Transcription of the Video: Wet Feet

Ray Vander Laan: The ancient land of Israel is a testimony and evidence, if you will, of the greatness of what God did in that country - a testimony to the truth of the words that we find in the pages of the Bible. Many ancient civilizations have a sacred river. The Nile, for example, for the Egyptians. The Jordan River never was that for the people of the Bible. It never was something they worshiped or considered sacred. Rather, it was a barrier, something to be crossed in order to move on to what God had placed before them. Both, the children of Israel and Jesus, himself, entered into the Jordan to come out to move on to the task that God had put before them. 

It's a beautiful setting here right along the Jordan River, just after it leaves the Sea of Galilee. Remember, the country of Israel is really made up of different geographical regions, and one of the distinctive geographical regions is that very deep valley that runs along the eastern side of the state of Israel, and that valley we call the Rift Valley. It's that cut in the earth's crust that starts just a bit north of here and runs all the way down in Africa - all the way to Lake Victoria in Southern Africa even. 

In this part of that deep valley below sea level - well below sea level at this point - is the Jordan River. Now, the Jordan River actually starts way north of here at the foot of Mount Hermon, and those springs combine into one stream that runs into the Sea of Galilee. 

There are 25 miles, as the crow flies, from where the river starts to where it runs into the Sea of Galilee. Then, from where it runs out of the Sea of Galilee to where the river ends at the Dead Sea is another 65. So really, you're talking 90 miles of distance from Mount Hermon - not counting the Sea of Galilee - to the Dead Sea. However, in that distance, the Jordan River runs 200 miles. It's called the Jordan because it comes from a Hebrew word that means to descend, to go down. The idea is that it descends from Mount Hermon, which is 9,000 feet above sea level to the Dead Sea, which is almost 1,400 feet below sea level. That makes it one of the faster flowing rivers, just for its size, that exists.

One of the things that makes it a little different-- we ought to recognize that from Bible times-- is the fact that today, the state of Israel, for its water demands, has dammed up the Jordan River where it runs out of the Sea of Galilee. So at this time of the year, the river really isn't flowing much at all because all the water is held in the Sea of Galilee. That was not true in Bible times. The Jordan River is a very significant biblical image. Let's talk about the imagery of it a little bit. It's mentioned 181 times in the Old Testament and 18 times in the New Testament. It's one of the most frequently mentioned geographical features of the whole country. However, it's quite different - it's interesting - in the biblical culture, in the Jewish culture. In some cultures, like Egypt, their river was almost sacred. The Nile was very important. The Ganges in India, such a sacred river to those people.

The Jordan never really was that. The Jordan was more, for them, a barrier, something to cross. And it begins to pick up that imagery, that to cross the Jordan is to get from one place to another across a barrier, something that stands in your way.

I'd like to just talk about a few biblical things that happened at the river. They didn't all happen here, and that's a very important detail to remember. There's a 65-mile distance, 200 miles of river down toward the Dead Sea, and these events happened all along there. But we just came to this spot to think about them and to reflect on the Jordan. 

Somebody might ask, "Is the Jordan River bigger than this?" The answer is, really not. It never gets any wider or any bigger than this. So you're seeing the Jordan River about as big or as wide as it gets. It's not the Hudson or the Mississippi or something like that. So when you think of those images of Elijah crossing the Jordan and Elisha crossing the Jordan and the Israelites crossing the Jordan, this is what you're thinking of. 

There are a couple of stories though that I would like to have you focus on this morning as the basis for our faith lesson. The first one involves the children of Israel. Let's set the stage for that. They had left Egypt. They had gone to Mount Sinai. God had established that Torah covenant with them, and they were now his selected people out of all the people in the earth. And God said, "I'm going to use you to be my witnesses so the world may know that I'm God."

They, then, went to the land. But due to their lack of faith, they complained and God said, "All right. If you don't have the faith, go back out in the desert." So they went out into the desert for 40 years, into the wilderness.

Now, they came back up along the eastern side of the Jordan River and decided to cross right across from Jericho down near the end of the Jordan River at the Dead Sea. So there they stood. I like to think of it this way. Out in front of them was the Promised Land - the place God said, "This is where you are called to be my witness. This is my life that I have arranged for you. This is the land. I'm going to give you each a little piece of that land, and you can use it to show the world what it's like when a group of people live for God with all their hearts. There it is. There, on that side."

