March 3, 2007
Lent Reading Day 10
Joshua and the Battle of Jericho:
The Israelites have made it out of their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, leadership has passed to the next generation from Moses to Joshua. They enter the promised land and take Jericho the first main town they encounter. Bloody and destructive - it can seem like a bizarre story of the people of God finding the home that God promised them in their pillaging the home of another. What's the point then of this story? Is it reinforcing the idea that the Hebrew Scritpures are merely written to advance and justify the perspective and worldvi
ew of a particular people? Or is there more?What strikes me in the story is that Joshua and the Israelites trust that God will provide. In seemingly unbelievable ways that first meet Rahab, remain faithful to her hospitality...and God provides for the Israelites in a miraculous and mysterious way. How often do we truly believe that God will provide? In our day and age it's much more common for us to feel entitled to something, believing that we deserve it and must take it by our own means. Yet the sotry of Jericho reminds us and invtes us to trust that God will provide.
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