约书亚记

Meditative Reflection
Lest We Forget (I)

As the people of Israel were about to cross over the River Jordan in the most miraculous way, the Lord made sure that not only that generation, but also future generations of His people would not forget that it was He who brought them out of Egypt into the Promised Land; it was He who delivered them from slavery; it was He who led them through the wilderness; it was He who gave them the land; and it was He who has made them into a nation, but not for their sake, but that they would become His treasured possession, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exod. 19:5-6). He did so by asking them to take 12 stones from right where the priests who carried the ark of covenant stood and bring them over to the other side of the river.

Today, the stones are nowhere to be found, and though some of His people might still remember His miraculous act of deliverance, most, at best, remember it only as history, and instead have lost their “fear” of the Lord, their God (Jos. 4:24).

Sometimes, I feel bad for the Lord. He knew that we would be very forgetful, even of His wonderful works in history and in our own lives. As a result, He has instructed us over 200 times in the Scriptures “to remember”. Alas, we are always too busy to stop and remember. This is why He has chosen to establish festivals in the Old Testament to force His people to stop and remember. And, in the New Testament, our Lord also instituted the Lord’s Supper to make us stop to remember His saving act on the cross.

If we know the heart of the Lord, we should stop often to remember all that He has done for us. At the least, we should stop and prepare our hearts the night before, as we prepare ourselves come to His table of Communion to remember Him through the bread and the cup — remembering not only His saving act, but He who loved us so much that He gave His life to atone for our sin.

Meditative Reflection
Lest We Forget (II)

“Lest We Forget” had been made popular to serve as a reminder to us of some horrific events in history. Presumably, it all began with Laurence Binyon’s poem “For the Fallen” which was published in 1914 to remember the sacrifice of the young British soldiers in WWI. This ode is now often sung to remember the war heroes of both World Wars, with the line “Lest we forget” added to the end of it.

I invite you to reflect on the third and fourth stanzas of this poem as these young men emulated our Lord in giving their lives for us so that we may live in freedom today.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.

Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

Lest We Forget.

Yes, we are people who are forgetful; we are people who will never learn from history, and so wars will continue and lives will be lost. But because of the ultimate victory our Lord has won on the cross over human sins, true peace, lasting peace will come upon His second coming as:

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Rev. 21:4)

Meditative Reflection
Enter into God’s Rest

In giving them the Promised Land, the Lord often refers to such a promise as a promise of “rest’ (Deut. 3:20. 12:10, 25:19; Jos. 1:13, 15, 21:44; 23:1). The author of Hebrews picks up on the same theme and urges us to enter into God’s rest (Heb. 4:11).

This was a lesson that God constantly taught the Israelites to learn, even as they were about to engage in their first battle after the crossing of the Jordan River.

We read that the hearts of the Amorite kings and the Canaanite kings melted and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites upon hearing “how the Lord dried up the Jordan before the Israelites” (Jos. 5:1).

Logically, this was the best time to launch their attacks and with such a miraculous experience fresh in their mind, the Israelites’ morale would be at their highest.

However, probably to their surprise, the Lord commanded them to perform circumcision for the old and young and to observe the Passover. That meant that they were forced to rest physically until their wounds were healed, and they were forced to rest spiritually, to remember and reflect not only on God’s mighty acts of deliverance, but also on the true meaning of being God’s Chosen People. In other words, before their battles, they needed to rest before the Lord.

This reminds me again of the word of Isaiah:

“In repentance and rest is your salvation (or deliverance), in quietness and trust is your strength.” (30:15)

Only when their attitude was put right, were they ready to do battle. Only when they could slow down from their excitement and their preparation and rest physically and spiritually could they allow God to put their attitude right.

This applied to the people and it was even more important to their leader. That’s perhaps why God had to appear and speak to Joshua in vv. 11-15 of chapter 5, in the midst of their rest, lest he as a leader did not grasp the significance of such an understanding.

Meditative Reflection
On Miracles

St. Augustine makes an identical point about miracles in his discussion of the miracle at Cana.

“Our Lord’s miracle in turning water into wine comes as no surprise to those who know that it is God who did it. At the wedding that day he made wine in the six water pots he had had filled with water; but he does the same thing every year in the vines. The servants put the water in the jugs, and he turned it into wine. In just the same way the Lord turns into wine the water that the clouds drop. Only that does not amaze us, because it happens every year... So the Lord kept back certain unusual things for himself to do, to wake us up with miracles to worship him.”

