Yes, We'll Gather At the River

Joshua 3:7-17 The Message (MSG)

 7-8 God said to Joshua, "This very day I will begin to make you great in the eyes of all Israel. They'll see for themselves that I'm with you in the same way that I was with Moses. You will command the priests who are carrying the Chest of the Covenant: 'When you come to the edge of the Jordan's waters, stand there on the river bank.'"

 9-13 Then Joshua addressed the People of Israel: "Attention! Listen to what God, your God, has to say. This is how you'll know that God is alive among you—he will completely dispossess before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites. Look at what's before you: the Chest of the Covenant. Think of it—the Master of the entire earth is crossing the Jordan as you watch. Now take twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one man from each tribe. When the soles of the feet of the priests carrying the Chest of God, Master of all the earth, touch the Jordan's water, the flow of water will be stopped—the water coming from upstream will pile up in a heap."

 14-16 And that's what happened. The people left their tents to cross the Jordan, led by the priests carrying the Chest of the Covenant. 

When the priests got to the Jordan and their feet touched the water at the edge (the Jordan overflows its banks throughout the harvest), the flow of water stopped. It piled up in a heap—a long way off—at Adam, which is near Zarethan. The river went dry all the way down to the Arabah Sea (the Salt Sea). And the people crossed, facing Jericho.

 17 And there they stood; those priests carrying the Chest of the Covenant stood firmly planted on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan while all Israel crossed on dry ground. Finally the whole nation was across the Jordan, and not one wet foot.

A favorite hymn, one nearly always included in my liturgies for Holy Baptism, was “Shall We Gather At the River.” Folks in churches we have served know my love for water in worship; often asperges in the entrance rite, shaking holy water over the congregation during the processional hymn as Sunday worship begins; always River Jordan water for baptizing, and sprinkling the blessed water from the baptismal font over the people after a baptism.

In the Bible Story for Sunday, God commissions Joshua impressively and grandly, crossing the Jordan River from the wilderness into the Promised Land almost identically as forty years earlier God had commissioned Moses in the exodus from Egypt, crossing the Red Sea into the wilderness. The parallel is meant to be clear: as God was with Moses, God is with Joshua. 

If Moses was God’s caring pastor to the children of Israel those years in the wilderness, Joshua is the strong military commander God needs to lead Israel’s conquest of the Promised Land. Because our Season after Pentecost is coming to an end, there is not time ahead to read the Bible stories about God with Joshua as through the summer and fall we have read the stories about God with Moses. Advent, a new church season is at hand, so we won’t be sharing the ancient excitement. Joshua and the twelve stones that are there to this day. Joshua fights the battle of Jericho. Joshua at Ai. Joshua commands the sun to stand still. And many more. Both mighty and terrible, dreadful and glorious, they are there for the adventurous to explore. 

Tom+ in +Time