Sunday Morning Meditation: Joel 2:13
“Rend Your Heart”
Rend your heart
and not your garments.
Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and compassionate
Slow to anger, abounding in love,
and he relents from sending calamity.~ Joel 2:13
Every expression of worship is in danger of becoming empty religion. Here, the people of God are suffering from trouble and distress. Their “food has been cut off…the storehouses are in ruin, the granaries have been broken down” and as a result, “joy and gladness” have also been cut off from the house of God (Joel 1:16-17).
Rending, or tearing and ripping, one’s own clothing was an outward sign of grief for people living at this time, so it was common for God’s people to practice this as an expression of their repentance. At its best, it was a bold and public proclamation, an outward confession. It must have been powerful when practiced sincerely.
However, like all outward expressions it could easily fade into meaningless ritual, or worse, a public performance conducted for the admiration of others.
God is not interested when we put on a good show. The Lord does not merely want our clothes, or our money, or our empty words sung mindlessly like a thousand times before. God longs for the sacrifice of our hearts. For the Lord, true worship is born upon the wings of passion and grief, frustration and beseeching, affection and love. No activity is the true worship of God if it does not spring forth from a root deeply entrenched in an inward reality of devotion. Therefore Paul declares “…a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man’s praise is not from men, but from God.” (Romans 2:29)
But as little as God cares for empty religious expression his frustration seems to be especially provoked by those who conduct their rituals for the praise of other men. Jesus had harsh words for those who put on a religious show saying, “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.” (Matt 6:16) This is a sobering passage. All the Pharisees wanted was the admiration of other men, and Jesus say’s that is all they received. What a paltry reward!
We must align the posture of our hearts with the posture of our bodies and squarely face the crucified Christ, realizing again the agony he suffered and the price he paid on our behalf. We must face his humility and his holiness, his sacrifice and his sanctity, for there we remember the grief of our own pride and un-holiness. There, at the foot of the cross, we are reminded as Paul said, by the Spirit, that we are totally broken sinners with only one hope, the hope of God’s eternal mercy.
We must rend our hearts, and not just our garments. If we do, the character of God remains for us, as it was for Joel, our eternal hope: he is gracious and compassionate.
