Moving into the Land and into the Promise

When I sat down to read the lessons at the beginning of the week, I was somewhat captured by the few verses of the Book of Joshua and what was going on in them (Joshua 5. 9-12) The children of Israel have moved out of slavery in Egypt, through the wondrous rescue from Pharaoh on the shores of the Red Sea and then into the wilderness at Sinai where things got “hinky”. At Gilgal, God removed the reproach of having been enslaved and the issues of the wilderness where the previous generation had been a royal pain in the divine backside. This new generation was on the verge of an eisodos – an in-breaking and the taking possession of the Land that God had promised to them through Abraham hundreds of years before.

The passage though short, is important to the life of the fledgling nation. It is a story of moving from scarcity to abundance, from the manna and other things that God has provided to sustain them into living from the Land that God is giving them. The Jordan River has been crossed. Joshua has the mantle of Moses and has taken charge of things. Moses has died and passed into legend having seen the Land but not being allowed to enter himself by the LORD. There is the first celebration of the Passover in the Promised Land and a time of thanksgiving for what is now behind the people of Israel.

This is a moment of pain and promise: there is an already but not-yet-ness about where they are as a nation. They are starting to live from the land and there are changes in the way things are happening, including worship and diet. There is the anticipation and hope of conquest that will come when the city of Jericho falls. There will be thoughts of building the great society and temple for God in the midst of the nation. But at the same time, the people of Israel are also continuing to be that royal pain in the divine backside. With war there will be injuries, pain and suffering and death. Yet there will still be the promise of what God holds for the nation that will draw them forward. The eisodos will happen and the Israelites will take possession of the Land but what kind of nation will they be?

As a congregation, we are in a similar place to those ancient Israelites. We have overcome a lot of hurdles in recent years Things are, out of necessity I would suggest, transforming because they need to so that we might be ready for whatever it is that God has next for us to do. Therefore let us not live as if God was never at the cross nor has never dealt with the betrayal of those he created or with the death of his own Son. It’s not true. We are on the cusp of a new eisodos into this society and this world and God is in the lead. The new eisodos will require us changing our point of view (pov) and starting to see things the way that Christ sees them.

We are called to help people in this world to see Jesus Christ. How do we, his Church, do that? The true Church is known for its faith in the face of pain and suffering and for a life that is dedicated to the service of God almighty and of others. The grace that God gives to us, his Church, is not meant for us to wallow in memories of ministry that used to be. Grace for this moment is not to get back to the future – to reclaim some glorious point of the past. Rather, it is for the moment that we might share it with our neighbours, friends and family that through us, they might see Christ in action. This grace and mercy for the Church is meant to see us through what St. Paul would call, “Light and momentary troubles”. It is the continuation of the pain and the promise until the fresh eisodos is finished on the Day of Christ Jesus.

Don’t be lemmings who just follow the herd over the edge. Be willing to see things as Christ sees things. Be ready to march into the Land, eating from the good of the Land and worshiping God as God desires. Be ready to follow Christ where he might lead. God is calling us to and be ready to be the Church that God has created us in Christ that we must become. With that life there is a promise and in that life there will be both praise and pain. Let it be.

Jason+