Title: “Joshua, Jericho, and Jesus” Text: Joshua 6

Joshua, Jericho, and Jesus. -It’s a nice alliteration with all of those names beginning with the letter “J.” -But you might wonder why Jesus’ name is in the mix. -Joshua and Jericho are rather famously bound up with one another: “Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho,….and the walls came a tumblin’ down!”

But what does that have to do with Jesus, right?! -He wouldn’t be born until about 1300 years later.

But if you’ve been with us this year, I think you’re beginning to discover that the whole Old Testament points forward to Jesus in all sorts of different ways. -So why not Joshua and the battle of Jericho, right?

So let’s explore this great Old Testament story that every church going child learns at a young age in Sunday School.

1. And the first thing that might interest you to know is that Joshua and Jesus share the exact same name.

It’s not readily apparent in English, but in Hebrew they are both named “Yeshua.” -A Hebrew word that means, ‘the Lord saves.’

“Joshua” is the typical transliteration of “Yeshua” from Hebrew into English, -but because the New Testament was initially written in Greek, -the name in Greek was transliterated as “Jesua,” -and then came into English as Jesus.

But it’s the same name in Hebrew. -So do you remember the Christmas story? -And how the angel of the Lord came to Joseph in a dream and said, “Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, for what .is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give

birth to a son and you are to give him the name “Yeshua.”

-That was the name God Himself chose for His only begotten Son. -And when Joseph and Mary heard the name they were supposed to give this child, -their first thoughts would have been of Joshua from the Old Testament.

It’s like naming your son “George Washington.” -As soon as we hear that name it immediately brings our first President to mind.

Well, that’s what the name Joshua was for the nation of Israel. -He was the great leader who had led their people into the Promised Land and established God’s Kingdom there. -So Mary and Joseph knew right from his conception, that this child was meant to be something like Joshua had been.

-And that what Joshua had done for Israel 1300 years before, -somehow pointed toward what their son was going to do for Israel in their day.

You see, the name alone connects Jesus and Joshua. -And Joshua was indeed a “forerunner” to the Christ. -What we are calling throughout this series “an archetype.” -Because Joshua was the one God called -to lead God’s people into the Promised Land -and to establish there God’s Kingdom on earth.

And doesn’t that mission sound very much like what Jesus came to this earth to do. -He came to establish and restore God’s Kingdom and to lead God’s people into the true land of promise. So that’s the first reason that Jesus belongs in the mix with Joshua.

2. But how about Jericho? What does that name and that place have to do with Jesus?

Well, who is the one person that lived in the City of Jericho in Joshua’s day that we know by name? -Rahab the Prostitute.

And why do we know her by name? -Because Rahab was the one person in Jericho who was so amazed by the reports she had heard about the God of the Hebrews: -how He had freed His people from slavery in Egypt, -and had brought them through the Red Sea, -and had led them through the desert wilderness and protected them from all the enemies who had come against them. -She was so impressed by the God of Israel that she was convinced that when they came to her land, -God would give them victory over her people, too. -So she decided that the Hebrew God was a God worth believing in, and she decided to help the Hebrew people and throw in her lot with them.

So when Joshua sent men ahead to spy out the land of Canaan, -Rahab protected those men and hid them in her house. -She helped them escape and make it back safely to Joshua.

And when the Israelites came against her city, Joshua protected Rahab and her family, -and saved them from the destruction.

And you know what happened then? -Rahab committed herself to the God of Israel, gave up her prostitution, married a nice Jewish man, -and had kids! -And the most amazing part of the story is, one of her direct descendants would end up being King David. -And another of her direct descendants through David would be Jesus.

Rahab of Jericho is Jesus’ great-great-great-great grandmother.

So Jesus does have a unique connection to this City of Jericho: Rahab points forward to Jesus, too!

-And you may have never noticed it before, but in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, -as Jesus is making his way up to Jerusalem where he knows he is going to be crucified, -the last City that he passes through on his way to Jerusalem is Jericho.

It is where he gives sight to the blind man named Bartimaeus, -and where he stops for lunch and brings salvation to the house of Zaccheus, the little tax collector. -It’s in the city of Jericho.

And perhaps you can imagine that as Jesus entered that particular city on his way up to Jerusalem, -his thoughts would have been drawn to remember -Joshua’s famous battle -and his infamous great grandmother.

3. And this leads us now to consider a deeper connection I’d like us to discover today between Joshua, Jericho, and Jesus. It’s an analogy.

It’s the ‘upside down and backwards’ way in which God works with all three. -The upside down and backwards battle plan God orders Joshua to execute in bringing down the walls of Jericho. -And the upside down and backwards people like Rahab that God chooses to draw to himself, and use in powerful ways in the course of redemption history.

Both of these are analogous to the way God brought about our redemption in Jesus, -and to the way God continues to work in our lives right now.

First just think about the battle plan God gave to Joshua for Jericho, -and compare that to the battle plan God gave His own Son Yeshua/Jesus to bring down the wall of sin and hell and death for us.

God ordered Joshua to do something very un-militaristic in the siege of Jericho. -He told Joshua that the battle plan was to have his soldiers walk before and behind the priests -as they walked the ark of the covenant around the walled City of Jericho once each day for 6 days. -The priests would have a some rams horns to blow like trumpets before the ark. -but he soldiers weren’t supposed to do anything.

-They weren’t supposed to talk, or shout, or taunt the enemy. -They weren’t supposed to wave their swords or spears, or threaten the enemy in any way. -They were just supposed to be quiet and escort the priests and the ark of the covenant all around the city; -then go back to their camp and take the rest of the day off.

This was what they were called to do for a whole week. -Can you imagine if Bill Belichek’s game plan for the Patriots tonight was to have them -just walk around the perimeter of the field one time at the beginning of each quarter? -And at the end of the last quarter they would walk around four times and then shout!

Does that seem like any way to play a football game? -Well, for soldiers trained for battle this was not any way to besiege a city either. -It would have felt humiliating for the soldiers. -And the enemy soldiers of Jericho would have all been lined up along the top of the wall of Jericho, -and they would have been shouting insults at the Israelites the whole time. -They would have been calling them weaklings, and boasting of their great wall and how impregnable it was.

And they would have laughed at the soldiers following their priests around with their dumb little rams horn trumpets. -The Israelite soldiers would have felt weak and wimpy.

But that was God’s crazy battle plan.

-And on the 7th day God said, “Now do the same thing, but today march around the city 7 times. -Not just once like the other days, but 7 times. -And on the 7th time, when you hear the signal of the long trumpet blast, yell. -Yell really loud. Shout your heads off.”

So that is what they did. -And unbelievably to all of them, when they shouted, the walls of Jericho crumbled. -The enemy soldiers on the wall came down in the rubble. -And the Israelite soldiers marched right into the city through the gaps in the wall, and took the city. -Just like that.

An amazing victory, based on God’s strength, not human strength. -God did not rely for one minute on the strength and military prowess of the Israelite soldiers.

And then, the one person in Jericho whom God honored and welcomed into his famiiy was Rahab the prostitute. -The least likely person you would have thought would be responsive to God’s invitation.

Now think about Jesus 1300 years later, -walking through the City of Jericho on his way up to Jerusalem where God’s plan for him is to die on a cross.

That’s the battle plan God has laid out for Him in order to be a Savior for His people. -What might it have meant to our Yeshua, Jesus, to remember the first Yeshua, Joshua?

I mean, Jesus had a huge wall ahead of him to overcome, too. -A wall of separation between God and humanity. -A wall of sin and death he had been sent to conquer.

And His Father’s battle plan was just as upside down and backwards as the battle plan for Jericho had been.

-Jesus was called to conquer death by submitting to death himself. -He was called to overcome sin by taking all of the sin of the world onto himself. -He was called to overcome the wall of separation between God and humanity by allowing himself to be separated and forsaken by God.

Instead of taking on the powers of evil and darkness through strength and power and might, -Jesus was called to lay himself down in weakness and let the enemy have their way with him.

And they arrested him, tried him, whipped him, beat him, spat upon him, cursed him, and hung him on a cross. -And he died in weakness and in shame.

His followers couldn’t believe this could happen to the one they thought was their Messiah. -But God’s battle plan was upside down and backwards. -And yet in the end it was just as powerful and effective as the Battle of Jericho had been. -In the resurrection, the walls of sin and hell and death did come tumbling down. -God’s strength was made perfect in human weakness.

And the people who respond to this upside down and backwards God, are still people like Rahab. -Or blind Baritmaeus and Zaccheus in Jericho. -Or you and me!

The Apostle Paul says God chooses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and chooses the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” -He chooses the Rahabs, and the Paul McPheeters, and a whole array of unlikely people whom he taps on the shoulder and says, “Come, follow me.”

It’s the upside down and backwards way God always works. -To the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, Jesus said, “How foolish you are, and slow of heart to believe all that

the prophets have spoken. Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?”

Jesus isn’t calling them fools, but is reminding those disciples, “This is just how God works!” -He always works in ways that seem foolish to us! -So why are we always so shocked and surprised?

It’s somehow through suffering and human weakness that we discover God’s grace is sufficient for us. -It’s somehow when we are weak, that God shows himself strong.

It’s the story of the Battle of Jericho. It’s the story of the cross of Jesus. It’s really the story of the whole Bible.

In our earlier reading the Apostle Paul wrote of his own life, “So I have learned to boast in my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

I confess, I am not quite there yet. -But it’s texts like Joshua and the Battle of Jericho, and people like Rahab, -and the cross and resurrection, that at least are pointing me in the right direction.

The gospel is about trusting in God’s strength, not my own.

Let’s pray.