Joel sounds the alarm in the last place anyone expected. 1"Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain!" The danger has already reached the city that believed itself safest, and the God whose dwelling is there is the one who calls for the trumpet.
What approaches is described in layers, because no single picture is large enough. 3"The land is like the garden of Eden before them, but behind them a desolate wilderness, and nothing escapes them." Eden is the image of everything God made good and abundant, and it is running backward in front of Israel's eyes. Green ground goes in, wasteland comes out. The chapter borrows the language of horses and cavalry, then infantry storming a wall, then a fire. A locust swarm is the visible cause, and the passage keeps reaching past it toward something greater.
The discipline of the advance is its own horror. 7"They march each on his way; they do not swerve from their paths." There is no chaos to exploit and no gap to slip through. Then the invasion arrives at the last place a family thinks of as safe: 9"they climb up into the houses, they enter through the windows like a thief." Whatever lock a person has trusted, this does not care.
The scene then widens past fields and walls. 10"The earth quakes before them; the heavens tremble." That is the language Scripture uses when the whole created order answers to something God is doing. Joel has stopped describing a bad harvest and started describing a judgment.
Then the sentence that turns the passage over. 11"The LORD utters his voice before his army, for his camp is exceedingly great; he who executes his word is powerful." After ten verses of terror, the reader learns who is at the head of the column. The God who fought for Israel against Egypt and every enemy since has taken his place at the front of the force that is coming against them. What looked like an enemy is his instrument.
That reversal gives the closing question its weight. "For the day of the LORD is great and very awesome; who can endure it?" Taken alone, the honest answer is no one. No wall stopped the advance and no weapon halted it, and the comforts people reach for in trouble weigh nothing against a force this complete. Joel asks anyway, at the darkest point in the oracle, because the rest of the book is his answer. The very next words from the same LORD are "return to me with all your heart" (Joel 2:12).
The trumpet that announced the alarm is the trumpet that will call the people to the fast that saves them. A warning this severe is the kindest thing a God who intends mercy can send. If today feels quiet and safe, hear the alarm as an invitation. If it feels like the end, hear the same voice inviting you back.
Prayer
LORD, we have sometimes taken your patience for our safety, as if the ordinary comforts of our lives proved that nothing could reach us. Thank you that the voice that commands an army we cannot withstand is the same voice that invites us to return. Where we have grown complacent, sound the alarm again. Where we are afraid, remind us that the door you left open is still open. In Jesus' name, amen.