You can find the video here: https://www.facebook.com/RichlandNaz/videos/684184749055784/
Do you ever forget things? There’s a running joke meme on Facebook where someone calls forgetting why you walked into a particular room and doing something else until they remember why the new multitasking. But seriously do you ever forget important stuff? I sure do, and the more I try to remember, it seems like the further from my mind the thought runs – and I mean it runs!
I’m terrible or actually really good at forgetting where my keys are constantly. Don’t believe me, next time you talk to someone I work with, ask them how often I leave my keys, water jug, tablet, Bible, or iPhone just laying around somewhere. If it can be laid aside, misplaced, or dropped, then I’m your guy – it’s like I posses a superpower in loosing and forgetting things.
Deuteronomy 27:1-8 (NIV) Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people: “Keep all these commands that I give you today. When you have crossed the Jordan into the land the Lord your God is giving you, set up some large stones and coat them with plaster. Write on them all the words of this law when you have crossed over to enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you. And when you have crossed the Jordan, set up these stones on Mount Ebal, as I command you today, and coat them with plaster. Build there an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones. Do not use any iron tool on them. Build the altar of the Lord your God with fieldstones and offer burnt offerings on it to the Lord your God. Sacrifice fellowship offerings there, eating them and rejoicing in the presence of the Lord your God. And you shall write very clearly all the words of this law on these stones you have set up.”
In one of the commentaries I read this concerning this passage of Scripture:
“…laws are a collection of communal policies and practices that constitute a political framework for a people of memory.”
And then later on in the same commentary they gave another way to explain what this book of Deuteronomy is to us, what this represents to the Body of Christ today;
“…what this collection of policies and practices are attempting to accomplish is that they are endeavoring to shape the identity of the people.”
Repeatedly through this book (Deuteronomy), you hear the word remember or the phrase do not forget repeatedly. And I believe rightfully so. There is a significant transition happening here. Not just the leadership of the people, which had been almost exclusively through the relationship
Moses had with God – remember Moses stood between the people and God in everything, but also they were ending their time in the desert. And this time of transition, was a time where God called His people to remember what they had learned.
Remembering is a huge part of our lives even today. I recently was talking with one of my new and dear friends the other day about the place where I was born. And how the music of one of my grandmothers shaped me. How I learned to play lots of instruments, and sing harmony by ear by pickin’ and grinnin’ in my grandparents kitchen, living room, or on a warm summer evening on their porch. Usually till it was far to late to be up for as young as I was.
We remember lots of things, we remember traditions. We remember where we put our keys, (well only if I hang them where they go). We remember occasions, like birthdays and anniversaries. There is an entire company that has devoted their bottom line to helping me remember. They make these little note pads that have sticky stuff on the back which you can post everywhere.
We have reminders in our smartphones in our smart watches, our computers run calendars for us and on the occasion that I forget my wife Bobbi and our Office Administrator Jane often help me to remember.
And, right now that we are all working from home I’m being left to my own devices. And I think everyone who has worked with me will admit that is a bit concerning to say the least.
And I guess forgetting isn’t such a bad thing, I mean the older I get the more I forget, but at what cost? You see we have a task to remember, just as God wanted His Children to remember back in Deuteronomy. God was making certain that His Children wouldn’t forget how they got to the Promised Land. He wanted them to remember that He indeed had been faithful to them, that He had delivered them and made good on His promise.
So here is where God asks them to build an altar. Altars were common place back then, they weren’t as pretty as they are today. Mostly they were to catch your eye not always in a pleasing way, but in a way to be noticed by others – like – hey what’s big pile of rocks over there? Here in this story they were to celebrate being delivered from Pharaoh’s army, freed from slavery of Egypt.
Joshua 4:4-7 (NIV) So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”
In the same way, we are coming upon a time of year where it is common to begin to remember probably the most important part of history – the most significant part of history: the suffering and death of Jesus.
Now – please stay with me for a moment, the last few days leading up to the crucifixion was also part of a celebration of another remembering. It was the celebration of the Passover. And this time – would be the last. You see there would be no need for another sacrificial Lamb – Jesus was the final Passover Lamb. He would be sacrificed for all of humanity, for you and for me. So as you go through your week, this week leading up to this – definitely different Easter season, remember…