NOTES for Joe 2:28

According to the prophet Joel, the only thing that can save people from inevitable destruction on the great and terrible Day of the Lord is a sincere turning of the heart towards God. ‘Rend your hearts, not your garments,’ the prophet cries to the people. The promise he announces in verse 18 is precisely a continuation of these words: ‘Then the Lord will be zealous for His land and have pity on His people. And the Lord will answer…’ Joel's prophecy, like the book of Job written at approximately the same time, says that God answers the sincere appeal of a heart that truly suffers and therefore contains no contrivance or guile. God's answer itself becomes for people an abundant outpouring of life overflowing the world.

God's answer to people's turning towards Him, prophesied by Joel, cannot be contained within theological discourse. God answers, but the essence lies not even in what He says: the very fact of His answering brings people life. Thus God actually addresses a rebuke to Job, whose story reflects the spirit of the age no less than Joel's book: ‘Who is this who darkens Providence with senseless words?’ Yet it is in these very words that Job finds life and comfort, and all his agonising questions disappear. In the same way, Joel says that if we cry out to God with all our heart, God will answer, and this answer will change everything. The prophet describes this gift in contrast to the devastating invasion of locusts: grain, wine and oil are given in abundance, enemies vanish, pastures grow grass and trees bear fruit.

Through His answer to people's turning towards Him, God gives the early and the late rains that ensure the yearly harvest; He recompenses people for every suffering and satisfies every former hunger. In all this God's greatness and glory will be revealed to people, and so the prophet speaks in His name: ‘You will know that I am in the midst of Israel and that I am the Lord your God.’ Yet even here the prophet does not see the great gift of God's answer. The relief of sorrow merely accompanies it, a visible sign of deeper realities.

God answers our turning towards Him, and in this answer His Spirit is poured into the human heart open to God. In his canon for the Day of the Holy Spirit, Saint Theophanes Graptus (died after 843) calls Him ‘Source of life, in whom we believe, stream of goodness, O Holy Spirit of God’. This is what Joel proclaims to us: the Source of life Himself enters the heart that has turned to Him, tormented by death's terrible dominion. The world is transformed, undergoing a dreadful catastrophe; the sun turns to darkness and the moon to blood, but everyone who calls upon the Lord's name will be saved. For Joel, two utterances, a call and a promise, are inseparably linked: ‘Rend your hearts…’ and ‘I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh…’. The prophet sees that turning to God and His answer deliver people from the common fate of perishable matter and make them participants in divine being. Thus Joel's prophecy speaks not only of the outpouring of the Spirit that took place on Pentecost, but also of what the Church Fathers called the deification of the human person. This gift of salvation, like every gift of God, infinitely exceeds any measure within our understanding or explanation. That is why the prophet says that salvation is given not only to Zion and Jerusalem but also to the remaining ones whom the Lord will call.

We are not surprised that the Lord continues to care for people after the trials they have endured; the Bible constantly reminds us of His mercy. We also know that images of an abundance of earthly fruits often symbolize not only material well-being but also the Lord's spiritual gifts to His faithful. There is therefore nothing unexpected in a prophecy about the outpouring of the Spirit following the promise of plenty.

Let us note that everyone will be equal before the Spirit sent by God. The Spirit will give gifts to all who are capable of receiving Him, regardless of age or social position. Moreover, salvation is proclaimed to everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord, that is, who turns to Him—not only to those born among a particular people or brought close to the Temple's hierarchical structure. Salvation proves so accessible! And yet it is so often rejected...