Tag: Joshua

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Over Jordan

Joshua 3.17
The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan and stood on dry ground, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground.

Psalm 126.2-3
Our mouths were filled with laughter,
    our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
    “The Lord has done great things for them.”
The Lord has done great things for us,
    and we are filled with joy.

Reflection: Over Jordan
By John Tillman

Crossing the Jordan has been a spiritual metaphor for centuries, but it took special meaning for slaves in the American south. It symbolized an escape from slavery, shelter in place of homelessness, and fruitfulness in place of a barren desert.

In the story of Israel’s failure to enter due to fear, and their return in faith after wandering for 40 years, the Jordan symbolizes a place at which faith and courage are required. 

In the story of the transition from Moses to Joshua, from Elijah to Elisha, and from John the Baptist to Jesus, the Jordan symbolizes a change in leadership.

And of course, the Jordan represents entering the promised land, with Canaan standing in as the eternal land we are destined for in Heaven.

On one side of the river is the desert, the unforgiving land, the land of trials, the land of sin, the land of rebellion, the land of suffering.

On the other side of the river is the land that is promised, the land of blessing, the land of freedom, the land of rest, the land of satisfaction and plenty.

The Jordan also represents the final crossing of death—both a time of judgment and a time of cleansing. For Christians, the waters of the crossing hold no terror. We do not enter them alone. Someone else marches in with us. His nail-pierced feet touch the waters and they pile up, inviting us to cross without muddying our clothes.

We cross the Jordan not with priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant, but with Christ, our High Priest. When we cross over the Jordan with Christ, the land has no enemies to be defeated. It has no cities to march around and no battles to be fought. For, there too, Christ has gone before us, preparing a place for us. It is there that we will be fed by the tree that grows in the river that comes from the throne of God. It is there that we will take from that tree healing for the nations.

“Our home is over Jordan.” “Deep River” — Marian Anderson

It is over Jordan that our tears will be wiped away.

Prayer: The Morning Psalm
On the holy mountain stands the city he has founded; the Lord loves the gates of Zion more than the dwellings of Jacob.
Glorious things are spoken of you, O City of our God. — Psalm 87.1-2

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
Joshua 3 (Listen – 2:45) 
Psalm 126-128 (Listen – 1:58)

Readers’ Choice Submissions
It is once again time for us to seek out the voices of our readers and hear from you about posts from the past eleven months that have challenged and comforted you and helped you find new meaning in the scriptures.

Readers’ Choice posts will be republished during the month of August and periodically throughout the Fall.

Follow the link to fill out the form. Feel free to fill out the form multiple times for multiple submissions. Please limit your submissions to posts published this calendar year, between September of 2018 and today.

For any questions about The Park Forum, or to make suggestions of posts via email, contact John Tillman at john@theparkforum.org

Thank You!
Thank you to our donors who support our readers by making it possible to continue The Park Forum devotionals. This year, The Park Forum audiences opened 200,000 free, and ad-free, devotional content. Follow this link to join our donors with a one-time or a monthly gift. 

Read more about Christ: Temple, River, and City
Christ is our river, flowing as the Holy Spirit into our lives, into our cities, into our dead, dry, and poisoned environments.

Christ: Temple, River, and City

Read more about The Staggering Dead and the Glory of God
One day, as Lazarus and our dear Christ, himself, our grave clothes will be untied (or “set aside” lyō in Greek). We will leave our grave clothes behind. That is the glory of God.

The Staggering Dead and the Glory of God
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God’s Power in Rejection :: Readers’ Choice

It is so often easy to fix our eyes on what we would like our lives to look like, who we would like to be, the kind of success we would like to achieve…and yet, Jesus, who achieved the most important thing in the history of the world, who was “the cure all creation longed for,” appeared to fail, was rejected by His Father. God’s power is made perfect in our weakness; His thoughts and plans are so far beyond our capability to think and plan! May we look to Him instead of ourselves for the victory. — Elisabeth

Readers’ Choice (Originally published October 24, 2016)
The Park Forum

The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. — Psalm 118.22-23

Picture Joseph: his dreams rejected by his father; cast out by his brothers; thrown out by the Egyptian elite—and yet, cornerstone of Israel. Then David: neglected by his father when the prophet arrived to anoint a king; hated by Saul; hiding in caves—and yet, cornerstone of Israel. The great preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon remarks:

Be not afraid, O ye persecuted ones, for you shall fulfill your destiny. It has happened again and again in history that those who have been destined to do great things for the Lord have first of all been compelled to pass through a trying ordeal of misunderstanding and rejection….

