Ash Wednesday, First Reading (Joel 2:12-18)

(The St. Joseph’s Bible Study blog will have a number of activities for Lent including specific prayers and thoughts for each day. Every Tuesday there will be a reflection on one of the glorious mysteries of the rosary.)

You can find a commentary on the second reading here: https://biblestudystjosephsparis.wordpress.com/2022/03/01/ash-wednesday-mass-second-reading-commentary-2-corinthians-520-62/ and for the gospel here: https://biblestudystjosephsparis.wordpress.com/2021/02/16/ash-wednesday-matthew-61-6-16-18/

¹² “Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” ¹³ Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. ¹⁴ Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing—grain offerings and drink offerings for the Lord your God. ¹⁵ Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly. ¹⁶ Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber. ¹⁷ Let the priests, who minister before the Lord, weep between the portico and the altar. Let them say, “Spare your people, Lord. Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’” ¹⁸ Then the Lord was jealous for his land and took pity on his people.

The first reading for Ash Wednesday begins with God speaking and calling on Judah to repent, but he insists it must be sincere. As the prophet puts it: “rend your hearts and not your garments.” Rending one’s garments and putting ashes on one’s head were signs of mourning. However, God stresses that he does not care about outward appearances but about what is in the heart. As so often with the prophets, Joel insists that the form of our worship is not important as long as it comes from the heart. True worship comes from a loving heart. The people have greatly sinned but God’s mercy is even greater.

In verse 13, Joel suggests that repentance may yet save them because of God’s nature. He is not angry and vengeful but “gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.” This is the way God is described in Exodus 34:6 which shows that it is always the same God even if the people may perceive him differently. So, in verse 15, the people are given three commands in order to start a service of national repentance. They must be summoned with the horn, called into a holy assembly and fast together. The following verse contains three more imperatives. All must come out and join the national repentance, from the eldest to the youngest. -Even the newly married must leave their bridal chamber. The priests must take their traditional position in the temple and then utter a specific prayer.

The most important point, though, is that throughout the Old Testament, the most common description of God is the one quoted earlier. Indeed, the word used most frequently and which best sums him up is “steadfast love.” The God of the Old Testament is most definitely the same as the God of the New Testament. Indeed, in the final verse here, Joel shows God’s pity for his people’s suffering and his promise of a better future. This is the turning point in the book for from now on the focus will be on future joy – but, of course, it all depends on truly turning to God.

There is a rather strange use of tenses here because in verse 18, Joel uses the past tense to describe something that will happen in the future. Of course, God’s conception of time is not the same as ours. However, more is involved here. Knowing God as he does, the prophet is so convinced it will happen that he shows it as already having happened. He knows the loving nature of God and presents this vision of him to the world. As Paula Gooder says: “God wants us all to have Joel’s certainty about his goodness, love and compassion and to announce this vision to the world in which we live.”