Sometimes, we read the Bible as if it’s all about us, as if we’re the main character and God exists to help us with whatever is keeping us from what we want. I’ve heard this many times when it comes to the story of Joshua and the battle of Jericho. “Jericho” ends up representing some impossible situation in someone’s life. And we’re supposed to just believe hard enough until the situation breaks our way.
So some guy reads about Jericho and thinks, “OK! My Jericho, my impossible situation, is getting a date. So I’m going to walk around this girl seven times, and on the last time shout, ‘Go out with me!’ And I expect her walls of resistance to fall down.” Let me be clear: That’s not “bold faith,” brother. That’s grounds for a restraining order.
If you’re looking for someone to represent you in the story of Joshua and Jericho, here’s a chilling thought: You’re not Joshua.
You and I are much more like Jericho. Jericho is the citadel of our sin that stood between us and the Promised Land of our salvation, our restoration to God, and there was nothing we or anybody could do about it. So along came Jesus, the truer and better Joshua, who through the counterintuitive, humble obedience of the cross brought down the walls of sin and death that held us captive with his final cry of “It is finished.”
That Jesus is the truer and better Joshua might be the main point of the Jericho story, but it’s not the only point. One thing we learn is that God’s way often seems crazy.
God could have had the Israelites show their faith in a bunch of different ways—ways that wouldn’t have involved weird demonstrations of public humiliation like going into battle after being circumcised. (Yes, that’s a key piece of the Jericho story. Go read it again: Joshua 5:1–8.) I don’t want to go into all the details, but I’m positive that left the army feeling rather, well, vulnerable. No guy is going to feel like fighting after that, at least for several days.
God could have commanded circumcision long before the people reached Jericho. He could have commanded it after the battle. Why would God choose this moment, just before their important fight, to intentionally make them weaker?
It’s not just Joshua and Jericho either. Lots of things Jesus commands us to do seem crazy and counterintuitive. (I’m not talking about the weird rituals that some Christians engage in, by the way. Over the years, I’ve been given my share of wacky instructions to procure God’s blessing on something: rub oil in certain places and wave banners and shake tambourines and blow shofars and other forms of Christian wackiness. I’m not talking about any of that stuff. You do that on your own time.) I’m talking about the counterintuitive way of the cross.
Things like responding to someone who has wronged you with forgiveness instead of vengeance. Everything in your mind says, “Vengeance is the only way to make this right.” But Jesus says, “Be humble. Forgive.” But with forgiveness comes the power of God.
Things like taking a Sabbath. You think, “I can’t afford that time-wise. I have so much to do. It makes no sense.” And nobody you know is doing it, so it just seems strange, even old-fashioned. But see, you do it and God multiplies your time.
Things like tithing. You say, “I can’t afford to tithe.” It seems completely absurd to your friends and neighbors. But then God multiplies your resources because of your obedience.
Jesus was the preeminent model of this “crazy” obedience. He overcame evil not through a display of strength and power, by forcing all his enemies into submission, but through his own submission and weakness of the cross. It was there that he unmasked evil and stripped it of its power and overcame the curse of death.
And now we follow in his steps—not by walking around walls or bringing down powerful cities, but by faithfully following the crazy (and life-giving) obedience of Jesus.
