Crossing the River

Crossing the River

Joshua 3:1-17

            As the family sat around the dinner table one Sunday after church, father asked young Bobby, “What did you learn in Sunday school today?” 

The boy answered, “Well, Moses and the Israelites were camped on the bank of the Red Sea, and the Egyptian army came after them with tanks and artillery.  The Israelite army quickly built a pontoon bridge over the water.  Moses loaded all the people into trucks, and they made it across.  When the Egyptians got to the middle of the bridge, Moses sent the Israelite air force to bomb the bridge, and the Egyptian army drowned.”

“Bobby,” his father said.  “That’s not the way your teacher told the story, is it?”

“No, dad,” Bobby replied, “but if I told it the way she did, you’d never believe it!”

He’s right, of course.  The story we read in Exodus 14 is pretty unbelievable.  How could the sea be held back and the people walk across on dry ground?  The simple answer is that the God who set in motion the physical laws of the universe ought to be able to suspend those laws when circumstances require.  We don’t have to get any more technical than that.

It’s important to remember that there were two water crossings in the Exodus story.  The Israelites crossed the Red Sea in their escape from Egypt (the actual Exodus).  Forty years or so later they crossed the Jordan River into Canaan—the Promised Land.  In some ways these two stories are similar.  In others they are very different.

The most obvious similarity is that in each case the waters were held back so the people could cross over on dry ground.  However God accomplished that feat (and who are we to question God’s power to do whatever God pleases), the crossing was accomplished.  Psalm 29:3-4 speaks eloquently about God’s control over water.  The instances in Exodus and Joshua are examples of that power.

What about the differences?  The most obvious one is that, when crossing the Red Sea, Israel was escaping from bondage in a foreign land.  They became a free people  Also, they were being pursued by a Pharaoh who realized he had made a mistake in letting them go.  Without the slave labor they provided, how was he to get his building projects completed?

The Jordan crossing was quite a different matter.  After years of wandering aimlessly through the wilderness—punishment for disobeying God’s commands—the Israelites, minus their leader Moses, were finally ready to claim their inheritance.  Once again a body of water stood in their way.  This time it was the Jordan, swollen to unmanageable width and depth by seasonal rains.  Once again God’s power sufficed to bring them safely across, this time led by Joshua.  We can imagine their relief and excitement as they stood for the first time on the land God had promised them so long ago.  They were not only free, but home.

In our spiritual lives we must also cross both the Red Sea and the Jordan.  When we acknowledge Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, and recognize God’s claim on our lives, we escape from the bondage of sin just as Israel escaped from slavery.  That isn’t the end of things, however; it’s only the beginning.

For the rest of our lives we wander, sometimes drawing close to God, sometimes getting lost in a wilderness of our own making.  Sooner or later we find ourselves on the banks of the Jordan, ready to cross over into the Promised Land.  Many of our hymns celebrate this moment:  “When I tread the verge of Jordan, bid my anxious fears subside,” is from one of my favorites, Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah. It continues, “Death of death and Hell’s destruction, land me safe on Canaan’s side.”

God has given us this promise:  if we remain faithful, at the end of our wandering we will see the home God has prepared for us.