The Day

Swing the sickle,
    for the harvest is ripe.
Come, trample the grapes,
    for the winepress is full
    and the vats overflow—
so great is their wickedness!”
Joel 3:13 (NIV)

I have been fascinated of late by the headlines. Corruption is everywhere. That is not news, of course. Corruption is always there, on both sides of the aisle, and around the world. History has taught me this. Corruption is woven into the fabric of the kingdoms of this world. Netflix is rife with documentaries uncovering the breadth of it. Corruption is part of the human condition since the Snake slithered in the Garden of Eden. The kingdoms of this world create systems to keep their corruption from public view and most of the time those systems work to protect corrupt elites from both exposure and consequences. Of late, the reality of corruption has been seeping out the cracks of the closed doors and smoke-filled rooms across the political spectrum. I’m not convinced that it will amount to anything. Along my life journey, I’ve observed that the systems meant to protect the corrupt will occasionally crack but rarely do they break.

Once again, I’m talking about both sides of the aisle and across the gobal political spectrum. Corruption has always been an equal opportunity racket for powerbrokers of all persuasions, even religious ones. The Godfather taught me this, not to mention the events of Jesus’ arrest and execution.

The result of corruption is always suffering and injustice. You’ll see it everywhere is you have the stomach to honestly look, and let’s face it, most of the time I don’t. I hold endless mental distractions in the palm of my hand most of the day, every day.

The Great Story, however, never ceases to remind me of what I often would choose to ignore. The overarching storyline from Genesis to Revelation is the human condition and the havoc it wreaks on everything from my individual willingness to make wrong choices to the corrupt systems you’ll find lurking in every human institution, especially those of global politics and finance.

The prophetic message of the ancient prophet Joel stands out among the ancient prophets because his metaphorical message points to a Day of Judgement at the end of the Story. It goes by different names like Judgement Day, the Day of the Lord, a Day of Reckoning, and sometimes just The Day. It is described as the day when the “books are opened” and everything, both good and evil, is accounted for. Justice is meted out on the grand scale of God’s Kingdom once, and for all.

As I read today’s final chapter of Joel, it echoed everywhere. In fact, the verse I quoted at the top of the post is clearly present in John’s Revelations:

I looked, and there before me was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one like a son of man with a crown of gold on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, “Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” So he who was seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.

Another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, “Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth’s vine, because its grapes are ripe.” The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath.
Revelation 14:14-19 (NIV)

As a disciple of Jesus, I cannot escape the fact that He mentions this Day of Judgement again, and again, and again.

In the quiet this morning, I feel myself holding a certain tension. It is both the cynical weight of human corruption and the seemingly foolish hope that The Day will, indeed, one day arrive.

“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”
-Jesus (Matthew 12:35-37)