I got back from Tennessee late Wednesday night. A quick trip. I needed to be in the office part of the week at least. But I needed to be there too. Took dad to a cardiologist appointment, took him to see mom, talked to therapists and doctors and social workers. None of whom had definitive answers. I know, definitive answers are few and far between. In any sphere of endeavor. And I didn’t really expect them. But I confess I hoped for them. It would have been so much easier if someone had just said here’s the deal! Here’s what is going to happen. Here is what your dad will be capable of, and here is what he won’t be capable of. Here is the path you need to go down now. Oh, and he is amenable to it too!
Well, while you’re wishing for the moon.... Speaking of moon, the day I left was the night of the SuperBloodMoon. Remember that? Last Sunday? I know folks in Fort Wayne didn’t get a good view because of clouds. But after I left Greencastle and dinner with my DePauw senior, I drove west on I70 and caught a glimpse of the moon in my rearview mirror. Big, and orange and just waiting for the show to begin. Super Blood Moon. Or is it one word, like the ubiquitous hashtags I saw afterwards (#superbloodmoon)? Frankly it sounds like a band our Genesis Music leader Mike Walter would have been a part of, back in the day.
I turned south on 41 at Terre Haute and made the long trek down into Kentucky. And the moon and I played hide and seek all the way down. Clouds and rain came and went, the moon was there, and then gone and then back in a slightly different place. The first bite of the lunar eclipse was taken somewhere between Vincennes and Evansville. Just a smudge on the right side as I looked at it. Slowly from then on, imperceptibly almost, the super blood moon was sliced away, half gone by the state line, almost invisible on the Pennyrile Parkway in the middle of nowhere Kentucky. Just before it disappeared, the last little sliver glowed brighter and it looked like a diamond ring, shining there in the dark sky. My route turned west again and it slipped behind me, quickly consumed by the clouds that gathered in the darkness. So, I didn’t get to see the revealing, the rebuilding of the super blood moon back to its colorful glory. As far as I knew that night, it was gone, swallowed up by uncertainty and doubt.
It was quite the celestial display, and it served to keep me awake and focused on the journey. Maybe a little more attentive to the heavens than the road in front of me, though I made it safely to my destination. Given the distance and the amount of time alone in a car hurtling to an uncertain reality, it seemed a metaphor to me. I too was being eaten away, sliced up by fear and doubt. The longer I drove, the closer I got, the more convinced I was that the task ahead of me was beyond my capabilities. The decisions and choices and plans and possibilities were too often hidden by clouds of confusion and uncertainty. And what was visible was shrinking away into the dark sky. What was left seemed like more than I could handle.
Joel 2:28-31 NRS Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. 29 Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit. 30 I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. 31 The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes.
Yes, it’s somewhat ironic that Joel is our text for this week. We are in the fourth week of our Fresh Air series on the Holy Spirit. One hopes you are reading along. But Joel is something of an invisible man, invisible prophet in the Old Testament. The only thing we know about him appears in this little book, tucked away between the much more dramatic writers like Amos and Hosea. The who text is rather bland, frankly, nothing to draw attention to the writer, nothing to locate him in more than a general space of time. Scholars pick his period as being somewhere between 800 to 300 BCE. That’s quite a range, five hundred years to get lost in. In half of the book, Joel is dealing with a nation reeling from a national disaster of some sort. Could be locusts devastating crops, could be a drought that felt like locusts, something. Something fearful, something life threatening. In the second half Joel talks about judgement from God. The result of being a wayward people. Not very specific as to the offense, not very creative in the results, standard prophetic fare. Kind of a ho hum non-entity in the pantheon of prophets.
Until right at the end of chapter two. Joel races out to the thin end of the limb on this one. In an incredibly unique proclamation he declares that God promises to pour out the Spirit on all flesh. I know, we’ve heard it before. It’s old hat for us, old red Pentecost hat. Because Peter grabs these verses from the bland unknown prophet and blasts them into the consciousness of the new community of faith. We’ve read these words year after year so that they fade back into the wallpaper and we don’t even hear them anymore. It’s just part of his first sermon that wild and wonderful day. We say go back to the sound of a mighty wind, Peter, tell us about that. We say, describe the tongues as of fire, settling on each and every head. Tell us how you managed to become multilingual without sitting through French 101. That’s what we want to hear, the magic, not the promise.
The barriers will fall, Joel says in God’s voice. This Spirit isn’t anyone’s exclusive property. It isn’t for the good people, the smart people, the rich people. It isn’t for the mature people, the successful people, the people in power. I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, ALL FLESH. You have to hear the capital letters. You have to hear the shout. In a time of finger pointing and teeth grinding, in a political process bent on showing who is wrong and who is bad and who is not worthy, instead of what just might bring us together, you have to hear the proclamation, the promise for what it is. Heaven. That’s what it is. The kingdom of God. The rule and community of God. All flesh.
But. Ah, here we go. But. Not now, not yet, not here, not real. That’s the progression we run through. That’s why some are drifting away from the faith. It’s a hard hope to hold on to. Hope delayed is hope destroyed. So, when is this thing, this pouring out supposed to happen?
Then afterward. Huh? That’s what we get. Afterward. After what exactly? Well, Joel says it is after the day of the Lord. The great and terrible day of the Lord. Like Oz, great and terrible? Is that what we have to wait for? The end of all that is? The end of life as we know it? Are we really supposed to be living for that? The rivers of blood and the rising of the beast and the demon locusts from hell? (Which also sounds like a great band, doesn’t it?)
Well, um, sort of. Sorry, you were hoping for something else, I know. But we are supposed to be looking for the return of the Christ. For the setting right of all that is wrong and to know that it won’t be easy, this new day that is coming. I don’t want to remove any reference to the apocalyptic from the bible, not from Joel certainly.
On the other hand, I’m not waiting for the beast, because I know the beast in my own heart. And the locusts, well, I’ve been stung by choices and decisions and by uncertainty and neglect. And you have too, of that I am sure. We don’t have to wait for the moon to turn to blood, it followed me to Tennessee on Sunday. What if the day of the Lord is not just (notice the just in there please) some future moment when God says that’s enough, let’s get this party started? What if the day of the Lord is the day you first drew breath? What if the Spirit has already been poured out on all flesh? Peter seemed to think so. What if what creation is waiting for is for us to prophesy? No, not that. Not the future telling, finger wagging that most folks seem to think it is. But to prophesy is to tell God’s truth in every situation. It is to speak a word of grace in the midst of brokenness. It is to speak a word of warning in rampant selfishness. What if we began to breathe the Spirit that has been poured into us? Right now? What if we were living in the afterward right now?
No, we haven’t made it to completion. We aren’t all telling God’s truth, to ourselves and to our neighbors. We aren’t all certain about which way to go and what decisions to make and what the future might hold even for those close to us. So, there is, and always has been, a “here and not here” quality to the Kingdom of God. We are already living in the afterward of God, with access to the Spirit for all flesh. But haven’t yet claimed it as fully as we might. As fully as we will. That’s the promise of Joel. That there will be an afterward. One day all the uncertainty will be gone and all the hope will be realized, we will live in grace and love and no longer wonder if we are doing the right thing. Because we will know. In the afterward.
The moon that chased me to Tennessee, that superbloodmoon, wasn’t there to haunt me, like it felt on the way down. No, that was a sign of the promise. That there really will be, one great and glorious day, an afterward. Even for me. Even for you. Thanks be to God.
Shalom,
Derek
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