Not Just a Pile of Rocks
Notes
Transcript
When all the nation had finished passing over the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, “Take twelve men from the people, from each tribe a man, and command them, saying, ‘Take twelve stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan, from the very place where the priests’ feet stood firmly, and bring them over with you and lay them down in the place where you lodge tonight.’ ” Then Joshua called the twelve men from the people of Israel, whom he had appointed, a man from each tribe. And Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.”
And the people of Israel did just as Joshua commanded and took up twelve stones out of the midst of the Jordan, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, just as the Lord told Joshua. And they carried them over with them to the place where they lodged and laid them down there. And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of the Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the covenant had stood; and they are there to this day. For the priests bearing the ark stood in the midst of the Jordan until everything was finished that the Lord commanded Joshua to tell the people, according to all that Moses had commanded Joshua.
The people passed over in haste. And when all the people had finished passing over, the ark of the Lord and the priests passed over before the people. The sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh passed over armed before the people of Israel, as Moses had told them. About 40,000 ready for war passed over before the Lord for battle, to the plains of Jericho. On that day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they stood in awe of him just as they had stood in awe of Moses, all the days of his life.
And the Lord said to Joshua, “Command the priests bearing the ark of the testimony to come up out of the Jordan.” So Joshua commanded the priests, “Come up out of the Jordan.” And when the priests bearing the ark of the covenant of the Lord came up from the midst of the Jordan, and the soles of the priests’ feet were lifted up on dry ground, the waters of the Jordan returned to their place and overflowed all its banks, as before.
The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they encamped at Gilgal on the east border of Jericho. And those twelve stones, which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set up at Gilgal. And he said to the people of Israel, “When your children ask their fathers in times to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”
Scripture: Joshua 4:1-24
Sermon Title: Not Just a Pile of Rocks
The last couple of evening sermons we have been looking at the ceremony that took place at Mt. Sinai between God and Israel, a time of celebrating the covenant God made with this people, bringing them from death in Egypt to new life in a land that he was leading them to possess. But when they reached the border of this country, they doubted him, and he punished them with 40 more years in the wilderness so that generation would not enter in. Tonight, we pick things up at the end of that punishment. God called Joshua as Moses’ successor to be the people’s leader, and he was to lead them now from the death of the wilderness to life in the same Promised Land. But to enter this land, they had to first cross the Jordan River.
Brothers and sisters, when we think about popular memorials or monuments today, we probably tend to think of those that are linked to the founding of this nation, political leaders, heroes and those that have sacrificed their lives fighting in wars. Washington D.C. has many memorials including the Lincoln Memorial, in remembrance of a president who called for great change in this nation, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which has the names of those who gave their lives in Vietnam, etched on a wall. South Dakota has a couple of her own, of course, Mount Rushmore, with four presidents, and Crazy Horse, remembering a Native American hero.
Most of us can probably visualize these memorials and monuments, whether or not we have actually visited them. But they would not mean as much and we would likely be drawn to them less if we did not know what they represented. Sometimes you come across smaller memorials, and you find a plaque nearby telling you the importance of what you are looking at. Other times you are led by a history teacher or a guide who tells you of the stories being passed on. We can get educated, too, by books and through the stories of others. Whether grand or small, these visual reminders hold memories for many generations to come.
In the text before us tonight, we have a simple memorial described, but one that has such a profound story and meaning behind it. God commanded Joshua to select 12 men, one from each tribe, and he tells him that while the priests are in the middle of the Jordan River, have each of those men pick up a stone—and quite a large stone, they were to be carried on their shoulders, and bring them to where they would stay on the western shore of the Jordan. So Joshua had them do that, and when all the people had come across the riverbed, God brought the floodwaters back down, and Joshua set up these stones on the riverbank. Verse 6 tells us, “[This is] to serve as a sign among you.” This is to say, it would have been clear to anyone passing by that these rocks were not supposed to be there; this was not natural. We see a purpose, that people would have seen these, stopped, and wondered what the story behind them was.
Joshua went on to tell the camp, “In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.” Maybe you have heard of or studied this before, but the Jordan River is a raging river with rapids when it is at flood stage. The distance these people had to go across was about the length of a football field. To add to the intimidating crossing, for the ancient people, water represented chaos to them. All of these factors made it especially frightening to go where God and Joshua were leading them.
The priest stepped in, though, and they went forward, taking steps of faith with the ark of the covenant of the Lord—that ornately decorated box that contained the tablets and Aaron’s staff, which was placed in the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle. This was the piece of furniture that God had the people construct to represent his presence with them. When the ark goes into the riverbed, it was as if God himself was with them in the river, and they were passing before him. He was guiding this newborn nation forward and he was holding back the water that had kept them out.
I am not sure we can imagine a large river all of a sudden just stopping up. You look upstream and see only the riverbed, no water, and the same thing when you look down stream. God had miraculously caused that river to stop flowing. In the presence of the ark, he stood in between where they had been and where they were going. The people themselves had to trust that he would not step out on his promise, and bring those waters sweeping back down as he had done to the Egyptians when their parents had crossed through the Red Sea. But God remained true to them, and so they took large rocks out of the middle, where no one should have gone, and Joshua assembled them on the side so they would be noticed.
