk, live wrapped in your Father’s embrace, breathing his breath after him and fully contented in his character.