Deleted Scenes: "2025 Goal: Authenticity" Joel 2:13

January 8th, 2025
by Craig Thiessen

A Note From Craig...

2025 Goal: Authenticity
Joel 2:13: “Rend your heart and not your garments”.

I said on Sunday that in the Scriptures, there’s nothing actually wrong with rending your garments. It’s a fairly common response to situations of grief and mourning. For example, when Joseph’s brothers throw him into a well and then sell him to slave traders, his brother Reuben is unaware. When he later discovers what had happened, he tears his clothes (Genesis 37:29). When their father Joseph is told that his son has been killed (a lie), he also rips his garments (Genesis 37:34). Tearing garments is a physical sign of a heart that is burdened by sadness and remorse.

As a side note, I publicly tore my clothes once, though not as a sign of remorse. I was a youth pastor years ago at a youth retreat, serving as the MC for the retreat. I had bought a bunch of plain white T-shirts and in colourful markers I had written things on them like “Saturday morning” or “Saturday night”. At the Saturday night session, I would wear the T-shirt that said “Saturday morning” over top of the one that said “Saturday night”. I would then tear the outer shirt off, revealing the Saturday night shirt. It was a not very serious symbol that an old thing (Saturday morning) had passed away and a new thing (Saturday night) was coming to pass. It was also the only time in my life I felt like the Hulk.

Back to Joel 2:13, the point isn’t that there’s no place for a physical expression like garment-ripping. It’s a bit like 1 John 3:18, which says, “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” Should people love with speech and words? For sure! Of course they should! The point is that those words are empty and meaningless if they’re not backed up with actions. You shouldn’t love only with speech, which is much easier, but with actions too. Likewise, clothes-tearing is empty and meaningless if it doesn’t reflect the state of someone’s heart, but is instead a way of showing off your spirituality for others to see.

It’s amazing how easily we slip into this, isn’t it? We easily slide into a disconnect between our heart and what people actually see. We become masters of showing people only what we want them to see while we hide the more unpleasant stuff, even from those closest to us. We know the words to say and the things to do to outwardly portray life, even as we are rotting and decaying on the inside. Jesus had a word for this: hypocrite. Here’s what he says to the Pharisees in Matthew 23:

27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”

To clarify, this doesn’t mean that there’s no point trying to do the right thing if you don’t “feel it”- the issue is what your motivation is for doing that right thing. It also doesn’t mean you should air all your dirty laundry for everyone and anyone to see. There are things in your life you can and should only share with true friends, with those you are in a relationship of accountability with. The problem is that many people don’t have any relationships like that. Another problem is that many people aren’t actually troubled by the disconnect between heart and performance. They’ve accepted it and have no desire to change it. A follower of Jesus must try not to fall into either of these states. They should seek friendships of transparency, and they should seek an ever-increasing authenticity.

May this be an aim for all of us as we begin 2025: to have our internal life and public life match more and more, and for both to reflect the character of Christ. May the Holy Spirit empower us to grow in this grace this year!