Twice in this passage, we see that this memorial was especially for the children of the Israelites. What a great and tangible way to teach their young ones about what God had done. When we think about little children, often they are drawn to climbing on things—God had these rocks sitting out there, drawing in the kids’ attention, which gave the parents a way to testify to God. Remember, the people of Israel had a past that we see again and again pivoting around how God had brought them out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Growing up, you start out very self-centered—wherever you are is the only place you know. But the Israelites and their descendants were not to forget their past; this Promised Land, west of the Jordan River was a new home that God had to bring them to. They needed to remember his role in all of this.
While the memorial was to be for the Israelites and their children to know what had happened, we see that what God did in parting the Jordan River was an act to be known by many others. As we read in the second part of verse 24, “[God] did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.” Could you imagine being upriver and seeing the waters pile up and all of a sudden they stop flowing down? Or being just down the river, away from the Israelites, and wondering how such a powerful river could have been dammed up?
I am reminded of this summer, when my wife and I were in Pella, Iowa this summer, and visited the capitol building in Des Moines. The original capitol building had been built in Wisconsin. When it was moved to Iowa, they had to wait until the winter because they had to cross the Mississippi, which had to be frozen over. Before road and railroad bridges, rivers caused quite the hassle. You can imagine, for the Canaanites, it would have appeared that the Israelites were stuck on the other side at least until the river level dropped to its normal levels; but God had other things in store. This nation that had been wandering around in the wilderness, their God had now brought them across into their territory—their enemies had to take notice.
It is incredible when we typically think about the Israelites, we think of them as wanderers, weak and grumbling, but because of what God did for them, several times throughout the book of Joshua we see that the cities and kings they came upon were melting in fear; they were cowards about this group coming in. The Canaanites had homefield advantage, they knew the land, they knew when invaders were coming; yet they were so afraid of Israel and her God.
Back to the scene of building the memorial though, “No sooner,” we read, “ “had [the priests] set their feet on dry ground than the waters of the Jordan returned to their place and ran at flood stage as before.” These people who had been journeying, God finally brought across the river, and they now they were to remain there. At this point in time, it would have felt that there was quite literally no way a large group of people could turn back and runaway. They were in the Promised Land; they needed to trust God in unfamiliar territory. Joshua tells us that they went into that land and defeated 31 kings and their territories; they took possession of it and found rest. I am sure for some in the early days wanted to return to the safety of nothingness in wilderness—but God had sealed that passage. This pile of rocks that they carried over and Joshua arranged was a mark in the place that became their basecamp that not only had God been with them to this point, but that he promised to remain with them from this point forward.
I love walking through this story and taking time to consider the many different things that were going on. But here in Harrison tonight, we are a long way from the Jordan River, and I am not sure that these 12 stones are quite so recognizable today. Because of that distance, because of our difference in nationality from the Israelites, and because of the changes in how people communicate, it is wonderful that God’s works have been passed down and recorded and translated so that we can see in the Bible what he has done throughout history. Some of us would really like to see these places in the flesh, to reflect upon how incredible it is that the work God started in one small area of the world has now spread throughout all of the continents. But I want to encourage us this evening to remember that God did not stop working in the first century after all the epistles had been written, and to this day he has not yet stopped working.
All of us, I hope, would say, “Yes, that is true.” If that is the case, I wonder if the church universal as well as each of us in our local churches still make memorials for what God has done in our lives. I am not saying we have to build-up piles of rocks or stand a few stones up, but are we doing our part in showing others how God has been a part of our lives and active in our world?
I wonder especially what that might look like in our homes. I believe the task that God gave Joshua to carry out in this memorial had an incredible impact on what parents and one day grandparents were able to tell their children. As I grow older and consider what it will look like to pass on the good news of God and his salvation to my children, Lord-willing, I am more and more convinced of the impact that parents and grandparents can have in communicating and nurturing a strong trust in God with their kids, and that is never a project to give up on.
But I am wondering also how we can use more than just words in telling the continued story of God’s power and faithfulness? One way we do it is by the image of a cross in many of our churches—we have the climax of our salvation on display, directing us to see how important Jesus’ death is. Another way I have noticed, including those in Corsica, is by representing many of God’s acts of faithfulness in Scripture as well as the church through stained glass windows.
But what about other things, memorials that might be made inside and outside of church buildings? I think of the impact that service trips have on young and old alike, on the participants as well as those they go to serve and minister to. I think of the work that we support our missionaries to do, these servants who often go into places hostile to the gospel but yet God makes great things happen. I think of the support that is given to someone in the community, help with finances or with building a house. All of these are events that testify to God’s work being done and his faithfulness with his people still today, but do we remember them and pass the stories down? What are we, in our churches, willing to do, willing to create to hold onto these memories and future memories so that we can pass the stories of God’s work along?
I am not going to tell you what you might do; any ideas have to reflect your context. Whether you choose to put something together or try to intentionally look for stories and ways that God is working is up to you. But also remember, the visual memorial is a sign; we need people able to hold on to and tell the stories. God is doing great things all around us, and maybe we don’t see things as spectacular as opening crosswalks in a sea and a river, but all of his works are wonderful and show his handiwork. May we be people who don’t let piles of rocks just be piles of rocks, but may we be willing to show and tell what God has done for us. Amen.