We are living breathing STANDING STONES like those big bone-colored boulders that would become memorials or monuments of what God has done. In 1Peter: 2 God calls all those who believe in Jesus Now here is an amazing thing, God uses this same imagery for us today! This oral retelling kept the history of the people and God alive in their memories. “What happened here?” And God’s work would be remembered and He would be praised! So that when the ancients would pass a STANDING STONE they would ask. STANDING STONES were used by God many times throughout the Old Testament as a memorial of God’s blessing and greatness. I can picture the children touching the stones in wonder, sealing the story into their memory so they would someday tell their children! I can just imagine all the conversations between generations of Jewish fathers and their children as they told the story of how God brought the nation Israel across the Jordan river on dry land. God used the ordinary things around the ancients to keep them ever mindful of the wonderful things He had done for them. They pointed to something important!!! It was a way for the people to remember something special. Sort of like the Washington Monument or a statue in a town square. They said, “Hey, something great has happened here”! “LET THIS BE A SIGN AMONG YOU, SO THAT WHEN YOUR CHILDREN ASK LATER, SAYING, ‘WHAT DO THESE STONES MEAN TO YOU?’ THEN YOU SHALL SAY TO THEM, ‘BECAUSE THE WATERS OF THE JORDAN WERE CUT OFF BEFORE THE THE ARK OF THE COVENANT OF THE LORD WHEN IT CROSSED THE JORDAN, THE WATERS OF THE JORDAN WERE CUT OFF.’ SO THESE STONES SHALL BECOME A MEMORIAL TO THE SONS OF ISRAEL FOREVER.” Joshua 4:6-7 These stones, or as I would say, big boulders are called STANDING STONES. “IT CAME ABOUT THAT WHEN THE NATION HAD FINISHED CROSSING THE JORDAN, THAT THE LORD SPOKE TO JOSHUA, SAYING, TAKE FOR YOURSELVES TWELVE MEN FROM THE PEOPLE, ONE FROM EACH TRIBE, AND COMMAND THEM, SAYING, TAKE UP FOR YOURSELVES TWELVE STONES FROM HERE OUT OF THE MIDDLE OF THE JORDAN, FROM THE PLACE WHERE THE PRIESTS’ FEET ARE STANDING FIRM, AND CARRY THEM OVER WITH YOU, AND LAY THEM DOWN IN THE LODGING PLACE WHERE YOU WILL LODGE TONIGHT.” Joshua 4:2-3 “AND IT SHALL COME ABOUT WHEN THE SOLES OF THE FEET OF THE PRIESTS WHO CARRY THE ARK OF THE LORD, THE LORD OF ALL THE EARTH, SHALL REST IN THE WATERS OF THE JORDAN, THE WATERS OF THE JORDAN SHALL BE CUT OFF, AND THE WATERS WHICH ARE FLOWING DOWN FROM ABOVE SHALL STAND IN ONE HEAP.” Joshua 3:13Īll the nation Israel passed over the dry river bed of the Jordan river into the land that God had given them. When the priests, who carried the Ark Of The Covenant hoisted up on long poles, put their feet into the river Jordan they stood on dry land! He instructed Joshua to have the priests take the Ark Of The Covenant and go before all the people crossing the Jordan river first, on foot! When God freed the nation Israel from the bondage of slavery to Egypt and the Israelites finally were about to enter the land God had given them as an eternal possession, God had them enter the promised land across the Jordan river from its east side. Because there are lots and lots of rocks in Israel, He even used the rocks. He would often communicate with the ancients by using what was around them. One of the amazing things I have learned about my God from this trip to Israel is that He is a Great Communicator. Israel is a country of rocks and boulders.
So there are mountains and hills and valleys and rocks and boulders. Israel sits on the riff of two tectonic plates in the area where the African and Asian plates heave and butt against each other making the land push in upon itself like an accordion.
They are all bleached by the hot summer sun. Lots and lots of mountains and hills and valleys and boulders and rocks. It is not, for the most part, a flat country. In Israel, one is either going up or down. Ancient and impressive and monochromatic. Standing at Abraham’s well in Beersheba (Be’er Sheva) overlooking a vast expanse of buff-colored landscape with the thin rope of the King’s Highway winding through it could almost take your breath away.
Because I studied in Israel one summer I will always think of it as the color of a bone, a dried bone. It is so different than the bucolic farmland where I live. When I think of Israel the color of the land comes to mind.
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