Locusts and Lent: Reflections on Ash Wednesday from Joel 2:1-2, 12-17

February 25, 2011 by John Holbert

Continued from Page 1

YHWH is also "slow to anger," quite literally "long of nostrils." The word "anger" is from the noun "nostril," obviously referring to what happens to the nose of someone who shows fury on her face. And lastly, God "changes the divine mind about evil," or "relents from punishing." True repentance will meet a God anxious to relent, anxious to receive the repentant ones openly, with favor and womb-like love.

And all are called to this repentance: the aged, the children, breast-fed infants. Why, even the bride and her groom are called from their wedding day and spurred to repentance (2:16). And finally the priests:

The ministers of YHWH, are called to weep and to cry out, "Spare your people, O YHWH, and do not make your heritage a mockery. Why should it be said among the nations, 'Where is their God?'" (2:17)

If a people genuinely repent in the attempt to align their lives with God, that loving and compassionate God will receive them, and all the nations will know beyond a doubt that that God is alive and well and active among the people.

And so it is for us Lenten people. We start our journey with the ashes of repentance, moving toward the God who calls us and is eager to receive us, a God of deep compassion and restless longing for God's people. And at the end, we will see once again how this God is the God of life and not death, not a locust-like God of destruction but a God ever ready to display womb love for all.

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About John Holbert

John C. Holbert is the Lois Craddock Perkins Professor Emeritus of Homiletics at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, TX.

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