Try
for a moment to put yourself into the place of the Children of Israel
as they stood at the Jordan River. It had been a long and exhaustive
trek. For forty years they had lived a nomadic life in the barren and
rocky wilderness we now call the Sinai Peninsula. Having been there and
followed some of their experiences, I can assure you, it is not a place
where many would desire to stay.
For a variety of reasons, the story of the Exodus from Egypt to the
arriving at their promised destination of Israel took forty years (even
though the distance is about as far as from here in Squamish to
Kamloops). It had been
forty years since they were ushered out of Egypt under the leadership
of Moses. Forty years, during which time stories were told of their
disobedience, their times of repentance and their falling for the
worship of other God’s.
Flush with the euphoria of escaping
the tyranny of the Pharaoh, their devotion to Yahweh was paramount, as
they began their trek on the eastern side of the Reed Sea where now the
Suez Canal is a reality. In this light, a father drove his child
to Sunday school and dropped the child off while he went home. Some do
that, you know. When he picked up the child, he asked, “what did you
learn in Sunday school today?
The child said, “I learned that the children of Israel came up to the
water and were not able to get across. Moses, got on his cell
phone and called the military. They started a bombardment of the
area, and then an airplane flew over and dropped an atomic bomb right
in the middle of the narrow sea. The water was all blown out, and
the children of Israel walked from Egypt on dry land. “Ah, come on”, the Father said, “you
didn’t hear that.” “ Well, no”, the child said, “but if I told you what
my teacher read to us, you’d never believe it”.
The Hebrews were ecstatic that they
were liberated from Egypt, yet in a very short while, living in harsh
conditions and constant movement, they cried to Moses, “What have you
done to us. We are out here starving in the wilderness. At least in
Egypt we had food and water.” They wandered away from their God. They
complained and tried to revolt against Moses. They erected a Golden
calf, symbol of the fertility cult of that era and began to worship it.
They were, in short, a cantankerous bunch. Over and over again, they were a
burden for Moses. When he went away to Mt. Sinai from which he would
descend with the Ten Commandments, they lapsed into selfish and sordid
living. Yet Yahweh continued to be with his people. They were
led by a cloud during the day and a pillar of light by night, they were
fed when they were hungry, and watered when they were thirsty; you know
those stories as well as I do.
They alternated between being faithful and devout followers of God, and
being rebellious disrespectful people. Now, forty years later, they
were about to enter the land that had been their goal from the exodus.
Moses was now dead. Many standing there on the banks of the Jordan did
not remember ever having been slaves in Egypt. Many had been born
during the trek. Most who had left Egypt had died during the ensuing
years. Joshua, was now the leader-Joshua whose Hebrew name in Greek is
Jesus.
Still, the people were apprehensive.
How can we conquer the people who already live there? Do they have an
army? Will they attack us? It was a day of fear and trepidation. But, surely, this was also an
emotional day. Some were sad that after all those years of leadership,
Moses was not there to lead them across the river. Others would resent
Joshua’s leadership, simply because it was different and they missed
the old man they had known for so long. The young were simply excited
that what they had heard for years was about to transpire. Now, the
disappointments, the weariness and the frustration were giving away to
a new sense of deliverance and hope. Yahweh says to Joshua, “I am going to
exalt you. Today, they will see you as a real leader. When you come to
the river, gather all the people about you and say to them, “hereby,
you shall know that the living God is among you and God will, without
fail, drive out before you the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites,
the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Amorites and the Jebusites.
"Behold, the Ark of the Covenant”-
this was their symbol for the presence of God in their midst, “behold,
the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord will pass before you into the
Jordan. Now therefore take twelve men from the tribes of Israel”- that
would be one person from each of the twelve tribes, “and when the soles
of the feet of the priests reach the water of the Jordan, the waters
shall stop flowing and the waters coming down from above’ (the Jordan
drains mount Hebron), “the waters shall stand in one heap.” (Joshua 3:
10-13). Does this sound
familiar? Wasn’t it just 40 years ago that we heard about a sea parting
and people walking on dry land? Now, here it is all happening again.
The writers simply had to hammer in the point that this arrival into
Israel was an act of God. It was God’s doing. Of this, the writers were
sure.
The priests stepped into the river and
stood in the middle holding the ark on their shoulders, and the Jordan
parted, and the children of Israel walked into their land on the ground. When they had all crossed over the
Jordan, Joshua said to the people "take from each tribe a man and
command them, each of you are to take a large stone out of the Jordan
river, put it on your shoulders and carry to where you will be lodging
tonight. This will be a sign among you. In generations to come when
your children ask, what do these stones mean? Then you shall tell them
the story, lest they forget."
It’s a great story. It is the story of deliverance within the Jewish
community. It is a story that drives home the point the writers were
trying to get across, to be successful, to achieve your goal, you must
be loyal to God: otherwise the road is curvy and scary, and filled with
diversions that take away your focus and make transformation difficult.
Remember, the Bible is always true, and some things happened.
