NOTES for Joe 2:12-13

All kinds of troubles constantly happen in our lives. We somehow manage most of them, but sometimes something happens that we cannot handle. Then we say, "trouble, disaster." And because neither we nor anyone else can do anything to help, we fall into despair. There are different ways to express this despair. In ancient Israel, as a sign of extreme grief, people tore their clothes. That is what the prophet Joel is talking about: "Do not tear your clothes, because there are no hopeless situations if the Lord is there." Once we realize that we are at a dead end, we must urgently turn to the One who is good and merciful, and He, in His omniscience and almighty power, will provide a way out.

But there is one more thought here. Why did we end up in trouble? Because we closed ourselves off from God and hardened in our self-will, so that our hearts became covered with a crust. And the prophet says, "Tear your hearts," that is, break the stoniness of your hearts, open yourselves to others, come out of the prison of your "I" into living relationships with God and people, and disasters will stop happening to you. Troubles and sufferings will remain, but they will no longer be disasters.

Great Lent begins today. The texts we read speak about what is most important at this time, yet how far all this is from our ideas of fasting. What the prophet Joel calls "tearing the heart" always means sadness and tears for us. But the Lord gives us His answer, paradoxical at first glance, that completely overturns the picture. Purification is joy; returning to Him can and should be a feast for us; fasting is a time of reunion between the Creator and creation. A "fasting face" is a human invention for justifying one's laziness and consoling one's vanity. But the Lord calls us to tear the crust of sin from the heart so that all the filth may come out. And then our faces will shine with the joy of Great Lent.

Father Alexander Schmemann writes in his "Journals" (October 12, 1976, p. 297): "The beginning of 'false religion' is the inability to rejoice, or rather, the refusal of joy. Yet joy is so absolutely important because it is the unmistakable fruit of the sense of God's presence. One cannot know that God is and not rejoice. And only in relation to joy are the fear of God, repentance, and humility correct, genuine, and fruitful. Outside this joy they easily become 'demonic,' a distortion in the very depth of religious experience. A religion of fear. A religion of pseudo-humility. A religion of guilt: all these are temptations, all these are spiritual delusion. [...] Fear of sin does not save from sin. Joy in the Lord saves."

But this is exactly what the prophet Joel calls us to remember today. Yes, he speaks of "fasting, weeping, and mourning." But for what purpose? Why does such a great man as Theophan the Recluse, in his word for today, not want to see the words that follow these tragic ones? What makes him break off his reflections on such a hopeless note: "The priests do not stop crying out: 'Spare us, Lord!' But from the Lord there surely comes the stern answer: 'I will not spare, for there are none seeking mercy.' Everyone stands with his back to the Lord; they have turned away from Him and forgotten Him."

All this is true, but not the whole truth, not the whole truth. Yes, the world has become corrupt; we see this with our own eyes. But if we allow ourselves to stop at such heartrending notes, then our whole faith will become neurasthenia. And for most believers it already is neurasthenia, and 90% of them should be referred to psychiatrists - sadly.

But one need only hear at least what the prophet says today: "And in that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk", and immediately remember what the Apostle answers: "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Heb 11:1). For people may tell us that the prophet is only promising us that this will happen someday, and that the fulfillment of the promise is being delayed. But precisely the assurance of things hoped for is our faith. This we must without fail remember, and somehow see and do in our own life.

Orthodox worship, including the cycle of readings from Holy Scripture, takes on a Lenten character starting today. Today, as on a true fasting day, the liturgy is not celebrated, and at the sixth hour and at vespers we read the words of the prophet Joel. Two passages from the prophet's book are most closely connected with the beginning of the Fast, and the creators of the Church Typikon wanted us, before the Fast, to listen with them to these words of God.

The first reading begins with words about the meaning of fasting. They come after the prophecy about the day of the Lord, about the coming of God into the world being like fire that destroys every sin and every falsehood. The prophet sees and describes scenes of countless disasters coming upon the universe, "for the day of the Lord is coming." And the Lord's words become the answer to this vision of the prophet: "Yet even now, says the Lord, turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning. Tear your hearts and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God; for He is good and merciful, patient and abundant in mercy, and He relents over disaster." God says that His will is for our repentance and salvation.

But, as in ancient times (and the book of the prophet Joel was written at the turn of the 5th-4th centuries B.C.), the words remain timely for us: "Tear your hearts and not your garments." All the efforts we make during the Fast are directed toward weeping with the heart, even for a minute, and in this sorrow finding Christ. The prophet speaks of this at the end of the passage: "And you, children of Zion, rejoice and be glad in the Lord your God." The Lord Jesus Christ will repeat this thought in the Sermon on the Mount, saying, "But you, when you fast, wash your face..."

The second reading, which includes the end of the book of the prophet Joel, calls us to regard the coming time as the last time. The day has come when repentance and turning back can no longer be postponed. The Lord comes to His people, and those who desire to find life will go out to meet Him.

Why is the invasion of ruthless, unstoppable conquerors called the day of the Lord? Is not the Lord good? Why does the prophecy use such a strange comparison?

This is difficult to understand, although we are not surprised when evil brings retribution: while hoping to escape it and asking forgiveness, we still understand that we deserve punishment. But let us remember that, besides the danger of openly becoming an agent of evil, there is also the danger of growing accustomed to what is good, until, like the air, it ceases to be noticed or valued; then we may drift away both from the good and from its Giver without noticing it at all.

And if we adopt a detached view of God, if we imagine Him far from us, “somewhere up in heaven,” He may give us the opportunity to sense that the world is in His hands and that even amid every horror He is near and will not abandon us to the power of absurdity.