Be Strong and of Good Courage: Septuagesima (February 5, 2023)

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

I want us to think about the reading from Joshua like Russian nesting dolls. The story of Joshua is a blueprint or a template that speaks directly to us on both corporate and individual levels.

Today’s Old Testament reading takes place at a pivotal time in the history of Israel, on the precipice of two great transitions. The first is a transition in terms of journey: Israel is about to end their wilderness wanderings and enter the land God gave them; they are leaving behind their nomadic way of life and entering a phase of struggle and warfare to possess the land. To make matters more complex and uncertain, there’s a shift in leadership. Moses has died, unable to enter the Promise Land because of his disobedience, and now a much younger Joshua has to take the helm and lead God’s people. No wonder he needs so much assurance in the opening verses of Joshua!

“Be strong and of good courage” God tells Joshua, not once, not twice, but three times. But where does this courage come from? From self-esteem, self confidence, Joshua’s gusto and charisma? Not at all. In fact, at no point does God praise Joshua as particularly qualified for the job; Joshua’s confidence should be based on God’s faithfulness to Israel. In the midst of the transitions Israel was undergoing, God would provide stability and bring about what he promised: “Every place that the sole of your foot shall treat upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.” The promise God made to Moses would come to fruition under Joshua even if that wasn’t always evident in the present. This is because the promise was based on God’s word and his power, “be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”

But just like every great promise of God, there comes a needed response. God is going to deliver on his promise to bring Israel into the Promise Land but Israel was supposed to provide a proper response. These exhortations to be strong and courageous are a germ of what was to come: namely, the people were to have faith in God. But even more, verse 8 tells us that Joshua was to be a leader who internalized the Scripture: “This book of the law shall not depart of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein.” And what’s the point of internalizing the Scriptures? To “turn not from it to the right hand or to the left.” Joshua was supposed to know the Scripture so it could guide how he lived and led, setting the ultimate standard. This was important because if you know anything about the years in the wilderness, you know the Israelites had all sorts of ideas about how they should do things and Moses had to constantly bring them back to God’s way. So it was important for Joshua to be grounded in the Law so he could lead properly. So Israel was at a phase of transition in which God would make it clear that he was their ultimate stability and, in response to his salvific actions, Israel was supposed to offer a response of faithfulness to the divine law.

There’s much to be applied from this reading to us today, both as the Church corporately and as individuals. I mean corporately, look around. The Church, especially here in the modern West is at a time of transition, and for us it’s easy to become discouraged. Every study shows consistent decline in church attendance, the church is becoming less relevant to most people, and secularism is rampant. This of course has happened before and this won’t be the last time it happens. In 1969, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI, prophetically observed that in the coming decades the Church will have “lost a great deal.” This is partly due to external forces like social pressures, lack of interest, etc. But there’s an internal component to this too: the Church has lost a great deal because it’s compromised to accommodate the world in too many places, it has lost its understanding of mission in its preoccupation with money and finances, its reduced priest and clergy to social workers, therapists, and political figures. The point is that the Church today faces a world that is increasingly hostile to the message of the Gospel, at least in an explicit way, while facing that challenge with an often malformed conscience that does not have a clear view of what the Church is or why it’s here.

And in such a situation, there is only one place we can look for stability. It’s not to politicians, it’s not to popularity, it’s not to money. It’s to God. The God who deigned to come to us by taking on humanity, who was abandoned on the Cross, who was laid to rest in a tomb — that’s where we look. And when we look to him, how does it impact us? With him as our focus, we “turn not from him to the right hand or to the left.” It means we follow Jude 3 and “contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” As the Church, we do this by submitting to episcopal authority, by administering and receiving the sacraments, and by reading and dwelling in the Scriptures. It may not be clear how these things will be successful — they’re certainly not as flashy as the Church of What’s Happening Now, but they are the medicine God has given us to cure the sickness of humankind caused by sin and we know that they have enduring relevance. And we know that God will be faithful to us because he always has been.

Just like in the case of Old Testament Israel, God’s promise comes with a response on our part. Our response should mirror Joshua’s: be strong and courageous. Be strong and courageous by maintaining the faith as it has been handed to us, the faith found in the Holy Scriptures and the Councils and teachings of the Church. And we internalize the Word, we meditate on the Scripture and receive the grace afforded to us in the Sacraments.

What’s true of the Church on a macrocosmic level is true of us on an individual level. Because you, Christian, are in the midst of a great transition. It’s a transition St. Paul gets at in our Epistle this morning: “Run that ye may obtain the prize.” We are in the midst of a great race with the goal of holiness, the purgation of sin and embracing of virtue. We are not what we were before our Baptisms; we are not yet what we are supposed to be—but we can be certain that we will die and will have to answer God on the last day.

Yet even in the midst of our circumstances, our setbacks, the changes and chances of life, God is our stability. The same God who was present at Baptism is the same God who is with us each and every moment, every time we make progress, every time we fall. Our circumstances may change, and over them we have very little control, but God is always in control and he has us right where he wants each and every one of us.

And in response to his faithfulness, we response in faith. We become people of prayer, people who internalize the Scriptures so that we too can obey his commands. This requires hard work and training, something St. Paul emphasizes as well: “[athletes run] to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection.” This kind of dedication and devotion is what we give God in response to what he has given us.

Joshua is a blueprint for us. As the Church in a post-Christian world, those words “Be strong and courageous” speak to us, reminding us to stand fast in the faith we have received. Those same words ring true for each of us in our individual walks as Christians as we progress towards holiness. “Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.