Joshua 3
“Getting Through It”
January 17, 2010 - Second Sunday after Epiphany

         I have a deep respect for rivers, especially if I’m standing in the middle of one. Pulling on a pair of waders and some felt-soled boots can keep you warm and dry and somewhat sure-footed, but only if you respect the power of the water and don’t get over confident. Even knee-deep a fast enough current will sweep you off your feet and land you in trouble (or maybe a quarter mile downstream).

         More than once I’ve stood wader-clad, fishing rod in hand, on one side of a healthy river, trying to find a safe way to other side. Many years ago that was the case for both myself and a friend, Eric Porter, one summer afternoon at Elijah Bristow State Park off highway 58. He and I easily waded across the Middle Fork of the Willamette. We fished the other side for an hour or so and then got ready to cross back over. But the dam upstream had been releasing extra water all that time and we suddenly found ourselves on the wrong side of a river that now came up over our waders. How were we going to get through? The short story is that we did get through, but pretty scared and pretty wet.

         As chapter 3 of Joshua opens, the people of Israel have moved to camp overnight close to the Jordan River. Verse 15 tells us it was March or April, the time of the barley harvest. Spring rains and melting snow on the mountains had brought the Jordan to flood stage, something we’re very familiar with here in our communities, built along not one, but two rivers.

         In last week’s text we heard that two strong young Israelite spies managed to ford back and forth across the river to check out Jericho. But now thousands and thousands of men, women, children and livestock were supposed to get across it. It had to seem impossible and incredibly dangerous. Imagine them standing there looking out over a swollen, muddy, turbulent flow that ran to their left with a force that left no doubt that anybody or any animal stepping into it would be swept away. How were they going to get through it?

         You and I may immediately resonate with that helpless, hopeless feeling as we stood or stand now before the obstacles and challenges of our own lives. Illness, unemployment, grief, family conflict, stress and overwork can all feel like a river “overflowing all its banks,” as the King James Version says about the Jordan here. We stand and look at the turbulent, frightening times ahead and ask, “How will we get through it?”

         Part of the inner turmoil for both the Israelites and for us is picked up in what the leaders of Israel say to the people in verses 3 and 4. They tell them to watch for and then follow the Ark of the Covenant being carried by the Levites down to the edge of the water. We’ll come back to that in a bit, but look at what the officers tell them in verse 4, “Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before.” It’s that last phrase that struck my heart as I read and pondered on this text. You have never been this way before.

         It was literally true for the vast majority of the Israelites. Forty years before, their elders and parents had been this way. They had come and camped on the banks of the Jordan while another spying party of twelve men went across the river. But that mission decades earlier was a failure. The spies came back with pessimism and fear and the people retreated and God punished them to wait forty years until that generation was gone. So these people, a new, younger crowd, really never had been that way, been down to the banks of that river before.

         You and I stand to face most of the transitions and crossings of our own lives never having been there before. Whether it’s the troubling times I mentioned a moment ago about which we say, “I’ve never been without a job before,” or “I’ve never had cancer before,” or “I’ve never been alone before,” or whether it’s events of joy and excitement tinged with nervousness and a little fear—“I’ve never gotten married before,” “I’ve never had a baby before,” “I’ve never left home before,” or even “I’ve never been a Christian before.” We all have looked at those paths never traveled, good or bad, and wondered, “How will I get through it?” You’ve never been that way before.

         The Israelites were told to follow the Ark of the Covenant down to the river, not too close because the intensity of holiness surrounding it was dangerous, but to follow it. In verse 5, Joshua gives them the further direction to “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.”

         Consecration meant getting cleaned up, bathing and washing their clothes, abstaining from sexual relations and certain foods for a little while. It was a way of expressing devotion to God and a desire to know and be with Him. They were getting ready to cross over into enemy territory. It seems like it would have made more sense to say, “Sharpen your swords, polish your shields, drill with your spears.” But Joshua asked for spiritual rather than military preparation from people who had never been that way before.

         Spiritual preparation for the paths we face is also a good idea. If you’re having a baby, your mind is full of birthing classes and baby clothes and cribs and car seats, all the things you need to get ready for your little one’s new arrival. But Joshua teaches us that there is a preparation that’s even more important, a readiness to seek God and follow Him down this new road in your life. That’s true whether it’s college or marriage or a new job or your first apartment on your own. Whether it’s sickness or a lost loved one or old age, the best way to prepare for a way you’ve never been down before is to devote yourself to God.

         When we seek to follow God down our new ways to the rivers we have to cross, then there is Joshua’s promise, “the Lord will do amazing things among you.” The presence of God in our lives is incredibly, amazingly powerful. For the Israelites that meant the unfolding of events as we read them. In verse 8, the Lord told Joshua to send the priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant right down to the water’s edge and on out into the river. And verses 15 and 16 tell us that as soon as their feet touched water, the miracle happened. The waters upstream “piled up in a heap a great distance away.” The Ark was carried right on out over dry river bed into the middle of the channel.

         I cannot promise that God will miraculously part every river you and I have to cross. Sometimes we’re going to get wet, like Eric and I did in the Middle Fork. Yet I do believe that Joshua’s promise in verse 5 is true for us. Consecrate ourselves to Him and “the Lord will do amazing things among you.” The Lord will go before and with us right into whatever swollen, terrifying, rushing current is before us, and there amazing things of grace will happen.

