Joshua 11-12
“Is the War Over?”
March 21, 2010 - Fifth Sunday in Lent

         President Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln under a banner reading “Mission Accomplished,” on May 1, 2003, less than two months after our invasion of Iraq. He told the crew that Operation Iraqi Freedom was a success and we had reached the “end of major combat operations” in Iraq. Five months later in October 2003 the media and critics began to point out that more American lives had been lost in Iraq after that speech than before. As time went on President Bush’s “victory” speech began to seem more and more premature and hollow. Now the war has been handed off to another president.

         We might excuse President Bush a little because that “Mission Accomplished” address has a precedent right here in Joshua 11. This chapter records Joshua’s decisive victory over another coalition of Canaanite kings, the eradication of their populace, and the plunder of their cities. Verse 16 says that Joshua “took this entire land.” So does verse 23, adding, “Then the land had rest from war.”

         Chapter 12 celebrates Joshua’s completion of the conquest with a list of all the kings he conquered. It’s also a puff piece for Joshua. After noting that Moses defeated two kings east of the Jordan, the list of kings defeated by Joshua is carefully counted: “the king of Jericho, one; the king of Ai, one; the king of Jerusalem, one,” and so on all the way up to a total of thirty-one kings who fell to Joshua’s command. Lest anyone think that God was not with Joshua as much or even more than He was with Moses, just do the math. Joshua is not merely a second-rate successor to the great Moses. He’s a God-led leader in his own right.

         Yet when we continue in Joshua beyond this point, as we will after Easter, we see some tension between the rest of the story and the victory celebrated in chapters 11 and 12. As the land is divided between the tribes of Israel, there are notes that Canaanite enemies remain in the new tribal territories. Near the end we learn that some of the tribes will even have to wage more war in order to possess the areas allotted to them. Like operations in Iraq, the war wasn’t quite over when the writer says Joshua had taken “the entire land.”

         Even in chapter 11 there’s incompleteness. Verse 21 tells how Joshua destroyed the Anakites. That’s significant. Go back to Numbers 13:33 and you learn it was the Anakites who scared Israel away from the Promised Land the first time. The descendants of Anak were descendants of the Nephilim, people of “great size,” said the cowardly majority of the first scouting expedition. They were people so tall they seemed like giants and the Israelites felt like grasshoppers. Yet Joshua defeated and eradicated all those big guys, all except…

         Verse 22 says that “No Anakites were left in Israelite territory; only in Gaza, Gath and Ashdod did any survive.” You know where Gaza is, along the coast. Some of the big people were left in Philistine territory by the sea. A couple hundred years later, Israel was still fighting the Philistines, in particular an Anakite from Gath, whom you may remember: a giant named Goliath. The war wasn’t over when Joshua counted up his defeated kings. It wasn’t over for a long time. You might say it isn’t over yet.

         Chapter 11 ends with that wonderful phrase, “Then the land had rest from war.” A few of you have seen first hand how war tears up a land, how homes and fields and forests and lakes are devastated and polluted by the march of armies and the destructive force of weapons. A season of rest from war’s destruction is precious, a season our own land enjoyed from the end of the Civil War until September 11, 2001. We enjoy it once again. But go to Iraq or Pakistan or any number of African countries and you will feel the unrest and devastation war brings to the land.

         On a larger scale, there is still no rest for the land. The word for land is the Hebrew term eretz, as in Eretz Yisrael, the name Jews give their country. It’s the same word we translate “earth” in the first verse of the Bible, “In the beginning God made the heavens and the eretz,” “the earth.” The church father Origen read verse 23 in Joshua and translated it not “land,” but “earth.” He noted there’s never been a time when the whole earth had rest from war. Which, he said, means that Joshua’s victory was only a shadow of a greater, deeper more substantial victory yet to come through a man named after him, Jesus, which is simply “Joshua” in Greek.