The miracle that breaks the rules reminds us that the rules themselves are miraculous. We need to rediscover and to cherish a basic sense of wonder, of surprise, of the precariousness of actuality. Ecclesiastes, the dismal world-weary preacher of the Old Testament, might grumble that “there is nothing new under the sun” (Eccl. 1:9); but the New Testament answers loudly and excitedly, “Look! I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5). Of course, we may all of us sometimes get an Ecclesiastes' mood, and if we do, it is comforting to know that it is not utterly debarred from God’s domain; but we should not devote our minds and imaginations to prolonging and justifying it. We should aim rather to have minds and imaginations able to respond joyfully to the truth that in Christ everything is given back its youth and at least something of the freshness of the very first days of creation.

Morning has broken

Like the first morning; 

Blackbird has spoken

Like the first bird.

Praise for the singing!

Praise for the morning!

Praise for them, springing

Fresh from the Word!

(Prayer by Simon Tugwell)

Meditative Reflection
The Battle of Jericho is not Done

The story of the conquest of Jericho is one of the most amazing stories in the Bible. To us believers, it has rich meanings and lessons that are very precious to our personal walk of faith, and corporately, it reminds us that our battle, the battle of conquering this faithless society, belongs to the Lord.

However, to the unbelieving world, including those so-called Christians who take stories like this as fictional, they have been using archeological finds to disprove the credibility of the claim of the Bible. And so, two Italian archaeologists conducted a limited excavation on the ancient site of Jericho in the spring of 1997, and announced that, “they found no evidence for any destruction from the time of Joshua.”

This obviously contradicted findings in the mid nineteen hundreds, and for various reasons, all the evidence of these early digs has disappeared overtime.

But when Bryant Wood of the Associates for Biblical Research was given permission to visit the same site in September of the same year, he found that the Italians, in fact, “uncovered most of the critical evidence relating to the Bible story”. In particular, they uncovered a stone outer revetment wall (which stands witness to) the remains of the collapsed mud brick city walls which had tumbled.

And so, it really speaks volumes of the state of archeology in the Holy Land in that when the purpose of an excavation at a Biblical site is to disprove the Bible and disassociate the site with any historical Jewish connection, they would twist their findings to serve their ends.

So, don’t get too excited when you see books like the Da Vinci Code, (and there will be more to come). Our faith is not based on things that are speculative and even science that is always outdated by later theories and discoveries. Our faith is based on the unchanging truth of God in the Bible.

Meditative Reflection
The Battle Belongs to the Lord

According to the Bible, because of the miracle of the crumbling of the wall of Jericho, Joshua’s fame spread throughout the land. (Jos. 6:27)

We understand that God has already demonstrated in history that He always raises up a leader (or leaders) to accomplish His plan on earth. In so doing, He is not only interested in using His appointed leaders to accomplish His plans, but also in molding them into servants who knew His heart. Abraham and Moses are prime examples. Also, as much as He needs to establish His chosen leader before His people, these leaders could never be more important than the One who chose them. It is the case with Joshua as well, and it is reflected in the miracle of Jericho.

To overthrow these strong enemies and to overcome the fortified walls of Jericho, God would enable Joshua to lead and fight like a champion — like Samson who pulled down the pillars of the temple, or like Gideon who was a mighty warrior indeed.

But this miracle of Jericho only served to validate that Joshua’s words were truly from the Lord, without equating him with God in terms of might and glory. As the wall of Jericho fell, the people could only give glory to one person, and that was the Lord God Almighty. And, they would truly be convinced that the battle belonged to the Lord.

Meditative Reflection
The Effects of One’s Sin

In this day and age, we often hear people defend their sinful action whether within or without the church by saying, “It is my personal business and does no harm to anyone (besides myself).” I wish it were true. But the effect of one’s sin often extends far beyond the individual sinner. Achan is a case in point in Joshua 7.

Allow me to quote from Keil and Delitzch in which they comment on the sin of Achan:

It “…was not imputed to the whole people, not as imputatio moralis, i.e. as though the whole nation had shared in Achan’s disposition, and cherished in their hearts the same sinful desire which Achan had carried out in action in the theft he had committed; but as imputatio civilis, according to which Achan, a member of the nation, had robbed the whole nation of purity and holiness which it ought to possess before God, through the sin that he had committed, just as the whole body is affected by the sin of a single member.” (Keil and Delitzch, Joshua, p.55)

Consider Ananias in Acts 5: Had he not participated in the movement of sharing all things in common in the first church, it would have been alright. But since he claimed to be part of the community of sharing, his sin would have brought disaster to the community if it was not dealt with immediately.

And thus, if we serve in God’s community of faith and yet continue to lead a life of sin without repenting, we will rob the whole community of the purity and holiness it ought to possess before God, and we will bring defeat to the community. And if God chooses to confront us, or even make our sin public, or discipline us somehow, it would be grace. But if God chooses not to deal with us, it would be a curse from hell which would eventually lead to greater destruction — destruction of ourselves and of His community!