Wow. I've never read Joel before. That's interesting. According to my Bible's notes, this book reports "the devastating effect of a locust infestation and the people's heeding the prophetic call to turn to God, which evokes the LORD's removal of the plague and complete transformation of curse to blessing."
Just the other night, I watched an old favourite of mine: Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds." People often laugh at it now, because the special effects are primitive by today's standards. But I still find it deeply moving and terrifying: moving because the gathering birds seem to represent gathering feelings of frustration and desolation within the minds of the characters, and terrifying because the natural world suddenly rises up and takes revenge on us.
Joel seems to speek to both the pity and the terror. The devastation of the locust infestation, like any environmental catastrophe, turns the entire landscape into a reflection of our spiritual poverty, and a reflection of God's anger at our irresponsible stewardship of this world's riches.
And yet, the passage doesn't end with devastation: it ends with promise, and with the pouring out of God's spirit. That too is interesting. At the end of "The Birds," the family drives away from the farmhouse, and the birds let them go. It seems absurd: in one sense, the movie just "ends." And yet, throughout the movie, the young heroine, Melanie, has been in quiet, submerged conflict with Lydia, her lover's mother, who is terrified of being left alone, and desperately wants Melanie out of the way. As they get into the car at the end, Lydia's arm is around the badly-wounded Melanie's shoulders. Melanie's hand grasps hers, and Lydia, with a look of wonder, lays her cheek against Melanie. Against all odds, love has blossomed among the group of suspicious, wary strangers, and turned them into a family.
"Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape." --Joel 2.32
