EASY TO SAY (34 OF 49)
Scripture: Joshua 24:1-2, Joshua 24:14-18
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Easy to Say (34 of 49)
Lectionary, Year B
Christopher B. Harbin
Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18
Over the decades, I have heard all sorts of claims professing faith in Christ. Many of them have been sincere. Many of them have fallen as empty claims of a non-existent faith. It is one thing to claim Jesus as one's Savior. It is quite another thing to submit our lives to the Lordship of Christ, to allow ourselves to be transformed by the One who would make us whole. Without that submission, that surrender of our lives in service to Christ, the claims we make are empty and void. Too often we have pressed people to make a claim of belonging to Christ without assuming the responsibilities of belonging to God. Why would we claim Christ only to ignore the gospel's demands?
Today's passage comes at the end of Joshua's life. The people had left Egypt under Moses to spend a generation in the wilderness. Under Joshua, they had crossed over the Jordan to take possession of the land promised to them as Abraham's descendants. Their forebears had seen all sorts of marvels of Yahweh's provision. They had been witness to Yahweh taking them from being a ragtag band of nomadic refugees to becoming a nation settled in the land. It is at this conclusion of Joshua's life that he addresses them with the words we read today. ''Choose this day which god you will serve.''
I feel like we should be surprised for these to be Joshua's final words to the nation. I want to think that someone must have gotten these words out of place. They sound like what we would have expected Moses to have told the people way back before or just after their Egyptian exodus. Then again, this is not the first time this basic message was delivered to the people. Moses had said this upon leaving Egypt and then again upon handing leadership over to Joshua. It would seem every generation needed to hear these words and make the same determination. ''Whom will we serve?'' Wasn't he preaching to the choir? They were gath ...
Lectionary, Year B
Christopher B. Harbin
Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18
Over the decades, I have heard all sorts of claims professing faith in Christ. Many of them have been sincere. Many of them have fallen as empty claims of a non-existent faith. It is one thing to claim Jesus as one's Savior. It is quite another thing to submit our lives to the Lordship of Christ, to allow ourselves to be transformed by the One who would make us whole. Without that submission, that surrender of our lives in service to Christ, the claims we make are empty and void. Too often we have pressed people to make a claim of belonging to Christ without assuming the responsibilities of belonging to God. Why would we claim Christ only to ignore the gospel's demands?
Today's passage comes at the end of Joshua's life. The people had left Egypt under Moses to spend a generation in the wilderness. Under Joshua, they had crossed over the Jordan to take possession of the land promised to them as Abraham's descendants. Their forebears had seen all sorts of marvels of Yahweh's provision. They had been witness to Yahweh taking them from being a ragtag band of nomadic refugees to becoming a nation settled in the land. It is at this conclusion of Joshua's life that he addresses them with the words we read today. ''Choose this day which god you will serve.''
I feel like we should be surprised for these to be Joshua's final words to the nation. I want to think that someone must have gotten these words out of place. They sound like what we would have expected Moses to have told the people way back before or just after their Egyptian exodus. Then again, this is not the first time this basic message was delivered to the people. Moses had said this upon leaving Egypt and then again upon handing leadership over to Joshua. It would seem every generation needed to hear these words and make the same determination. ''Whom will we serve?'' Wasn't he preaching to the choir? They were gath ...
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