"Three Days" - Joel

One phrase keeps appearing as I journey through the prophets - The Day of the LORD. Joel repeats it over and over again and is responsible for bringing it to my attention. He is the first prophet chronologically speaking to utter those words.

"Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is at hand..." (Joel 1:15)

"Blow the trumpet in Zion... for the day of the LORD is coming." (Joel 2:1)

"The great and awesome day of the LORD." (Joel 2:31)

"Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is near." (Joel 3:14)

Later on, Isaiah, Amos, Zephaniah and Malachi will also speak of it. The prophets seem unable to let it go.

Naturally, questions keep forming in my mind. When is this Day? Why a day? What's so important about this day? What will happen on that day?

At first, I imagined it as a single twenty-four-hour period somewhere in the future, then Peter quietly adjusts my thinking. "With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." (2 Peter 3:8) I wonder how this fisher of men came to this thoughtline and conclusion. He is the first and only one to make that claim and it feels like he's stretching it. From a day to years? Why not a week, or a month? He goes all the way to a thousand years. Wow! He however shifts the meaning of a day in my thinking. Suddenly, "day" no longer sounds like a date on a calendar. It sounds like a season and a divine period.

God does not experience time the way we do.

Then John opens another window. That seems to support Peters random thoughtline. In Revelation, he speaks of Christ reigning on the earth for a thousand years (Revelation 20). The day(24hrs) He returns, He'll be around for a day(1000yrs). What I thought was 24hrs will be 1000yrs?

To humanity, a thousand years is an unimaginably long time. To God, Peter said, it can simply be "a day."

That observation made me wonder whether the prophets were all pointing toward the same great Day, while each was only seeing part of it.

• Joel saw judgment.
• Isaiah saw restoration.
• Malachi saw purification.
• John saw a lot!

Like travellers standing on different sides of the same mountain, each described what was visible from where they stood.

The Day of the Lord is therefore not merely about judgment of humanity. It is also about restoration of the fallen creation, the triumph of God's kingdom and about creation finally coming under the rule of its rightful King.

That thought led me somewhere else.

Perhaps the story of Scripture can be told through three "days."

The first was man's day in Eden. Humanity walked with God. Adam and Eve were given dominion over creation. Everything was very good. How long the period between the formation of Adam and his fall was, we don't know. However, I think that was the day of man.

Then came another day. The enemy through the serpent entered the garden. Humanity believed another voice and sin entered the world. Ever since then, the enemy has been having what we might call his day. Not because he won but because mankind handed over what God had entrusted to them. This day is marked with violence, idolatry, exile, plagues, disasters, broken kingdoms, broken hearts, broken humanity, etcetera.

Even now we still live in the effects of that rebellion, but the prophets refuse to end the story there. Again and again they announce another Day - The Day of the Lord.

The day when Christ returns and evil is finally judged. The day when righteousness fills the earth and every promise of God reaches its fulfillment. The day when the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.

• The prophets longed for that Day.
• The apostles looked toward that Day.
• The Church still waits for that Day.
• The creation eagerly waits for that Day.

The disciples asked The Lord when this day will be. We see this twice. In Matthew 24 and Acts 1. In both His responses He does not deny that there's such a day, but states that though He's not preview to the details, it will come to be.

As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3)

“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. (Matthew 24:36)

Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. (Acts 1:6-7)

The book of revelation however reveals 'the how' of that Day but not 'the when'. That's why it's full name is 'The Revelation of Jesus Christ." It's like been given the details of a surprise event, but not been told when it will happen.

Peter reminds us that God's clock is different from ours. What feels like delay to us may simply be patience to Him. He is not slow concerning His promise - He is patient, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance. History is not drifting. It is moving toward a Day already fixed in the purposes of God.

The Lord will dwell among us and reign openly. His glory will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea. The day of The Lord is the answer to everything that went wrong in the garden.

• Man had his day.
• The enemy has been having his day.
• Soon, the Lord will have His Day.

When that Day comes, may I be found ready.