Looking for Light – November 2026
As autumn turns to winter, with short days and long nights, darkness can seem to catch up with us. What better encouragement than to spend some time reflecting on the Light which has come into the world, by looking at key references to light in the bible. In this season, may that light shine in our hearts!
Day 1, Tuesday 10th November – Genesis 1:3,14-19 ‘He also made the stars’
Not long ago, our young people’s group looked at space. As part of our session, we watched a fairly mind-blowing short video, which showed just how vast it is (if you want to watch it, this is the link). We learned, for example, that the sun is a million times bigger than earth, but that the largest star – VY Canis Majoris (which roughly translates as ‘Very Big Dog’) – has a diameter 2,000 times larger than the sun!
But nothing compares to the size of a galaxy. If our solar system is a 20p piece, then the Milky Way is roughly the size of the USA. That is big.
So big, in fact, we can’t comprehend it. It’s better to keep these thoughts as numbers and images, because no-one can really fathom this kind of scale in any meaningful way…. except God.
‘He also made the stars.’ (v17) This short phrase, offered almost as a throwaway, has to be one of the most incredible verses of all scripture. It barely merits a mention, and yet represents a feat of creation far beyond anything we can imagine. Carl Sagan once mused that the total number of stars in the universe would likely be as many as the grains of sand on the whole face of the earth. Next time you’re at the beach, scoop up a handful of sand and contemplate that.
What does this really mean? Simply this: our God is a great big God. Plenty big enough for our doubts and fears, plenty big enough for our problems – and the world’s. And if that is true, then he is well able to hold us in his hand, even in these dark and confusing times.
It has never been more important to seize this glorious truth: our God is a great big God. Let’s place ourselves in this God’s hands today, and comfort ourselves in the vastness of his presence. Let’s pray big prayers to a big God. He also made the stars!
As we begin this series today, let me finish with the words of a famous hymn, and may it also be your prayer, as it is mine:
Thou whose Almighty word chaos and darkness heard – and took their flight. Hear us we humbly pray, and where the gospel day sheds not its glorious ray: Let there be light! Amen.
Remembrance Season
Ten daily reflections for this ‘season of remembering’:
Monday 9th November – Psalm 22:22-31 ‘All will remember’
Wednesday is Armistice Day. At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, the armistice was signed and peace was declared to mark the end of the Great War. Whether it’s on Wednesday, or on Remembrance Sunday yesterday, people mark this moment in different ways, and take an opportunity to remember.
The Great War was the first truly global conflict, and its toll of human suffering was immense. Sadly, it proved to be just the first of a number of pan-global conflicts through the 20th century (although we officially count only two). Now, once more, after an almost unparalleled period of peace in our region of the world, the shadow of war looms far closer – which makes it all the more important to treasure peace, when we have daily images on our screens and news feeds which remind us what war is really like. ‘Lest we forget,’ is a common phrase used at this time of year, and rightly so.
As we conclude our short series on remembering, today’s Psalm also points us towards a global act of remembering. This act is also birthed in costly sacrifice, as God’s chosen one is ‘poured out like water’ (v14) and pierced in hands and feet (v16). Though the psalm never reveals the reason for this, Psalm 22 has come to represent a hugely significant prophecy of the Messiah, one that Jesus himself cries out a thousand years later, on the very cross which pierced his own hands and feet.
Yet through this sacrifice comes victory. Not in a physical battle but a spiritual one. The one who is sacrificed is then exalted (v29), people will serve this Saviour (v30) and generations to come will praise him, rejoicing in his victory (v31).
This act will be so significant that ‘all will remember…’ (v27). All will remember… what? The Lord. There will be a global turning to God, as people seek the Lord (v26), and recognise his power in the affairs of the world (v28). The sacrifice of the Son achieves something permanent and glorious – and still today, the church declares to anyone ready to listen: ‘He has done it!’ (v31).
So, in this season, let us remember. Let us remember the sacrifices of so many. Let us remember those who continue to pay the price of war and violence. Let us remember the value of peace, and what it costs to maintain it.
