My next-door neighbour’s house alarm sounds fairly frequently. I ignore it….most of the time. In the middle of the night it’s more difficult. You can’t just roll over in bed and pretend it isn’t sounding, and there is a slight worry that it might be our own alarm that has been triggered (better check)…but once I have seen the flashing light on the side of the next door’s wall I know all is well: Ian and Wendy will soon switch it off. A burglar? No! Couldn’t possibly be? In daylight hours it’s most likely to be that someone has mis-keyed the alarm code…or not got to the settings box quickly enough. At night-time: a spider in the works has perhaps tripped the system.
It’s the same with car alarms. A car could be performing an impression of Blackpool illuminations in the street (flashing its lights and sounding its horn) but most of us nowadays would walk by. Nothing untoward here. Not a problem. Car alarms are louder I find. One goes off, you check it’s not your own vehicle parked outside the house but I’ve never scouted around hunting for a car thief.
Alarms alert us to danger, something untoward. That said, I have sat in a meeting when the building’s fire alarm has sounded and not a soul has moved. Eventually someone thinks ‘better check’…but the assumption is always that it’s a false alarm.
There was a tragic case of this apparently inbuilt disbelief in the face of danger just the other month. Remember that awful fire in the Swiss nightclub at the New Year that killed so many young people? In the days after the fire I read an article by a fire safety officer which highlighted the fact that, as human beings in a group we are pretty well hard wired not to react. When we are in a group there is a 15- 20 second gap between us seeing danger and responding – something that goes towards explaining those videos of folk in the club actually filming the fire in the roof above them. It takes one person to break the spell: to shout fire or move to the fire doors. But at that tragedy, by the time people realised things were dangerous it was too late. That 15 -20 seconds had given the fire time to spread and its smoke robbed them of any hope of leaving the building.
There is an alarm in our Old Testament reading. ‘Blow the trumpet’ says Joel, ‘sound the alarm on my holy mountain’. There is danger. The danger Joel foresees is judgment. This judgement and utter destruction foretold is not a foregone conclusion: Joel remembers that God is ‘gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love’. ‘Perhaps’ he says ‘he will relent and leave a blessing’ for his people.’ But for now Joel looks for a response. The trumpets are sounding. Will the people ignore them?
We know that Israel did not respond. Judgement came in the form of foreign invasion and the captivity of the people. From this distance it is easy to condemn the ancient people of God for their blindness to the seriousness of their situation. I wondered about the impact of those trumpets if they ever did sound from the temple courts. In the busy city perhaps no one heard them. Or life just carried on as normal: ‘something going on up there… leave the religious folk to do their thing’. Before the trials with mobile phone alerts the closest we have got to a public alarm were sirens that could be sounded across our cities. They are so rare that perhaps we’d notice them now, but I have heard that even in the middle of Russian bombardment of Kiev many people now ignore the alarms. Perhaps that inbuilt disbelief kicks in…or a fatalism that prevents action.
The alarm sounds because God cannot ignore sin. Sin offends God and it must be dealt with. Sin, we might think, is not really a problem. Haven’t we grown out of this language. Mention of Sin might appear too old style, judgemental even (and who wants to be that). Other people…their sin, their failings? Dreadful. They deserve their come-uppance. But me?
The confirmation course book we are using at the moment speaks of Sin as being like a disease. It spreads and infects everything it touches. This is a helpful metaphor. We all know that one lie can lead to another. A vandalised property invites more vandalism. The cover up is often worse than the original offence. Sin contaminates and degrades people, communities and nations. Read the papers, watch the news and see how Sin has infected so much of the world. Do we need to mention Epstein? Anything, anyone associated with him is now utterly tainted. Sin unchecked, ignored, smothered with money: lives damaged, good people corrupted, businesses and governments tainted by association. But the sadness is that Epstein is just the tip of an iceberg of trafficking in women and girls, domestic abuse, rape, porn and misogyny. He was infected but so is society.
That ‘infection’ metaphor for sin works. Think of the measles epidemic in London. The spread. The danger it now poses (particularly to children). The problem needs to be acknowledged before a cure can be administered. The undermining of vaccination schemes down decades, misinformation downplaying the severity of the disease. There comes a point when we all reap what we sow.
And so we hear the alarm today and act. We recognise the clear and present danger that Sin is. We name it, acknowledge that it has affected and infected us and look for salvation – for healing. Honesty and realism, taking responsibility for what we have done…and what we have not done: these things are required of us. The Lord is gracious and merciful. ‘Even now’ says the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart’… we can be saved.