The Challenge of Joel



By Aubrey Griffis-Jensen

(Before becoming a full-time mother, Aubrey was a Veteran’s Administration hospital chaplain. She is a graduate of Lee University and the Church of God Theological Seminary and a licensed minister in the Church of God. )

In March 2006, I gave birth to my first child. The months leading up to his birth day were very enlightening to me as a first time mom-to-be. I noticed that every mother who would inquire about my pregnancy would usually proceed to give her account(s) of her labor and delivery. I now know that childbirth is not only a rite of passage in the life of a woman, but it is also a spiritual experience. I learned something from the stories I heard. Although the same outcome was achieved (baby!), my experience was different. Likewise, we see that the book of Joel is unique in the Old Testament.

Suppose you are touring the proverbial “Metropolitan Museum of Biblical Art,” a gallery dedicated to artistically portraying each book of the Bible. You are journeying through the Minor Prophets. As you approach Joel, you notice that it is a piece of mosaic art. Each of the pieces comes together to portray an image of a mother holding a newborn baby. As I have read the book, its unfolding events are strikingly paralleled with childbirth, as noted in the following outline:

• Travail ( Joel 1-2:11)
• Transition ( 2:12-17)
• Delivery ( 2:28-3:21)

Travail (Joel 1-2:11)  

If our mosaic forms the picture of a mother holding a baby, what pieces of the picture form this? Consider this. If there is no travail, there is no labor (in pre-epidural days!). If there is no labor, there is no baby.

At the beginning of the book, “the word of the Lord” produces bewilderment. The response to the devastation from the locusts (1:4) is so intense; Joel exhorts the people to not neglect telling the generations to come of this experience (1:3).

As I stated earlier, the childbirth experience is one that is permanently etched on the mind and heart of a mother (both physical and spiritual mothers). Travail warrants a generational transmission of stories, regarding the detail of the tragedy. Keep this in mind as you read Joel 1-2:11.

In Joel’s time, life was informed by the well-being and function of the land. So, one can only imagine the tragedy ensued upon this community. Indicative of this is the lament of the land itself at the onslaught of judgment (1:10). In addition to farmers wailing, the animals moan. Agriculture, daily meals, worship rituals, and even the enjoyment of wine are all drastically altered (1:10-12).

Apathy is broken as lives come together to weep. Think about what it must have been like to fast when their grain had been destroyed. They were undoubtedly already hungry. Resisting the urge to even look for food entailed part of the fast. How difficult was it for this group of people to break their routines and come together for a sacred assembly? For example, envision the infants/mothers on a feeding schedule, and even weddings halted to a stop. The urgency of the schedule change initiated the priest to fall short of entering the Holy of Holies. Instead, halfway there, he comes to a haltering stop at the altar and weeps there. The prayer that went forth reflects the turmoil felt in considering what their identity has become to the surrounding nations. “. . . wherefore, should they say among the people, where is their God?” (1:17). Utter despair seems imminent. How, then, is this forming life?

As the apathetic life was deconstructed and the human situation experienced despondency, the opportunity and opening for transformation was made possible. How? The answer may be found in the similar fashion as a woman in travail. She is responding to her body that is painstakingly making room for her baby to come into the world. Through this experience of travail, the most difficult and agonizing part of labor emerges—transition.

Transition (2:12-17)

One must wonder what was more painful for the community in Joel’s time. Was it the physical anguish experienced from having life altered? Or, was it submitting to the spiritual rending of their hearts? The spiritual act of lament is comparable to transition, for passageway through this brings forth life. Transition, though the most intense and painful part of labor also lasts the shortest period of time. In like manner, the “transition” in Joel seems to be short in terms of verse content, but nonetheless the most anguishing for the community.

It seems that the lament experienced by the people through the spiritual acts in “transition” was indeed more painful than the experience of disaster. A comparison may be made to Christ’s suffering on the cross. One may reflect upon the intense, spiritual misery endured from experiencing the Father’s forsakenness and the more obvious, physical pain. Together, both set up the context for resurrection. However, the sin upon Christ’s shoulders signified Him as the atoning sacrifice, a sight that the Father acknowledged as payment for debt. Consequently, this initiated salvation for everyone who will receive it.

Travail and transition are the forces that initiate delivery. For the people Joel addresses, it was not an effort to physically reconstruct after devastation that brought forth restoration, but it was the deconstruction of their spirits that brought forth the Spirit. The Lord responds to a contrite heart. In like manner, a baby responds to the chemicals that trigger the contractions to enable the mother in delivery.

Delivery (2:28-3:21)

Imagine the community of Christ’s disciples after his death, burial, resurrection and ascension. Where do they go from here? They wait. The have a “sacred assembly,” waiting in one accord. All of a sudden, the end of a season that has included travail and transition (consider their initial grieving of Christ’s death) comes to an end with the blowing of the ruach (Hebrew word for “Spirit”). The Holy Spirit comes and births life and gifts into the community. How Peter’s heart must have been stirred after this experience as he remembers the words from Joel’s book—“. . . I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh . . .” (Joel 2:29)! The “baby” is placed into the arms of the mother and the pain experienced seems to melt away as a new transformation begins. This analogy rings true from both the Old Testament perspective in Joel and the New Testament parallel in Acts.

What about today? How is the church responding to the “natural” disasters seen in various places? When the World Trade Center in North America collapsed, it seemed as if the people of God responded not merely to the ruin of the towers, but to the spiritual undercurrent defining the significance of the attack. Churches opened their doors for prayer, and “sacred assemblies,” if you will, were called. It took the attack to initiate this. But what about when an attack of modern-day “locusts,” set forth from God’s judgment does not seem to be immanent? I hear the words of the apostle Paul ring forth, “For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape” (I Thessalonians 5:3).

If there were ever a time to encounter lament, fasting and prayer it is now. Joel proclaims the Day of the Lord throughout the text. In like manner, Christ also proclaimed—“And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with . . . drunkenness and cares of this life . . . so that day come upon you unawares . . . Watch ye, therefore and pray. . . .” (Luke 21:34, 36). It seems that the Church often does not know how to lament until disaster comes. Perhaps this is where encountering the text in God’s Word enables one’s heart to be sensitive to the cries of the Holy Spirit. The invitation is presented that we may join the Spirit in lamenting with groans that cannot be uttered (Romans 8).

Revivals worldwide have been marked by travail, transition and delivery. People who were part of the Pensacola, Florida, revival at Brownsville Assembly in the late 1990’s will tell you that the revival did not begin spontaneously one Sunday, but was birthed over five years of intercession and weeping. Consider this account from the Welsh revival a century or so ago:

The secret of the Lord was with many even before the blessing came. I know a man, who, for five years was carried out by the Spirit, and made to weep and pray along the banks of a Welsh river. At last the travail ceased, and calm expectation followed the soul pangs of this man about whom I now write. He lived to see the answer to his heart cries unto the Lord. He was present in the services in which the first historical incidents took place.

Upon studying the book of Joel and reading it carefully, I have found that its content has “read” me and continues to do so. I am challenged to cry out for the Spirit of God to bring restoration to hearts and lives ravaged by circumstances. I am burdened to see the Body of Christ return to place of “tarrying” in prayer. As you read Joel, I pray that you are also “read” by the Spirit and what is birthed through you will result in a testimony worth passing on to the generations to come.

Cowman, Mrs. Charles C. Springs in the Valley. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing Co., (org.) 1939. This account was written around 1904 by Rev. Seth Joshua.

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