         The end of the chapter, verse 17, tells us that the priests who were carrying that sacred box containing the Ten Commandments and filled with the holy presence of God, went right on out into the middle of the river bed and stopped there, holding the waters back until all Israel had passed by on over to the other side.

         Think for a moment what faith it took on the part of those probably young men who carried the poles supporting the Ark across their shoulders. Wouldn’t you have wanted to get yourself across quickly as possible? Wouldn’t you have looked to your right upstream at the massive heap of piled up water getting bigger by the second, thinking what would happen if it broke loose with you out there in the middle? If you’ve seen a flash flood, you have some sense of the consequences if it all went wrong. But there they stood, holding tight, holding onto the presence of God, trusting Him right there in the danger zone.

         Now if they had been the previous generation, those Levites might have been able to remember crossing the Red Sea in a similar way, remember the waters piled up not just on one side, but on both sides of them as they walked across the bottom of a lake on dry earth. But that was Moses. That was their parents, their grandparents. This was Joshua, this was a new generation. They had never seen water stand up out of the way at God’s command. They had never been on a way like this before. Yet they trusted, they believed, and they stood strong there with God’s presence.

         That’s how it is for you and me when we trust God through Jesus Christ His Son. Most of us haven’t seen the miracles for ourselves. It all happened to past generations. Mary and Peter and John saw Jesus turn water into wine, saw Him heal the sick, saw Him rise from the dead. But all we have is their word, their stories. We’ve never been that way before.

         Yet you and I in faith may hold tight to and carry with us God’s presence into the rivers we are crossing. Believing and trusting in Jesus, we can trust that God is going with us along all those new paths we enter. Just as Jesus Christ stepped down from heaven right into the middle of human life, He still walks with us in the middle of our lives. One of the last things He said to His disciples long ago was the wonderful assurance in Matthew 28:20, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

         God stepped into the middle of the Jordan River with the Israelites and He still steps with us into all the rivers we must ford. Wednesday I heard a pastor friend talk about Christ being with him and his wife through literal floods they have weathered. While I have been moaning to myself about the damage and disruption caused by 2 inches of water in our office building, Paul and his wife have been living with the aftermath of not one but two floods of over 14 inches of water in the main level of their home.

         Only a year after they had cleaned up and repaired from the first flood, it happened again. Now they have been living for another year, with no end in sight, with no repairs to the walls and floors of all the rooms on that lower level. Until the city and the county and FEMA agree on how the source of the water will be controlled, their insurance will not pay for more repairs and restoration of their house. They can’t sell it without the problem solved. They’re stuck, living there with only half their house habitable. The little bit of chaos I’m experiencing for a couple months in our office was multiplied a hundred times in Paul’s own home.

         Paul’s voice choked up as he spoke about God’s presence with them through these house disasters and other family problems. He told how he had found strength by consecrating himself to learn by heart some ancient Christian prayers, like the Lorica of St. Patrick which includes these words:

         Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
         Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
         Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
         Christ when I lie down, Christ when I rise up.

         Through Jesus Christ, God goes with us into the ways we’ve never been before. He’s before us, He’s behind us, He on our right and on our left. He’s right in the middle of the raging river, a firm anchor. He’s underneath us, a firm foundation upon which to walk. All those ways we’ve never been before, He is there.

         How will you get through it? There’s really only one good way. Get through it with and in and by the presence of God’s love and grace and help in Jesus Christ. Put your faith in Him, consecrate yourself to Him, “and the Lord will do amazing things among you.”

         I don’t know all the rivers that are running high before your eyes. I don’t know all the new ways in which you are feeling threatened or challenged or just unsure of what lies ahead. For Beth and me, we are looking at our youngest daughter heading off to college in the fall. It’s just going to be the two of us in the house, an empty nest. We’ve never been this way before. Yet we believe that Christ is with us. We believe He is with Joanna as she heads off on a way she has never been before. Christ is with us. He will be with you.

         Our church is in a new season. I think there’s a promised land out there, but right now there are some big rivers to cross. Yet Christ is with us. That’s why this Table sits before you, front and center every week. It’s at this Table that we remember best of all that Jesus our Lord is with us. In, with, and under the bread and the cup, He is here. In, with, and under each one who believes in Him, He is here. He stands here right in the flow of our lives, holding back the worst of the flood, anchoring us in the storms that do come, showing us amazing grace, amazing love.

         You may not have even thought about it, but I’m guessing that each of you is traveling some way you’ve never been before, that before too long you will come to a river that feels awful high, awful fast, awful frightening. I know that some of you are facing streams that are good, new adventures, like going to college or getting married. Those rivers run high with excitement and joy, yet they still run high. Let me invite you to follow the presence of Christ Jesus into all those new ways, into those floods.

         Come to worship and hear the promise of His Word and receive the sacrament of His communion with you. If you believe in Him, but have never been baptized, then receive that sacrament also as a constant reminder that He is with you even in the waters. Consecrate yourself to be with Him in prayer and in the study of the Bible and in generous giving and service. Raise up your eyes and seek out where Jesus is at work in His people and in the world. And then follow Him there, follow the blessed Ark of His gracious presence right down the bank and out into the deep. And He will be there. He will stand waiting until you’ve gotten through it all. And then He will still be with you on the other side, forever.

         Amen.

Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2010 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj