Has God ever asked you to do something that doesn’t make sense? Before the coronavirus crisis, Christians would regularly do just that, gathering in a quiet room, singing some songs, reading out of a 2000-year-old book and listening to someone talk about it. Every now and then, we would eat a bite of bread and take a sip of juice or wine. Oh, and we would talk to an invisible Person, giving Him credit for all the good things that happen to us, and then asking Him to help us in all sorts of ways. To the unbelieving world, these are the actions of madmen, and I suppose we only seemed crazier yesterday when we had to do all these strange things from our homes, in front of our computer screens.

For God’s Old Testament people, worship was just as nonsensical, especially in today’s passage. Immediately after the people crossed over the Jordan River into enemy territory, Joshua made sure that all the men, all the warriors, would be rendered unfit for combat for several days by a rather painful surgical procedure. Why would God tell His people to do something like that? And why didn’t God tell them to do it while they were waiting for 3 days on the other side, the safe side of the Jordan?

And then, after conquering just two cities in the Promised Land, Jericho and Ai, all the people, men, women and children alike, packed up all their stuff and moved some 20 miles behind enemy lines to have a big, public worship service. And they didn’t even try to be secretive about it. They offered up burnt offerings, so the smoke had to be seen for miles around. They whitewashed some big rocks and painted lots of Bible verses on them. And then half of the people stood on one mountainside and the other half stood on another, shouting Bible verses at each other, telling each other how God was going to bless them or curse them depending on how well they loved Him and loved one another. But why couldn’t all this wait until after the conquest of the land was completed? Why couldn’t all this wait until it was safe?

The simple answer is that God’s people do all that we do in worship, past and present, because God told us to do those things. God told Joshua to circumcise all the warriors. God had told Moses to have a worship service on Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizim whenever the people crossed over into the Promised Land. And so, by doing what God said, even if it was more than a little dangerous, the people were expressing their faith, their trust, their total reliance on God.

But we are called to live all of our lives this way, regardless of how little sense it makes, regardless of how dangerous it might be. We have to trust that God will take care of us, and then keep on doing His will – praying and reading His Word, but then putting it into practice. When we carry groceries to someone who doesn’t need to be in crowds, when we buy takeout from a struggling restaurant even when we could cook at home, when we leave that last roll of toilet paper or can of Lysol on the shelf for someone who needs it more than we do, we are trusting God to take care of us even while we try to care for others. What better way could we show our love for Him today?

Joshua 8:30-35 (ESV)

30 At that time Joshua built an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal, 31 just as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded the people of Israel, as it is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, “an altar of uncut stones, upon which no man has wielded an iron tool.” And they offered on it burnt offerings to the LORD and sacrificed peace offerings. 32 And there, in the presence of the people of Israel, he wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written. 33 And all Israel, sojourner as well as native born, with their elders and officers and their judges, stood on opposite sides of the ark before the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, half of them in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded at the first, to bless the people of Israel. 34 And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. 35 There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners who lived among them.