At this time, however, we shall confine our application of these verses to our blessed Lord himself, to whom they most evidently refer. Their meaning is focussed upon him, and in reference to him each word is emphatic.

Christ rejected: though he clamored for no earthly power; though he served the poor; though he was the cure all creation longed for. Spurgeon recalls that his was no ordinary rejection—it was unreasonably violent and indignant:

They were not content to say, “He is not the Messiah,” but they turned their hottest malice against him; they were furious at the sight of him. This precious stone was kicked against and rolled about with violence, and all manner of ridicule was poured upon it. Nothing would content them but the blood of the man who had disturbed their consciences and questioned their pretensions.

And yet, he is the cornerstone of Israel. He is exalted—and it is the Lord’s doing. The path of rejection reveals this. Spurgeon concludes:

If the Scribes and Pharisees had endorsed the claims of our Lord it might have been said that Christianity was grafted upon the old stock of Judaism. If Pilate, or Herod, or any of the great ones, especially if the Caesar of the day had accepted it, then the following ages would have said, “Oh yes, he derived his power, and was lifted to his place through the prestige of empire and the prowess of arms.” But it was not so. All the establishments on earth were against him: rank and station despised the carpenter’s son; superstition abhorred his simplicity and spirituality.

“My strength,” God says, “is made perfect in weakness,” and, as the Psalmist says, “it is marvelous in our eyes.”

The Concluding Prayer of the Church
…Preserve me with your mighty power, that I might not fall into sin, nor be overpowered by adversity…

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Joshua 24 (Listen – 5:49)
Acts 4 (Listen – 5:15)

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CS Lewis on Hope :: Readers’ Choice

I daily need reminding that this world isn’t what I’m working for and won’t make me happy. This blend of Lewis and Scripture was a timely reminder particularly as I began 2017 when it’s easy to focus on worldly goals, ambitions, and blessings. Thank you, Park Forum, for reminding me that I must aim for Heaven first!  — Catherine

Readers’ Choice (Originally published December 27, 2016)
The Park Forum

Tolkien’s words yesterday seemed timely, yet nearly discouraging—though he would have wanted his letter to be quite the opposite. Today we turn to his contemporary and, often, sounding board, C.S. Lewis, to highlight the hope he and Tolkien shared.

In Mere Christianity, Lewis writes:

Hope is one of the Theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do.

It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven.

It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth “thrown in”: aim at earth and you will get neither. It seems a strange rule, but something like it can be seen at work in other matters.

Health is a great blessing, but the moment you make health one of your main, direct objects you start becoming a crank and imagining there is something wrong with you. You are only likely to get health provided you want other things more—food, games, work, fun, open air. In the same way, we shall never save civilization as long as civilization is our main object. We must learn to want something else even more.

Most of us find it very difficult to want “Heaven” at all—except in so far as “Heaven” means meeting again our friends who have died. One reason for this difficulty is that we have not been trained: our whole education tends to fix our minds on this world. Another reason is that when the real want for Heaven is present in us, we do not recognize it.

Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise.

The Refrain
Help me, O Lord my God; save me for your mercy’s sake.

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Joshua 20-21 (Listen – 9:58)
Acts 1 (Listen – 3:58)

This Weekend’s Readings
Joshua 22 (Listen – 6:16) Acts 2 (Listen – 6:35)
Joshua 23 (Listen – 2:31) Acts 3 (Listen – 3:33)

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The Edge of Emptiness :: Readers’ Choice

So often we go to prayer with our shopping list and forget that God isn’t Walmart but Creator and Sovereign Lord. Trust is hard, but so worth the sacrifice.  — Sam

Readers’ Choice (Originally published January 18, 2017)
The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments.

― Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Scripture: Genesis 18.32

Then [Abraham] said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” [The Lord] answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.”

Reflection: The Edge of Emptiness
The Park Forum

Abraham was a Father of the faith whose prayer for Sodom was overruled. Zechariah a priest who was ignored by God for the overwhelming majority of his career (only when he was an old man did God invite him into his presence). Even Jesus—the Son of God himself—did not receive what he earnestly begged for in prayer.

To be holy, it would seem, is something significant, but it is not to live a life of uninterrupted answers to prayer.

Typically at this point, when writing about prayer, you switch gears and redefine the nature of how we are to understand prayer. Kierkegaard once explained:

The earthly minded person thinks and imagines that when he prays, the important thing, the thing he must concentrate upon, is that God should hear what he is praying for. And yet in the true, eternal sense it is just the reverse: the true relation in prayer is not when God hears what is prayed for, but when the person praying continues to pray until he is the one who hears, who hears what God is asking for.

But changing the definition of prayer may let us off the hook too easily. There is a deeper step that we are afraid to speak of.

“Prayer begins at the edge of emptiness,” observes rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Perhaps this is really why it is so difficult for the modern mind to find itself captivated in prayer—the cost of entry is our greatest fear.

Emptiness in a relationship only comes through trust. Emptiness forfeits its perceived future in order to discover a new reality in relationship. Emptiness never results in greater status, in admiration or accolade. But, while emptiness is the first step, it is not the end goal.

Abraham, Zechariah, and Christ were all filled with something greater than what they had before. Their unanswered prayers were not the end, but the beginning.

The Small Verse
My soul thirsts for the strong, living God and all that is within me cries out to him.

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Joshua 18-19 (Listen – 9:59)
Psalms 149-150 (Listen – 1:26)

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Sacrificial Love :: Readers’ Choice

In “Sacrificial Love,” the story of Ben Petiri and Rabbi Aqiba shows “My Life for Me” or “Your Life for Me” – but I failed to see that Jesus lived “My Life for You.” Thanks for the stark reminder. — Steve

Readers’ Choice (Originally published April 21, 2017)
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

―Jesus

Scripture: Leviticus 25.35

“If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you.”

Reflection: Sacrificial Love
The Park Forum

“There are two slightly different versions of the story,” notes religious historian Katell Berthelot of the cultural tradition behind Leviticus’ instruction to help one’s poor brother. Ancient Jews would have known one version from the Talmud and an earlier version from Sifra, a midrash on the book of Leviticus:

That your brother may live with you:
This is what Ben Peturi taught: The story of two persons who were traveling in a desert, and only one of them has a canteen of water. If only one of them drinks, he can reach civilization, but if both drink, both of them die.

Ben Petiri taught: Let them both drink and die, as it is said: That your brother may live with you.

[But,] Rabbi Aqiba told him: That your brother may live with you, means that your life takes precedence over the life of your companion.

Berhelot continues:

A possibility not taken into account in the dialogue between Ben Peturi and Rabbi Aqiba—that the one who owns the water voluntarily surrender it to the other person in order to save the latter’s life at the cost of his own.

However, a fourth case could indeed be thought of: the person who possesses the means of salvation could freely decide to sacrifice himself in order to save the other’s life, even if he legitimately owns the means of salvation, apart from considerations of personal worth or usefulness for the community….

At least in some cases, giving one’s life for a true friend or a revered teacher would probably be considered worthy of praise in both the Greco-Roman world and the rabbinic tradition, but it is never an obligation.

As affluent westerners we likely picture ourselves as the brother who has the means of salvation (how colonial of us). Yet the book of Leviticus, like the rest of the Pentateuch, reminds us that we are the ones hopelessly lost and in need of living with another.

We celebrate Christ because he was the brother who chose to lay down his life to live with us—pouring out all he had that we might find life. This reality forms not only the basis of salvation through Christ, but the foundation on which the Christian embrace refugees is built. For, Scripture reminds us, Christ will one day look upon those he gave himself for and say, “As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

The Request for Presence
Let those who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; let those who love your salvation say forever, “Great is the Lord!”

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Joshua 16-17 (Listen – 5:15)
Psalms 148 (Listen – 1:28)