Joshua 5:9-12; All Things Have Become New

"9 The Lord said to Joshua, ‘Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.’ And so that place is called Gilgal to this day.

10 While the Israelites were encamped in Gilgal they kept the passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho. 11 On the day after the passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. 12 The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year."

Introduction--Connecting the "Dots"

We are fortunate this week in having four texts that relate closely to each other on the themes of a new beginning that either comes from or relates to the forgiveness of sins. This message is central to the Christian Gospel, and is especially good news in the time of Lent, where we customarily engage in reflection on our own personal shortcomings or failings. We learn from the Lectionary readings that forgiveness is at the heart of God's plan for us, and that this forgiveness can make for a new beginning. In Josh. 5 it is the people of Israel who will have this new beginning in the land of promise. Ps. 32 speaks of the psychology of forgiveness and new beginning. The parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15) stresses that the father's love continues even after we have made quite a mess of all things, and the Epistle shows the Apostle Paul at his finest in stressing the "new creation" that comes with faith in Christ. All in all, this is a most welcome message for "mid-Lent."

When we look at the passage for the morning, we see it opening up to us around three points: (1) the Cessation of Egyptian Shame (v. 9); (2) the Celebration of Passover (vv. 10-11); and (3) the Ceasing of Manna. Let's briefly consider each.

I. Rolling Away the Shame of Egpyt--v. 9

The Book of Joshua narrates the conquest of the land of Israel by the people of Israel under the leadership of Joshua. We don't really understand the fervency with which many Jews today revere the promise of the Land of Israel unless we enter into the flow of the Book of Joshua. This passage gives us a glimpse into the memory of Israel after the crossing of the Jordan and the (re)circumcision of the men (5:1-7). The life of the people, which had begun with Abram the wanderer and Moses the lawgiver and deliverer would now take on a further dimension with Joshua the warrior. Each chapter in Israel's history defined the character of the people in a different way.

The first point to note about these verses is that salvation has been a long time in coming. That is, the people of Israel had been delivered from the grip of Pharoah 40 years previously and then had wandered in the wilderness in the ensuing generation. Now, finally, they can "roll away" (gilgal, after the name of the town where they were camped) the "disgrace" of Egypt. What was the Egyptian disgrace? The experience of slavery and mockery, the feeling that God was slow in bringing relief to the people, the sense that humiliation rather than deliverance would be the daily food of the people. The Hebrew word for disgrace is herephah, a word of frequent appearance in the OT, especially in the major prophets. An especially vivid appearance of it is in Jeremiah's complaint to God (20:8):

"For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach (herephah) and derision all day long."

The "reproach" or "disgrace" came because of the apparently powerlessness of Israel's God in the face of the historic experiences of the people or the prophet of God. People mock, 'If your God is so great, and your call so secure, how is it that you are so weak and vulnerable?"

We, too, face our shames, some of which are even too sensitive to mention. We feel the mocking of others, the reproach that cuts straight to the heart of our call and understanding of faith. "If God is so great, why are you, God's 'representative,' living in such abject circumstances?" Frankly, it is a question that the people of God, and the chosen ones of God, ask of God all the time. The promise of the Scripture today is that the disgrace of our past can be rolled away as easily as the foreskin can be cut off. The pain of the "operation" may last a few days, but removal of shame is forever.

II. The Celebration of Passover (vv. 10-11)

Once the shame of the past has been removed, the people are ready to face the future by celebrating Passover. Or, in the words of the Apostle Paul for the day: "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!" (II Cor. 5:17). Passover itself isn't a new experience; indeed, it arose in Ex. 12 when the Angel of God passed over the homes of the people of Israel and slew the firstborn of the children of Egypt. What is significant about Israel's celebration of Passover in Jos. 5, however, is that Passover has now gone from terrifying experience to ritual celebration. In other words, Passover will now become something "regularized," something that becomes part of the worship of Israel. Along with the fact that the wandering Aramean is their father (Deut. 26:5) and that the people faced slavery in Egypt (Ex. 1-12) is now the fact that the Angel of the Lord passed over the people of Israel.

When something moves from terror to ritual, from experience of God in their midst to remembered experience we have an important movement in the history of religion. Ritual is a way of remembering, of "freezing" the divine action, as it were. Like the picture on the cover of Sports Illustrated that captures the intensity, anguish and triumph of sport, so "picture" in ritual is able, at its best, to keep the flame of the past experience burning. Few Christians who have celebrated a Passover Seder will forget the tasted shame and the exhilaration of deliverance. The Israelite celebration of Passover at Gilgal 3200 years ago ought to inspire us to put life into our ritual--to see our celebrations as ways to keep the flame of past sacred events alive in our midst.

III. The Manna Ceases (v. 12)

But Israel's entry into the land through ritual wouldn't be complete without this beautiful little verse. It, like many beautiful things, is so literarily commonplace that we might be tempted to ignore it. Literally the Hebrew flows as follows:

"The manna ceased (the Hebrew verb is shabat, the same word used for 'sabbath') on the next day when they ate from the fruit of the earth, and there was not again before Israel manna..."

The word manna begins and ends the thought. That which sustained the people for forty years is the first and last word in this passage. But, the manna which encircles the passage and which nourished the people is no longer needed. As the earth puts forth its fruit, the manna goes on sabbath. What greater reminder can there be of the truth of the Scripture:

"He (God) humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord" (Deut. 8:3).

The Good News for today is that the shame of our past is rolled away, that those painful experiences of our past can be joyfully transmuted into ritual and that a new beginning, indeed, is possible. God's "extraordinary" sustenance (manna) is now replaced with the "ordinary" supply (fruit of the earth). As we move from extraordinary events (Passover, manna) to ordinary life (ritual, fruit of the earth), we are impressed anew with how really extraordinary this story and this God is.

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