And let us also remember the greater peace won by our Lord. Let us remember what God has done, and that we are now part of a great global movement for the restoration of all things. Let us recommit ourselves to the path of divine peace, won at such a cost.
‘Those who seek the Lord will praise him… Posterity will serve him…. They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn: He has done it!’ Amen.
Saturday 7th November – Psalm 63 ‘The night watch’
Peter Kay’s adverts for John Smith’s bitter in the early 2000s years still rank as some of my favourite ads of all time (I used to test and research ads for a living, so I’ve always had a soft spot for the ad break). One of the best starred Kay as a dad comforting his little daughter as she lay crying in bed at night. ‘What’s the matter?’ asks Kay. ‘I’m scared of the monster hiding in my cupboard,’ replies his daughter. ‘You don’t need to worry about that – look!’ reassures Kay, opening the cupboard door. ‘It’s the robber climbing in through the window you should be scared about.’
(Rest assured, he won’t be joining our church pastoral care team anytime soon…)
The night hours can be challenging for many of us. We may no longer fear the monster under our bed or in the cupboard, but it’s amazing how small problems can seem so much bigger at night. And big problems can seem HUGE.
We toss and turn, we feel our heartbeat quicken. We may even get up and walk around to calm ourselves down. And then when morning comes – some of those things that haunted us suddenly don’t seem so bad. At least until night returns.
Little children often have ‘the night terrors.’ But it’s not unknown for us adults, either. Physical darkness can be a time of spiritual darkness too.
In our psalm today, we learn that King David knows what that feels like. And let’s be clear: it’s not caused by a lack of closeness to God. That’s a great lie the devil tells us, especially in the wee small hours – and it’s not true. When we worry at night, we are not facing condemnation for a lack of faith. Banish that thought! King David has seen God’s power and glory (v2), and dedicates his life to praise (v4, v5). He is close to God, but he’s not immune.
David’s solution to night worries is to focus on what he chooses to remember. When David frets in the darkness, he remembers his Lord (v6) – if need be, he keeps coming back to God through the night. He sings (quietly?) if he has to (v7). And he clings (v8) – he’s not afraid to cry out for help in the depths of his heart.
Think, sing and cling – it’s a bit cheesy, but it’s not a bad strategy. When your worries surround you in the quiet hours, choose to remember God: let him rest at the heart of your being, and consciously invite him back into the midst of your problems. Sing praise songs and hymns under your breath, claiming God’s truth and power over those worries. And don’t be afraid to cry ‘help!’ Only God hears – but God is the only one who needs to hear.
And however long the night lasts, daylight always comes. God’s mercies come to us afresh every morning. May those mercies come to us today – in light and darkness.
Friday 6th November – Psalm 25 ‘Not forgotten’
God has not forgotten you.
At the risk of sounding like a scratched record (and I have plenty of those, as my wife will tell you), I want to return to Monday’s theme, from a different angle. You are not forgotten.
The world is a big and confusing place, and our current news headlines only serve to reinforce that. It’s all ‘big stuff’ – wars, climate change, AI… It’s all incredibly important, and we need to know about it. But it only serves to reinforce how small we are.
Most of us have laughed over the years at some of the stories you would find in the local press, but I believe the recent dramatic decline of local newspapers has had one very significant negative: for all that we might mock stories about blocked drains, cats up trees and wobbly bus shelters, it reminds us that our world is full of individuals – mostly ordinary people like you and me. People that we might even know. In effect, we were part of the news, we were part of the story.
We might not feel much part of any news story now. But we are still part of God’s story. It is a comfort to know that even King David sometimes felt like a nobody, surrounded by bigger forces and troubles. Psalm 25 is David’s heartfelt response: ‘In you, O lord, I put my trust…. No-one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame.’ (v1, v3)
At the heart of the psalm is a plea for remembrance: ‘According to your love, remember me, for you, O Lord, are good.’ (v7) God remembers because he loves. He remembers David – and he remembers us.
Interestingly David also asks God to forget something – ‘the sins of his youth’ (v7). Or rather, to remember it no more: in other words, God consciously chooses not to remember the bad stuff in our lives, once we ask him to forgive it. Instead, he remembers mercy, the mercy which God has always possessed ‘from of old’ (v6).
I suspect some of us might echo the words of v16-17 as our prayer for today: ‘Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. Relieve the troubles of my heart and free me from my anguish.’ It’s a good prayer. One of the great comforts of our faith is that we can be honest with God. We don’t have to pretend to be happy or untroubled, for fear that God will squish us. The true validation of God’s parenthood in our lives is precisely that we can take our bad stuff to him, asking not just for forgiveness, but also protection (v20) and guidance (v4).
I’ll end as I started: God has not forgotten you. He remembers you, according to his love. Bring him your troubles, pour out your heart, and place your trust in him again. No-one who does that will ever be put to shame.
Thursday 5th November – Isaiah 11:1-10 ‘Not forgotten’
Remember, remember, the 5th of November…. so the old nursery rhyme goes, and one that we learned at school. I imagine you may have done too! Today’s passage is another trip down memory lane: in this case prophetic memory lane. About 250 years previously, God had promised King David – son of Jesse – that one of his descendants would inherit his throne forever. A dozen kings had come and gone, the kingdom had split in two and the northern half was about to be conquered… when would this new King come?
God hadn’t forgotten. And God gives the great prophet Isaiah a new vision which reassures the people that his promise still stands. There would be a new king, descended from David (v1). This king would be filled with God’s Spirit (v2) and would stand for justice and righteousness (vv4-5) – something many of Israel’s kings had conspicuously failed to do. And under this new king, there would be a new reign of peace, and a healing of the created order such that even predators would get cosy with their prey (vv6-8). It would, in short, be glorious, and global (v10).
What a vision! Even so, it took another 700 years for the king to come. God’s timing is not ours. And that can be unsettling, testing even. There are times when we too may feel forgotten by God; maybe something we believe he has promised us hasn’t arrived yet. And that causes us pain, and perhaps doubt as well.
But God never forgets. The branch always bears fruit from the root. And God calls us to step out again, to dare to believe in his faithfulness. As it was said of Aslan in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe: ‘He’s not safe – but he is good!’
Today, take a moment to claim again the promises that God has given you. They might be specific, or, if there isn’t a particular thing, claim some of the great promises in our passage today.
God remembers. And it’s good for us to remember, too. We are what we remember.
Wednesday 4th November – Isaiah 53:4-6 ‘Healed by his wounds’
‘Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.’
John the Baptist’s iconic words addressed to Jesus in the first chapter of John’s gospel are rooted in today’s famous passage. Ever since the time of Exodus, the image of the sacrificial lamb had come to symbolise God’s rescue of his people. Every year, at Passover, all Jewish families would re-enact God’s salvation by the Red Sea, and a dish of lamb would be at the heart of the meal.
But something new was coming. The servant songs of Isaiah, which are studded through the later chapters of the book, promise a new rescue and a new rescuer. This anointed one (Messiah) would carry great authority and integrity, would stand for justice, and would bring salvation, not just to Israel, but to the world. This servant would be ‘raised and lifted up and highly exalted’ (52:13), and earthly kings would ‘shut their mouths because of him’ (52:15).
There’s a sting in the tail, however. Because it’s not the whole story. This same servant would not just be the Lion of Judah – he would also be the Lamb, sacrificed for all. Indeed, he would be ‘led like a lamb to the slaughter’ (v7). Why? Verses 4-6 make it clear. ‘He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.’ All our human selfishness, all our rebellion against God, placed upon his shoulders – so that we might have peace. (v5)
‘No peace without justice’ – so has sung many a liberation movement in recent decades. In today’s passage, we are addressing the ultimate yardstick of justice – our standing before Almighty God. And it is the Lamb who symbolises God’s perfect justice and mercy. God takes the punishment himself, that we might be healed, that we might have peace.
On Sunday, we’ll remember and honour the sacrifice of so many in war, and give thanks for the peace that we now share. But today, let’s remember an even greater sacrifice which won an even deeper peace. And may the good news that, through Jesus’ sacrifice, we have peace with God cause us to give thanks; may it lift our hearts today and fill us with his abiding presence.
Look! The Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world… Lord, we are not worthy to come into your presence – and but only say the word, and we shall be healed. Amen.
Tuesday 3rd November – Isaiah 52:7-10 ‘Beautiful feet’
Recently I watched the Sound of Music for the first time in many years. I’ll always remember my first viewing of the film – after Charles and Di’s wedding in July 1981. We watched the ‘wedding of the century’ then all sat and watched The Sound of Music as a family. Perfect.
And it’s hard to beat the scene at the end of the film, watching the family walking across the mountain-top to freedom. How lovely on the mountains are the feet of those bringing good news. Especially if they can sing close harmony as well.
In the case of the Von Trapp family, the good news was primarily personal – but here in today’s passage, the good news is altogether more universal.
It’s likely that the latter chapters of Isaiah were written in the late 6th century, after Jerusalem had been conquered and destroyed by the Babylonian army – hence the reference to ‘ruins of Jerusalem’ in v9. Good news was in short supply. Where was hope?
Hope was coming. The watchmen would see it and find joy (v8). The ruins themselves would sing (v9). And over the mountains would come feet bringing good news (v7).
600 years later, those feet would announce the good news that the kingdom of God was near. Those feet would travel up the hillside to deliver the Beatitudes, to hear Peter’s confession of the Christ and to meet Moses and Elijah. But a short while later, those same feet would also climb Mount Moriah, carrying a cross lashed across their owner’s back.
God’s good news is sure, and true. But it’s more than ‘the hills are alive’, lovely as that is. It came at a great cost. As we’ll see tomorrow, its beauty lay in sacrifice. Peace was won the hard way.
Nevertheless, it remains good news – more than that, it’s still the best news I ever heard! And although it came after great waiting and at great cost, nothing is more true than the final words of the passage: all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.
We are part of God’s big salvation story. Give thanks for those beautiful feet that brought good news to you.
Monday 2nd November – Revelation 7:13-17 ‘…who from their labours rest’
‘For all the saints, who from their labours rest, who thee by faith before the world confessed, thy name, O Jesus, be forever blessed: Alleluia! Alleluia!’ So begins the famous hymn for All Saints Day, which many of us may have sung in worship yesterday.
But what does that ‘rest’ look like? The second part of this glorious chapter in Revelation gives us the answer. Bear in mind that this vision was given to St John, to encourage believers who were being persecuted heavily for their faith – their lives were being referred to as ‘the great tribulation’ (v14). What did they have to look forward to? Would it all be worth it?
The answer is emphatically: YES! Not only will we be cleansed and made whole (v14), we will shelter in the very presence of God (v15). This God will provide for us as our great Good Shepherd (v17) – and note the extraordinary symbolism of the Lamb becoming the Shepherd! Most remarkably of all, the Lord himself ‘will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’
Grief is something that nearly all of us have to face at some time in our lives. It is said that the price of real love is grief – and, even if that’s a price we pay willingly, it is no less real for that. But grief does not last forever: in heaven, in that place of eternal rest, our tears will be wiped away.
What good news this is for all who worship now with tear-stained faces: we will one day shelter in the presence of God, and ‘there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ (Rev 21:4)
As we begin our week, may this word lift our hearts. And let’s pray, as verse 3 of that famous old hymn puts it: ‘O may thy servants, faithful true and bold, strive for thy kingdom as the saints of old, and win with them the glorious crown of gold: Alleluia! Alleluia!’ Amen.
Saturday 31st October – Revelation 7:9-12 ‘For all the saints…’
I wonder if you’ve ever been part of a really large crowd? I’ve always enjoyed that experience – at least I did before covid. In particular my memories of great sporting occasions live long in the memory: there’s something awe-inspiring about a big crowd, isn’t there? Certainly, the roar of the Olympic Stadium as we cheered on Mo Farah in 2012 was a volume of sound I’ve never experienced – and that was just for his heat, not the final itself. There’s something profoundly moving about the sense of a shared experience, of an occasion which draws together huge numbers of people from all kinds of backgrounds into one committed community.
You see it every Saturday afternoon in the cathedrals of sport all across our country. Men and women (mostly men, admittedly) – many of whom would never dream of setting foot in a church on Sunday – gather to worship, singing their hearts out with arms outstretched in love and adoration, crying out pleading prayers when their teams are losing, studying the scriptures of the matchday programme to read the word of the boss and memorise the team sheet, and sharing a mediocre-quality drink of fellowship afterwards. Hang on, I’m sure that all reminds me of something…..
And that’s the point, isn’t it? These large gatherings at some level go to the heart of what it means to be human. We were made to gather in worship, and if we don’t gather to worship God, we’ll gather to worship something or someone else. Or both, quite possibly.
Tomorrow is All Saints Day, a day when the church celebrates… the Church! We give thanks for the faithful generations who have gone before us, and pray for grace to continue to be faithful in this generation. For many of us now, we’re used to practising that in quite small groups and communities. We don’t usually get that sense of walking into a vast crowd, all here to worship God. Which is one of the reasons why it’s quite healthy occasionally to go to one of those big events, like Greenbelt or Spring Harvest or New Wine or Prom Praise or the Big Church Day Out.
And one day, we will all get to meet God, and each other. That’s quite a mind-blowing thought, and possibly quite unsettling for some of us. I think there’s plenty of room in heaven, even the introverts will love it! But today’s reading gives us a flavour of what our worship will be like. A countless multitude of believers, from all across the world, worshipping God with great joy. This is our future. And in fact even today when we worship in our homes, or in small face-to-face gatherings, we are joining in with this vast multitude in heaven – millions of hearts all united in one global, universal act of worship.
One last reflection for today: let’s remind ourselves that the purpose of the church is not the church! We exist to worship God, especially God in the person of Jesus. It is to God alone that we give praise and glory, wisdom and thanks, honour and power and strength. Ultimately All Saints Day points us back to God, the one who countless believers in dozens of generations have worshipped. May praise and glory be to our God, for ever and ever, Amen.
Friday 30th October – Isaiah 9:2-7 ‘The Prince of Shalom’
I suspect many of us at present find it hard to watch the news – you may, indeed, have given up on it altogether. There seems to be so much violence, so much instability, so many reminders that peace in this world is fragile and hard to maintain, however sophisticated we consider ourselves to be.
How we need today’s passage, which picks up where yesterday’s left off. Isaiah has another great vision of the peace that God will ultimately bring to this fractured world. Admittedly the context is set more in terms of a victory for God’s people: nevertheless it is equally clear that, in this vision of a healed world, there will be no more need for armies or violence – blood-soaked boots and clothes will be burned and done away with forever (v5).
But this vision in ch9 goes a step further than ch2 – there will be a focal point for this new era of peace. A child will be born who carries divine authority, who will usher in and oversee this restoration of all things. And this child will have wonderful names, including perhaps the loveliest of all, certainly the most appropriate for this season: the Prince of Peace. Or, to use the original word, the Prince of Shalom.
Shalom is now translated peace, but its meaning is much broader than our traditional definition. It means completeness or wholeness, the sense of everything being put right, perfected. This kind of shalom is much more than merely the absence of conflict, it is an active state of complete wellbeing. (For a deeper exploration of shalom, watch this great video – four minutes of your life well spent!)
This is the destiny which God intends for his world. And he will achieve it through the son which he gives (v6). Jesus is the Prince of Shalom. No wonder the angels cry out at his birth: ‘on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests!’ (Luke 2:14)
May today’s passage give us renewed faith – even a little mustard seed of it – to pray for our world. Let’s also give thanks that, above and beyond our human leaders, there reigns a greater, divine leader, one whose vision for the world is ultimately to establish complete wellbeing for all people, and whose vision will one day come to pass: Jesus, the Prince of Shalom. And may that divine shalom be ours today – the shalom that transcends all understanding.
Thursday 29th October – Isaiah 2:1-5 ‘Swords into ploughshares’
A few years ago, at the All-Age service for Remembrance at All Saints, I showed the congregation a paper clip, and asked them to come up with as many creative alternative uses for this simple object as possible. We had about 75 young people there, representing the uniformed organisations, and they weren’t short of ideas! Alongside the more obvious ones – replacement zip, for example – we had other more left-field options: fingernail cleaner, cheap nose-ring (don’t try either of those at home), and even strawberry huller i.e. removing the green stalk out of the fruit!
It was a fun exercise and reminded me that I grew up with the joys of ‘The A-team’ on TV, where the stars would be locked in a garage every episode, and somehow fashion a complex mechanical device out of a few bits of wood and a plastic sheet. Those were the days, eh?
But there’s a more serious side to these games as well. Between now and Remembrance Sunday – with a brief pause at the weekend for All Saints’ Day – we’ll be leading up to that significant day by looking, firstly, at five famous passages in the book of Isaiah, all themed around the idea of peace; and in today’s passage we see the most famous biblical ‘alternative use’ of them all. To a small and fragile nation surrounded by hostile forces, and tired of violence, God promises that one day, things will be different. God will restore this fragmented world (v2), and people will seek God in unprecedented ways and in countless numbers (v3).
And the acid test of this new era will be that, across the world, swords will be turned into ploughs (v4). Implements that were used for fighting would now be used to grow food: a sign of healing and prosperity.
Sadly, our world has not reached this era yet, despite the noble intentions of pan-global organisations like the United Nations, where, significantly, a statue of this very image stands outside its headquarters. But this passage promises that such a day is coming. Our God is a God who transforms, who restores, who brings peace for all. Peace with Himself, but also with ourselves, those around us, and ultimately all creation.
And this work of transformation goes on in our lives, too. God calls us to turn our own swords of division into ploughs of peace. If that strikes a chord, take a moment today to pray God’s peace into a particular situation or relationship.
The world is an anxious, even violent, place at present. It has always been thus. But it is not the whole story. And as we seize this great truth by faith, may we too live the final verse today: Come, people of God, let us walk in the light of the Lord.
Autumn 2026: The Book of Joshua
Wednesday 28th October – Joshua 24:1-33 ‘You choose!’
When our children were little, one of their absolute favourite books was called ‘You choose!’ The idea was very simple: each large double-page spread asked a question: ‘what house would you choose to live in?’ or ‘what food would you choose to eat?’ The pages offered dozens of ideas, from fairly sensible to totally crazy, and we would all put our fingers on the ones we liked best. We never tired of imagining what sort of life we would like to lead… if only it was that simple!
Today’s passage is a much more serious version of ‘You choose!’. As the people gather at Shiloh for Joshua’s farewell message, he reminds them of all that the Lord has done for them. It’s a long list, occupying verses 2-13, with the remarkable conclusion that, as a result, ‘I (God) gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build… and olive groves that you did not plant.’ (v13)
This was all the Lord’s doing, and his great desire was to continue to bless them. However, if the people decide to abandon the Lord and follow other gods – the deities of the tribes around them – they will forfeit this blessing, and disaster will surely follow.
So, it comes down to this: you choose! ‘Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve….’
What happens next is brutally honest: the people all agree to serve the Lord, but Joshua has been around far too long to take that at face value, and calls them on it: ‘You are not able to serve the Lord’ – at least not for any length of time! But the people insist: ‘No! We will serve the Lord.’ So Joshua erects a stone to act as a witness to the commitment they have made, and the gathering ends (along with the book).
Was Joshua being cynical? I don’t think so – what he wants is to make them understand the gravity of the situation. It’s easy for us human beings to take God for granted, and the Israelites’ track record was patchy, to say the least. And with the benefit of hindsight, we know how quickly it all unravels – you only have to flick on a page to Judges 2:10-11 to see why Joshua wasn’t optimistic.
But, as we close our reflections on this book, we can’t finish in a better place than Joshua’s own concluding remark – v15: ‘But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.’ In other words, whatever other people do, whatever ups and downs we face, whatever life throws at us – there’s only one good choice to make: as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.
If this book could be distilled into one message, it would be this: choose God! The God who is with us, who contends for us, on whose blessing we rely. So may Joshua’s final prayer be our prayer, too. Why not pray that for yourself today, and also pray for the others reading this: that we all might choose – and keep choosing – the One in whom is life, and life in abundance. Amen.
Tuesday 27th October – Joshua 23:1-16 ‘Careful to obey’
I don’t know about you, but I love the Winter Olympics, and have done ever since I was a child. Although I’m a sports nut generally, I must admit that it’s largely their infrequency – the fact that you only get to watch the luge or Nordic skiing or slopestyle snowboarding every four years – is what makes The Games so great to watch. I don’t watch these sports at any other time.
That said, I haven’t got 15 hours every day to gorge on the live events – unfortunately! So for me, the one-hour highlights package every evening is a must-see. If I can’t watch it at the time, I’ll watch it later that night, or with breakfast the next day. All the drama is distilled into a manageable chunk of time.
In many ways, today’s passage functions exactly like a ‘highlights package’ for Joshua. All of the drama of the last 22 chapters is distilled into the Executive Summary of chapter 23. Joshua is now ‘very old’ (v1) and knows he won’t be around much longer (v14): so, he gathers the nation for one last pep talk, and a re-cap of everything the Lord has done for them.
What he is at pains to stress is that their success is entirely dependent on God. Yes, they have been brave and well-organised; but unless the Lord had ‘fought for them’ (v3) their efforts would have been in vain. And in case they weren’t listening the first time, Joshua repeats it again (v5)… and again (vv9-10)… and again (v13). ‘One of you routs a thousand, because the Lord your God fights for you.’
What does the Lord ask in return? It’s simple: ‘Be very careful to love the Lord your God.’ (v11) What does that look like? In the bible, love is more often a doing word than a feeling word: ‘Be careful to obey all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses.’ (v6) Walk the talk. Show your love by living according to the pattern the Lord has set for you.
As the book draws to a close (just one chapter left after today!), verse 6 really brings us back to where we started. It is almost a direct quotation from God’s own words to Joshua in the very first chapter as he commissioned him to lead God’s people into the Promised Land (1:6). And now Joshua passes it on: as he obeyed, so now the Israelites’ future prosperity rests on their continued obedience.
Although, in Christ, we don’t have to earn God’s favour, it still remains true that grace fuels our obedience. Our grateful response to God’s love is to love God, and others, in return. May we, like Joshua, resolve to hold fast to scripture, and so find strength for all that today, and this season, will hold. And may this thought inspire us too: God is with us. His is the strength beyond our strength – all praise and glory to him!
Monday 26th October – Joshua 22:1-34 ‘Jumping to conclusions’
It’s easy to rush to a judgement. We see something, smell a rat and immediately form a conclusion – usually a negative one. By nature, I’m as guilty of this as anyone: indeed one of my appraisals from a boss of mine in the past said this: ‘My one piece of advice to Matt would be to make decisions more slowly.’ In other words: don’t rush to a judgement, take your time!
I hope that the years have mellowed me – some of you may be nodding or shaking their heads at this point! – but today’s passage is a great example of the risk of jumping to conclusions. Having served the Israelites faithfully in the conquest of the land, Joshua now sends the Eastern tribes home, full of praise for their faithfulness (vv1-4), as well as encouragement to hold fast to God (v5).
As a sign of their commitment, the tribes build an altar to the Lord as they leave – although it must be admitted this was partly due to nervousness that in times to come they would not be considered true members of God’s people (v24). Their fears are proved right when the Western tribes immediately assume that this altar is being devoted to another god – and so, before hearing the Eastern tribes’ reply, they threaten war (v12).
Thankfully, diplomacy is made before shots are fired: the Eastern tribes are given a chance to explain themselves. And they are very clear that, far from backsliding, their motivation is to continue to serve the Lord (v27). The altar will also serve as a powerful reminder that the Promised Land for God’s people extends beyond the Jordan, and includes the two and half tribes – and their descendents – who live there (v25).
Ultimately, all’s well that ends well – peace is restored and God is praised. Nevertheless, the Eastern tribes concluded the matter by giving the altar a name which could not be misinterpreted! (v34)
It’s a good reminder that in our enthusiasm to be faithful, we must be careful to judge cautiously, and wisely. It is better to think the best of people, even whilst not being blind to their faults. If today’s story brings to mind a particular situation or relationship for you, take a moment to reflect, and to pray. God is able to heal, and restore.
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