Once again, it is Remembrance Day in
our land. It is now 86 years since the end of World War 1, the war to
end all wars. It was just 21 years before we were once again
involved in a world wide confrontation and World War two became a
reality for six long years. Since 1945, the world has been almost
constantly at war in one region or another.
How well I remember standing at the CN
station in Rosedale, as we said goodbye to several of the young men in
our little town of just 300 people at that time. How well I
remember Ron Archibald, our next door neighbour coming over to say
goodbye- the last time we ever saw him. How well I remember Maurice
Jorgenson trying to teach me gymnastics at the Rosedale Community Hall.
The task was hopeless, but Maurice was a neat young man. He went down
with his Lancaster bomber and died, still very young. Some, to whom we
said goodbye, returned home, but their youth was gone and their lives
had been jaded by the experiences they shared or witnessed.
We do well to pause and remember,
because they helped preserve a way of live that we savour but must
never take for granted. And while we remember these brave young
Canadians, let us also remember there were parents and loved-ones of
young people from the other side who also mourned the death of those
they loved. There are no winners in war. We stand by the stones of cenotaphs
and graveyards, and we remember and IF we fail to tell our children
what these events mean and why they are part of our culture, we do so
at the peril of them not understanding with what price freedom was
achieved.
In 1914, Canada had a population of
7,800,000. In world war one, 619,000 were involved in the military.
Almost one tenth of the entire population was fighting on a foreign
continent. Many enlisted to fight in a country they hardly knew. They
fought to preserve a way of life and to protect the world from land
hungry tyrants. Don’t let our children forget what these unnamed people
did to make possible how we live today. Over 60,000 of our finest young
people, younger than almost all of us here, died in this cause. The war
never came to our shores because of them. May the stones remind us of
that. Mt Sorrel, the Somme, Vimy Ridge, Ypres, where my uncle fought, I
still have his ring, Passchendaele Pass: just names now, but turning
points in the world’s history back then.
And then, World War Two: Another
conflagration where one way of life was trying to impose its views upon
the world. Another time when thousands of young people would go across
the seas to fight and die to stem aggression. A war that cost the
allies alone over one trillion dollars, that’s in 1940 money. A war
where another 60,000 young Canadians were killed, and worse, a war
where the military dead of all countries totalled over nine
million. In addition to
the nine million military who were killed, think of the millions of
ordinary citizens who were killed or injured. Think of the millions
whose lives were shattered by fleeing and the loss of all that they
had. Millions, who mourned, wandered, emigrated to other countries and
saw their former ways of life totally destroyed and millions more who
were systematically annihilated. Let us make very sure that those
stories are never lost, because children need to know what was done
anonymously, in their behalf.
The exodus and the entrance into the
promised land were great events in the history of Judaism. You shall tell your children, says
the writer, that Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground, for the
Lord dried up the Jordan as was also done by God at the Red sea which
dried up until all passed over, and here is the point of the story, “so
all the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty; that you
may fear the Lord your God forever. (Joshua 4:22-24). Times change; circumstances are
different; how we communicate speeds up, but the message remains. No
longer are wars or atrocities done ‘over there’where we remain detached
for days or even weeks. Now things that happen ‘over there’, happen
‘right here’ in our living rooms minutes after the event. We are
not isolated from evil, nor can we escape the inhumanity that still
pervades our earth.
But what we can do is tell the
stories: tell them over and over, so that we do not forget. Tell the
stories of how our nation came to be and those who sacrificed in the
process, so that we do not forget. Worship is largely remembering. That
is why we think it is important to gather week by week; not to be
entertained, though that will be present from time to time; not to just
hear or sing great music, though that will be here, and we will enjoy
it; not just to enjoy the company of each other; but to remember.
We must remember, as William
Willimon suggests “We are not as weak, as helpless, as evil as we
sometimes think we are. We have strengths and abilities which we have
not even discovered. All we need is to be open to a few surprises, a
few laughs when the joke is on us, a few journeys into unknown
territory. Christianity is for spiritual adults of all ages.
Substitutes for faith promise us security, salvation, peace and joy,
without any risk or trust on our part. Substitute faiths will tell us
to be content with where we are rather than explore where we could be"
( Wm Willimon, ‘The Gospel For The Person Who has Everything” Judson
Pres, 1978 Page 90).
What do these stones mean? What does
Remembrance Day remind us about? It reminds us that life is a journey.
For followers of Jesus, it is seeking true faith, the kind to which
Jesus called us. “Faith
is certitude in the midst of doubt, rather then certainty with no
doubts. Faith is a journey with a compass that points us in the right
direction, not a detailed map that tells us every step to take. Faith
is not being sure of where you are going but going anyway because you
like the traveling companions and you know who leads the way. Faith is
a journey which you do not wait to begin until you are desperate and
have nowhere else to go, or until you are devastated and miserable and
forced to go; faith is going because you have heard the good news that
the guide is trustworthy and the trip is worth the cost.” (Wm.
Willimon, The Gospel For The Person Who Has Everything” Judson press
1978, Pg. 90f)
That’s what those we remember made
possible. That’s what the stones mean and that is why we gather-to make
sure the stories are told….. especially the stories of Jesus and his
love. May that be so, right here in Squamish!