         In just two weeks on Easter Sunday we will celebrate the victory of Jesus Christ over sin, over death, and over Satan. We’ll sing, “Thine is the glory, risen conquering Son, wondrous is the victory Thou o’er death hast won.” Yet for all that, it doesn’t seem like the war is over for us, anymore than it was for Israel. Once again this past week I stood by a grave and poured earth on a coffin and said, “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Who says the war is over?

         It’s not even over in our own souls. That’s what Origin meant. You and I and everyone on earth constantly battles the ugly side of our own heart. Even as believing and redeemed Christians sitting in worship listening to a sermon, you may struggle to keep your thoughts in order, not just to pay attention, but not to dwell for awhile on hatred for a person who has hurt you, or on a need for alcohol or tobacco or some other harmful substance, or on some tempting, but wrong image you carry around in your mind from a movie or the Internet or actual experience. The ancient Christians were correct to understand the wars of Israel as allegories for the wars that go on inside everyone of us. As the old saying goes, “There’s no rest for the wicked.” Honesty demands that we each admit to being wicked, at least in our thoughts.

         For all of that, chapters 11 and 12 of Joshua are not just pleasant fiction or some ideal that we hope will become real when Jesus finally comes back. Yes, the victory will be complete and total and unreservedly glorious then, but there is still victory to be had right now, some celebration for us this side of glory.

         Part of the celebration we’re entitled to now lies in those words that we’ve heard so often in Joshua and heard again in verse 6 as the Lord sent him and Israel out to battle: “Do not be afraid of them.” Say it over and over. “Do not be afraid of them.” “Do not be afraid of them.” The war is not over, but do not be afraid. The Lord is on your side, do not be afraid of them.

         “Them” is all the people and illnesses and accidents and losses and grief and yes, even your own failures and sins and temptations. Do not be afraid of them, said God to Joshua, and He says it to you. Do not be afraid of them. Jesus Christ has come. Jesus has battled them all, all the sin, all the evil, all the things we’re afraid of. He has won. And so it’s O.K. to celebrate, even if the war’s not quite over.

         Let’s especially not be afraid of those who try to intimidate us for celebrating prematurely. In our Gospel lesson in John 12, we find a woman honoring Jesus in an incredibly extravagant manner, pouring a year’s wages worth of expensive perfume over His feet. Judas wants to intimidate her, to point out that the war on poverty is not over, so why is she wasting this stuff instead of selling it to feed the poor? But Jesus won’t have intimidation of those who believe in Him. It’s a moment of peace, a beautiful, quiet, restful moment of love and honor and beauty. For that space in time, it doesn’t matter that the war’s not over, because Christ is there among them and they don’t need to be afraid.

         Joshua 11 gives us a little more insight into that vexing question of why God had his people engage in bloody wars of conquest. In verse 18 we read that it was a lengthy campaign, “Joshua waged war against all these kings for a long time.” But then in verses 19 and 20, we hear “Except for the Hivites living in Gibeon, not one city made a treaty of peace with the Israelites, who took them all in battle. For it was the Lord himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel.”

         More peace treaties might have been possible, but God knew and hardened the inclinations of the people who were unwilling to accept peace, unwilling to accept the true Lord as their God. That “hardening” wasn’t God making otherwise peaceful people into despicable war-mongers. He simply confirming their wills in the direction they were already headed, in opposition to Him and to any hope of peace. And like the Canaanites and like Judas in our Gospel lesson there are hardened opponents to God throughout history.

         I’ve been reading David Bentley Hart’s wonderful book, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies. It’s a wonderful reminder to me that Christians don’t need to be afraid of our critics. All their bluster and supposedly scientific attempts to show that our faith is intellectual failure and a blight on the world are just half-baked pseudo-science, historical ignorance, and arrogant rhetoric.

         Yes, there a few, sad chapters in Christian history, where in the name of God people have committed atrocities. There’s one scene in the history of science four hundred years ago when it looked like Galileo’s discoveries in astronomy were suppressed by the Church. There are superstitious and silly Christians who say and do silly things. Yet that’s no reason to be afraid of those who attack us and mock us and deny the truth of what we believe.

