By Kyle Oliver for prayr.cc (CC BY 2.0)

This reading from Joel 2 always stirs in me an awe both terrifying and alluring. It is not prophecy for the feint of heart. And yet it inspired the early church no less than the Judeans in exile.

That a promise of abundance might live beside a promise of “blood, fire, and pillars of smoke” is strange and ominous. May it also serve, when it needs to, as a wakeup call for we who live and sometimes hide in the mundane.

Related Scripture

Joel 2:23–32 (World English Bible, Public Domain)

23 “Be glad then, you children of Zion,
and rejoice in the LORD, your God;
for he gives you the early rain in just measure,
and he causes the rain to come down for you,
the early rain and the latter rain, as before.
24 The threshing floors will be full of wheat,
and the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.
25 I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten,
the great locust, the grasshopper, and the caterpillar,
my great army, which I sent among you.
26 You will have plenty to eat and be satisfied,
and will praise the name of the LORD, your God,
who has dealt wondrously with you;
and my people will never again be disappointed.
27 You will know that I am among Israel,
and that I am the LORD, your God, and there is no one else;
and my people will never again be disappointed.

28 “It will happen afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;
and your sons and your daughters will prophesy.
Your old men will dream dreams.
Your young men will see visions.
29 And also on the servants and on the handmaids in those days,
I will pour out my Spirit.
30 I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth:
blood, fire, and pillars of smoke.
31 The sun will be turned into darkness,
and the moon into blood,
before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes.
32 It will happen that whoever will call on the LORD name shall be saved;
for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who escape,
as the LORD has said,
and among the remnant, those whom the LORD calls.

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