Facebook, as I struggled out of sleep this morning, informed me that today is Children’s Day and commanded me to rejoice. “Post something about children’s day,” they said, with a party hat and a balloon.
“But every day is children’s day,” I muttered, and switched on my online audio bible. I am nearing the end of Joshua. It’s slow going, mostly because I haven’t been listening because of being on #holiday. Any kind of change in routine utterly wrecks my ability to keep on track with my listening to the bible in a year habit. I fall woefully behind and have to imbibe whole books in one sitting to catch up.
Which is kind of the point–I can’t catch up. Nobody really can. The minute you think you’ve arrived and settled in and killed all your enemies, you blink your eyes and forget what you came for. And, having forgotten, things fall into ruin. And then you are behind, backed up, laboring under sin. And so then you start again, ready to do it properly this time. And you keep up and do well, but then something happens to knock you off course. And you forget. And so on day after day and century after century, person after person. If it were really up to me, all would be lost.
But observe just in the single book of Joshua how, even though the commands of the Lord are clear, and the people clearly cannot follow them, the whole picture of God’s saving work is right there, right in the beginning.
The first thing, of course, as you remember from Sunday school–because for children we like a gentle blend of God’s warring judgment of mankind, cute animals, and fun trumpet blowing–is the destruction of Jericho. I could sing the song for you right now, but I will refrain (cough). If you read about the trumpets and the walking around and blowing them in stages and how methodical and calm it all is, and then rush forward and read the book of Revelation, you might notice some striking similarities. There is no real contest, for instance. There is no real battle. God just wins. And also, it’s very loud and noisy, so many trumpets. And also, as the people march and march, no one comes out of the city to repent. The judgment of God falls, though there was ample time for people inside to decide to flee into his mercy. But no one wants to, except Rahab. Let the mountains, or rather walls, fall on us, the people decide. And so they do.
The second moment of the book, then, seems like more judgment, but this one is really salvation. Funny how this one is never told in children’s Sunday school. While the walls come a tumbling down, Achan steals a cloak from Shinar, a block of gold, and a bunch of silver coins. He takes it all and hides it in his tent pretending that nothing is wrong. But God sees, and in the next battle, against Ai, he lets the people of Israel lose. They come trembling before his presence to find out what happened and eventually the guilt of Achan is uncovered. “Give glory to God,” says Joshua, practically quoting Caiaphas, or is it the other way round. And so Achan dies, for so little–some silver and a cloak–and yet him instead of the whole nation who surely partook in his guilt. He absorbs all the judgment in himself and is covered over in a great heap of stones.
And so, on the one hand, judgment. And, on the other hand, salvation. Two bookends as the people of Israel go in to possess the land. And without them, not only does the whole bible not make sense, but neither does God.
Because what is judgment any more, except you expecting God to congratulate you for being good, and dealing with others for being bad. Where there is no fear there can be no salvation. But fear has fallen out of fashion in these new fangled days.
Fear sharpens the memory, clarifies the situation on the ground, and motivates a body to care. If you take away fear, you end up only with foolishness. And everybody has plenty of that to share around. And, because it is children’s day, and there are even children mentioned in the bible, you might be able to see that fear is good for children also, provided it’s the right sort.
A child who doesn’t know that God is dangerous, not to be trifled with, not to be forgotten, is going to grow up to sit in his walled Jericho house, preferring death to life. But a child who knows fear, and kindness, will run for mercy, preferring to let justice fall to the one who can absorb it in himself and remove it to the far side of the sea. Towards the end of Joshua the people of Rueben pile up a monument of stones, for the children, they say, to help them remember. But even their children will forget, as ours do, and it will take an act of God to roll the stone away and remind all of us what we came into the land for.
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