“Standing Stones”

Scripture: Joshua 4:1-9

We all have those great memories of important times in our lives – a special birthday party that you’ll never forget, a family vacation that everyone enjoyed, the time we met the person who would one day become our husband or wife, graduation from school, the birth of each and every one of our children, the day we welcomed Christ into our lives. Some memories tend to come and then slowly go away, but others remain with us throughout our life.
Why would some be so fleeting, while others become a lasting part of our make up? Why are some memories so ingrained in our subconscious, while other times, that may have been equally important at the time, pass out of our awareness?
I think that the difference in them is not so much in the memory itself, but more so in the impact that it has on the rest of our life. It isn’t about the past – it’s about what it means for us today, and how that memory will prepare us and serve us as we travel into the future. That life long memory – whether it came as moment of awakening, or as one of heartache – is the very thing that defines the event to be “life changing”.

Read Joshua 4:1-7

As we read last week, the priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant were called to step into the raging waters of the Jordan as the leaders of the nation, and in their faithfulness, the waters began to pile up miles upstream and downstream, and the people were able to cross into the Promised Land on dry ground. Now we see that there was another group of leaders who would represent the nation – the 12 who had been chosen to select and carry the memorial stones from the middle of the river bed to the far shore. And what would they memorialize?
God simply told them to pick up 12 stones from the river bed, and put them down wherever they would stop for the night. There was no mention by the Almighty as to what they were to memorialize, or even that they were to be a memorial in the first place. It was Joshua who told the people that they would be a memorial to what God had done for them that day.
But personally, I think that the memorial should have had a far greater significance in the minds and hearts of Israel. They had been enslaved in Egypt with no way out until the Lord lead the fugitive Moses back to confront Pharaoh, and then miracle after miracle was brought to bear, simply to bring to fruition the promise that the people would live in the land promised to the descendents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 10 plagues would be brought against the people of Egypt, and when they finally left slavery, the sea that stood as a barrier to their escape would be divided, and when the army of Pharaoh pursued them, they would be confused and delayed and eventually completely destroyed. The people were given the commandments of God directly from God; they were fed on a daily basis with no interruption; water was provided out of solid rock; they defeated enemy after enemy, and for 40 years, God, in the image of a cloud and a column of fire, lead them through the wilderness.
And in spite of their corporate unfaithfulness and constant grumbling, they finally reached the Jordan and in another miraculous moment, this last water barrier was also defeated and the people would be able to enter their promised home. Did the nation have something to remember? I should say so!!!

There would be many memorials given to this journey, and hundreds of years later, the Psalmist would memorialize the journey this way.

Read Psalm 114:5-8

Remember? How could they ever forget? But the stones would still be set up as “a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”

Standing stones – not the miracle itself, but a tribute to the miracles of God. It’s been said that we can “choose to throw stones, to stumble on them, to climb over them, or to build with them.” In this case, Israel chose to build with them.

Read Joshua 4:8-9

But stones can’t talk, can they. They can’t tell the story – the significance – of how they came to be where they are. A stranger who doesn’t know how and why they have been placed in such a manner can only wonder about them. Don’t you wish the stones had a voice? That they could regale us with the entire wonderful experience?

My friends, that is why we need to take the place of those stones. Every one of us has been the recipient of God’s blessings throughout our lives. Oh, yes, we’ve grumbled, we’ve created our own disastrous detours, we’ve sinned, we’ve failed the Lord over and over again, and even in our faithlessness, our blessed Lord has remained faithful to us and has continued to work his wonders in our lives. We must be the “Standing Stones” of today. Amen?

And so, I have to ask, when was the last time you shared a witness with someone else? When was the last time that someone saw you as a memorial to the glory and majesty of our God?

I love stories about Mother Teresa, because she is one of the great witnesses, one of the great “Standing Stones” of all time. This is how one of those stories goes:

When Mother Teresa first began her work among the dying on the streets of Calcutta, she was obstructed at every turn by government officials and orthodox Hindus, who were suspicious of her motives and used their authority to harass her and to frustrate her efforts. She and her fellow sisters were insulted and threatened with physical violence. One day a shower of stones and bricks rained down on the women as they tried to bring the dying to their humble shelter. Eventually Mother Teresa dropped to her knees before the mob. “Kill me!” she cried in Bengali, her arms outstretched in a gesture of crucifixion, “And I'll be in heaven all the sooner.” The rabble withdrew but soon the harassment increased with even more irrational acts of violence and louder demands were made of officials to expel the foreign nun in her white sari, wearing a cross around the neck.

One morning, Mother Teresa noticed a gathering of people outside the nearby Kali Temple, one of the holy places for Hindus in Calcutta. As she drew closer, she saw a man stretched out on the street with turned-up eyes and a face drained of blood. A triple braid denoted that he was of the Brahmin caste, not of the temple priests. No one dared to touch him, for people recognized he was dying from cholera.

Mother Teresa went to him, bent down, took the body of the Brahmin priest in her arms and carried him to her shelter. Day and night she nursed him, and eventually he recovered. Over and over again he would say to the people, “For 30 years I have worshipped a Kali of stone. But I have met in this gentle woman a real Kali, a Kali of flesh and blood.” Never again were stones thrown at Mother Teresa and the other sisters.
--Donald J. Shelby, Weakness and Power, 22 December 1991, Santa Monica, California.

Now I have to admit that there aren’t a lot of people around with the faith and fortitude of a Mother Teresa, but what an incredible witness! But even if we aren’t quite as courageous as this marvelous lady, we have to take a stand, none the less. The priests of Israel had to take that risky step into the raging waters of the Jordan. The prophets of Israel had to carry the message that the nation had to change their ways – a not very popular message at that. The disciples would be called to carry their witness to the gospel into a world that would hate them for it. The early church would grow by leaps and bounds, even as they were being persecuted to the fullest extent of worldly force. Each and every one of these would become “Standing Stones” in their own right. They are living memorials to what Almighty God can truly do.

So when will we start? When do we accept the call to be a flesh and blood, a living “Stone”? Not one that weaves and bends to the changing winds of the world, not one that hides in the middle of a gravel pit, surrounded by a lot of other anonymous stones, but one who takes a stand in plain sight for the entire world, and proclaims in no uncertain terms, that Jesus Christ is Lord, and he wants to be their Lord, too.

Will you become a new and living “Stone” for Christ today?