Monuments: Lasting memories – Part 7
As youĀ look ahead,Ā remember the IsraelitesāĀ monument at the JordanĀ that showsĀ how God keeps hisĀ pastĀ promisesĀ and continues to fulfill hisĀ promisesĀ forĀ the future.Ā Ā
Samuel C. DegnerĀ
The people of Israel gazed out across the JordanĀ Valley. There it was, right in front of them: the land flowing with milk and honey, the one they had dreamed of for generations. Exhilaration must have filled their hearts as they pictured the places where they would put up their housesāhouses,Ā not tents!Ā
A promise keptĀ
But then again . . .Ā they had been here before. Forty years earlier, their forebears had looked at the same landscape and concluded they could never take it from its occupants. Now, those Canaanites were still there. Moses, on the other hand, was not; the one who had led them to this point now lay buried somewhere in Moab. Then there was that river at flood stage . . .Ā perhaps the people hadnāt noticed its distant roar at first. Was it excitement or fear that made their hearts beat faster?Ā
That mix of anticipation and uncertainty is timeless. Brides and grooms feel it as they prepare to enter marriage, expecting both joys and challenges. So do graduates as they step into a wide open future, full of both opportunity and danger, without those who had guided them to that point. Retirees may wonder whether the coming years will be as golden as they imagine. Christians nearing death see paradise lying before them as well as the pain they may have to traverse to get there.Ā
As you survey your future, consider the Israelites at the Jordan (JoshuaĀ chapterĀ 3). By Godās power, they walked across the dry riverbed into a land that would no longer beĀ promised but simply theirs.Ā Ā
A future guaranteedĀ
This was more than the fulfillment of a centuries-old promise. God showed himself to be a āliving God,ā always present with his people and fully capable of giving them the Canaanitesā land. He wanted Israel to know they could confidently follow Joshua just as they had followed Moses, who had once led them across a different body of water. In other words, God was fulfilling his words from the pastĀ andĀ guaranteeing his words about the future.Ā
To help his people remember this lesson through the coming years of conquest and for generations to come, the Lord commanded one man from each tribe to take a stone from the middle of the riverbed and place it at the Israelitesā camp (JoshuaĀ chapterĀ 4). What a powerful monument: Rocks, worn and wet from years under a river, now stacked on dry land! A memorial to a promise keptāand a promise of more of the same.Ā
Somewhere in that same river, some 1,400 years later, stood a living monument with the same message. As Jesus stepped out of those descending waters, another miracle took place: A dove and a voice from heaven,Ā said, āThis is my Sonā (Matthew 3:17). It marked a promise kept:Ā The Savior had come, who was the reason God brought Israel to that land in the first place. It was also a sign of good things on the horizon: Jesusā perfect life on earth earned us a perfect life in heaven.Ā Ā
As you make your way toward that promised land, you can trust the same living Godās presence and power to bring you safely through the obstacles in your path. The future that lies before you may both fill your daydreams and keep you up at night. But the Lord goes ahead to defend and bless you. Itās his promise.Ā
Contributing editor Samuel Degner is a professor at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, Mequon, Wisconsin.Ā
This is the seventh article in a nine-part series on Old Testament monuments and what they mean to us today.Ā Ā
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Author: Samuel C. Degner
Volume 104, Number 11
Issue: November 2017
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