Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Joshua chapter 3 verses 1 through 7:
Early in the morning Joshua rose and set out from Shittim with all the Israelites, and they came to the Jordan. They camped there before crossing over. 2 At the end of three days the officers went through the camp 3 and commanded the people, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the levitical priests, then you shall set out from your place. Follow it, 4 so that you may know the way you should go, for you have not passed this way before. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, a distance of about two thousand cubits; do not come any nearer to it.” 5 Then Joshua said to the people, “Sanctify yourselves; for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.” 6 To the priests Joshua said, “Take up the ark of the covenant, and pass on in front of the people.” So they took up the ark of the covenant and went in front of the people.
I see parallels in this Scripture to the times in which we are living. Surely we now, like the Israelites before, are walking unknown paths and “have not passed this way before”.
Yet the good news is the ark of God’s presence promises to go with us.
Yes, in the Scriptures too, there is social distancing. No one can come within 2,000 cubits of the ark. (A cubit was the measure of the arm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. So that’s about 2,500 feet depending on the hands. Ha!)
But even though no one can come close. The ark travels with the people. It goes in front of them and it crosses over the Jordan with them, drying up the raging waters and allowing the people to make it over the Jordan on dry land.
No; none of us have been this way before. But the promise of God’s presence goes with us, making a way out of no way, and a dry foot path amidst a river of troubles.
NOTE: We’re reading the whole Bible through this year. Tomorrow’s Lesson will be from Joshua chapters 9-11.
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