         The truth is, says Hart, that Christian faith is the best thing that ever happened to this world. If anything brings rest to the earth, it’s believing in Jesus Christ. Christians invented the hospital. Christians founded the first universities. Christians fostered the beginnings of modern science. Christian love for the Word expanded use of the printing press and literacy all over the world. Christians fought for the end of slavery in Europe and America and they’re still fighting for it in the rest of the world today. Modern democracy and the idea of equality for all people arose out of the Christian idea that everyone is equally loved and valued by God. The Christian revolution, as Hart calls it, is the source of much of what everyone values in modern life.

         Ultimately, Hart argues, the heart of the Christian revolution is love for God and love for others. It’s that revolution we continue. It’s that battle which we still fight. As the old hymn says, “For not with swords loud clashing, nor roll of stirring drums, with deeds of love and mercy your heav’nly kingdom comes.” And when we carry forward the revolution of God’s love for all people in Jesus Christ, then we don’t need to be afraid.

         For us Joshua’s story means there is both war and rest in our lives. And what we have to share, the great Christian revolution that’s still going on, is that there is rest and peace in the midst of the war available to anyone who will believe and trust in Jesus Christ.

         There are battles to fight. We are reminded this morning that some of the victims in the war against God are unborn babies, innocent victims never given the opportunity to see life. So we fight back by providing care for mothers to keep the babies God has given them, showing the true love of Jesus to women in crisis and need. And every baby that comes safely into the world surrounded by love is a tiny, precious victory for the Lord.

         We have the same sort of good news and victory for everyone, and for ourselves. The war isn’t over yet, but Christ has won, He is winning and He will win in the end. Every time we come together we remember and celebrate that truth and live for awhile in the peace and rest He brings to our battles.

         In January I sat on our denomination’s board that interviews pastors for ordination. They each sent us an ordination paper, addressing call and theology and practice. They also sent recordings of services in which they preached. One young person I interviewed was a new army chaplain. He sent a video recording of a service in a barracks in Iraq.

         I loaded up the chaplain’s video and began to critique. The service began with some rather bad guitar playing accompanying a few poorly sung praise songs. Then our chaplain read a Scripture passage in a monotone, leaned on the pulpit and began to preach a sort of meandering message. I sat and noted this point and that to bring up in the interview, wishing we had time to give him some coaching in homiletics, the study of preaching.

         My heart changed as I watched our candidate leave the pulpit and stand behind a folding table on which sat a cup and a loaf of bread. I heard him say words Christians have been saying all down the long war of the ages, words about a Savior who let His body be broken, who let His blood be shed, so that he and those soldiers and you and I could know the victory of new life in Him. I saw him break the bread and bless the cup. Tears filled my eyes as I watched 17, 18, 19 year old men and women come forward in fatigue pants and khaki T-shirts and receive a little bread and dip it in the cup as the chaplain said, “This is the body of Christ, broken for you; this is the blood of Christ shed for you.” Totally overwhelmed I witnessed the peace and rest of Jesus Christ come to lonely, scared young people in a dingy barracks in a war zone. Our man still needs to learn how to preach, but he is a hero in the Lord’s war.

         That’s how it is in the war of this world, of this life. We’re not so good at lots of things we’re called to do. We turn in poor performances and even miserable failures. Yet when we take up the name of Jesus and show His love to those around us, to babies, to old people, to children, to youth, we become heroes in His war. As we share and teach the good news of His victory, He is still winning. We are winning. God scattered those pagan kings before Joshua, and God scatters the forces of evil before our ministries for Christ. We don’t need to be afraid of them.

         May you find that rest and peace in Jesus Christ now, today. May you hear the voice of God speaking to all your own fears and doubts, “Do not be afraid of them.” May you take up your place in the battle, doing good, showing love, sharing Jesus. And as you do, may God give you those blessed times of victory, of joy, of rest, of peace. Until the day which Origen saw, when the battle really is over and the peace of Jesus Christ is everywhere, in everyone, and the whole earth will truly rest from war.

         Amen.

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