DAY 78

GOING FIRST…

Joshua 1, 2 & 3 and Mark 16

I realize today we read of the empty tomb, the Resurrection. You might find it curious that the blog does not focus on this, the greatest event in the history of the world. It might be because Easter is 13 days away and I don’t want to write about it just yet. It might be because I commented on the Resurrection on Day 48. It may just be that there is something in all these readings that has gotten my attention: Today we meet people who “go first”.

·         Joshua, is the first to lead the people into the Promise Land.

·         Rahab, is the first in Jericho to really understand just who this “Hebrew God” really is. She says, “He is the God of heaven above and earth below”.

·         The Priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant across the Jordan; they are the first ones in the water. . Now the river was at flood stage; raging water. I imagine some of the priests saying to their fellow priests, “Why don’t you go first today?”

·         Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome…went first to the tomb. They were worried, “Who will roll away the stone for us…?”

In every one of these situations, God was asking people to have faith in Him. He has some words for Joshua that apply to all of the situations we read about today. Three times God says:  “Be strong – be courageous”. God also tells him, “Meditate on the Book of the Law day and night.”

I have been thinking about what it takes to “attempt something”, to do something for the first time. When something has to be attempted, when there is no option, what do we do? C.S. Lewis writes, “Faced with an optional question on an examination, one must consider whether one can do it or not: faced with a compulsory question, one must do the best they can. You may get some marks for a very imperfect answer: you will certainly get none for leaving the question alone.” He goes to say the same is true in life. In fact we often surprise ourselves by what we can do, when we have to.

These readings go beyond that idea because they are situations where people are attempting to “follow God”. In a few cases God is asking those involved to trust Him, and in one Rahab is convinced the “Hebrew God” is the one to follow.  

Is this not our situation? Are not we trying to “follow God”, “follow Jesus”? Does it not often feel as if we are trying to “go first”? We try and be first to show charity. We try and be first to not give in to some nagging tendency we have that we know to be sin? The key, and I think this is really important, is that we not grade ourselves so much on whether we perfectly achieved what we were trying for, but rather that we took the step, we trusted God, we attempted to follow! In fact we already know that we won’t get a 100%. There will be days (sticking with the same example) where we will not show the charity we should show.

The key is picking ourselves up, going to God for forgiveness, and taking our first step yet again. It is indeed this habit of getting up and following that will train us with the proper habits of the soul.

So, be strong, be courageous, God loves you and wants you to follow. He knows you are going to fall down a bit, but the more you try, the further you are along the path.

Post Script: where the actual ending to Mark’s Gospel is a question. I will provide a second post that gives you some background on that issue, and also provide my view about how you can with some intellectual integrity sort of these types of situations in the Bible. After all, if you are working so hard to read the Scripture, I want to try and offer whatever I can for some of these sticky issues.