PazNaz: Who Knows?

It is hard to believe that the Lenten season is approaching again. Ash Wednesday falls on February 13, this year. Traditionally the text that is read on that day is from the second chapter of the prophet Joel.

Yet even now, says the Lord,
Return to me with all your heart,
With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
Rend your hearts and not your clothing.
Return to the Lord, your God,
For his is gracious and merciful,
Slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
And relents from punishing.
Who knows whether he will not turn and relent,
And leave a blessing behind him,
A grain offering and a drink offering for the LORD, your God? (2:12-14)

Every time I read this text I am struck by the phrase in verse 14, “Who knows?” The prophet sees the destruction that is directly ahead for God’s people unless they repent and go a different direction. Things are bad for the people of God, and they are only going to get worse if they do not turn from their sin.

But if they repent, if they turn their hearts back to God, who knows what might be the result? Who knows what God may do?

The same question appears in the story of Jonah. The prophet Jonah proclaimsthe message of impending destruction to the wicked city of Nineveh. When the king hears it, he calls the people to a similar kind of repentance that which Joel articulates. Everyone is called on to repent. The whole city puts on sackcloth and ashes and they fast. Even the animals are forced to participate in the fast. (Can you imagine the noise that hungry people and animals make in the city)?

But the call to repentance is shaped by this question from the kind. “All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is their hands. Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish” (3:8-9). Agin repentance is shaped by the question, “Who knows?”

In both cases, when God sees the repentance of the people, he is moved in grace and compassion to make all things new. God’s people and Nineveh are spared, delivered, and their lives are redeemed.

As PazNaz approaches the Lenten season again, I am haunted by the same question. If the people of God can be honest about their brokenness, if we can with transparency and vulnerability confess our sins to God, and if we can be open to the newness that God wants to bring to his church, who knows what God will do?

• Who knows what relationships can be restored?
• Who knows what communities can be rebuilt?
• Who knows what broken lives will be healed?
• Who knows how many will receive God’s grace, leading to a new creation?
• Who knows what God can do?

My hope is that walking through the Our Life sermon series together during this Lenten season will help PazNaz see the “immeasurably more” that God was able to do when the early church lived transparently and openly before God. The church will discover again the immeasurably more that God can do today in his people.

Rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding and steadfast love, and relents from punishing. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him…

Pastor Scott Daniels

First Church of the Nazarene, 3700 East Sierra Madre Blvd., Pasadena, (626) 351-9631 or visit www.paznaz.org.