Coming out of the desert, there are sheep, there are people - large numbers of people - and they're waiting. In between them is a barrier. The barrier, I think, in that culture represented a couple of things. One, the citizens of Jericho and of Canaan worshiped a fertility god, particularly Baal. What is Baal the god of? Sure enough, water, rain, storm, wind, thunder, lightning, depths of the water. And we read in Joshua chapter 3 that the river was at flood stage at that time. So in a sense, to the Canaanite at least, and the Jericho person like Rahab and her family, that river represented at that moment the fact that they were shielded from the Israelite by their god. "We're protected. He's protecting us."

And the dividing of the Jordan River was a powerful way that God made a declaration that he was stronger - not just than nature. But he was stronger than the gods of the culture. It's interesting. How many miracles during that wilderness period of Israel's existence were water miracles - which had to impress on their hearts that their God was not only a desert God. Their God was not only a God of a limited location and area. But their God was God of everything, and he was bigger than all other gods in the culture. 

I'd like to think as we sit at the Jordan this morning, one of the things we ought to reflect on is each one of us faces that moment where we need to decide whether God is the God of everything or whether there are other things that are outside of his control or outside of his sphere of influence. 

But anyway, there they stood. The Canaanites thought they were protected. The Israelites are thinking, "How are we going to get across?" Then follows that great miracle of dividing the Jordan River. I'd like to read just part of that from Joshua chapter 3. 

It says, "When the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant went ahead of them." So here they come down the bank, down to the edge of the Jordan, and the first group down are the priests carrying the Ark, the place where God's presence was. It says, "Now, the Jordan is at flood stage during the harvest season. Yet, as soon as the priests who carried the Ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water's edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho. The priests who carried the Ark of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan while all Israel passed by, until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground. When the nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said, 'Choose twelve men from among the people - one from each tribe - and tell them to take up 12 stones from the middle of Jordan from right where the priests stood and carry them over with you, and put them down at the place where you stay tonight." 

So they end up with some standing stones, like Tel Gezer, standing there declaring what God had done. But here's the faith lesson. God says to Joshua, "I'll divide the river. It's my power. What stands between you and your calling in life, what stands between you and what I want to do through you, I'll take care of it. But nothing will happen until you put your foot in the water." 

What you need to appreciate is that it was not a matter of they stood like this on a nice slope and touched one foot down in the water. But due to the nature of the way the Jordan River runs there, when you step in, you're in. Once those priests stepped in, they were either going to be in over their heads or the river was going to divide. If I had been one of those priests, I would have been thinking, "God, I'm going to stand right here. You take care of the river. I'll be the first one to the other side." 

If they would have said that, theoretically that whole nation would still be standing there on the bank. But what loosed the power of God was at the moment that they said, "God, to live or to die, we've got to make a commitment." They stepped in over their heads and they were in, and boom. The power of God divides the river. 

God acts, often, when people are willing to make that total commitment. It seems to me that the first step we need to take as followers of those Jewish people in our tradition, is we need to be willing to say, "God, my life is out there ahead of me. You've called me to all kinds of ministry. I don't even know for sure what it is. But instead of standing here until my life is all together and you've divided every barrier and I can just walk into my life," I think what we need to say is, "God, I'm going to make a total commitment to you. I'm going to step in. I'm yours, because I believe when I make the commitment, then God acts."

Honestly, I don't think that until you have given your life to Jesus Christ, God clears the way. I think God clears the way when you have taken that step of faith. In the back, please.

Participant 1: It's becoming more and more clear and obvious to me also that God does not want a half-Baal and a half-God relationship. He wants our all. He wants us totally, and he doesn't want us to stick our foot in the Jordan. He wants us to step in altogether. It's an all or nothing relationship that he wants and he demands.

Participant 2: Maybe I'm being unfair to these priests, but I have this image of the priests coming down and one priest saying to the other priest, "Wasn't I in front yesterday? Isn't it your turn?" It makes me think of how often there are a lot of people who are willing to step out, but they need somebody to take the first step. And a challenge for us is to see in our classroom or in our place of business, wherever we are, maybe God's calling for us to be the first one to take the step and that will give all the other people the courage to follow behind us. But that first step is the hard one, and we need to be willing to do that in faith.

Ray Vander Laan: Amen. God says, "Folks, there's a whole world out there that you have to be witnesses in. You need to confront the power of your culture." But you can't sit and wait until he figures it all out for you. Determine where you think God wants you to go. Determine where your abilities and your interests are, and then go. But it has to be a total life commitment. It has to be a faith commitment.

Jesus comes down to this same river and there's a guy by the name of John the Baptizer, who is baptizing people as a symbol of the fact that they are repenting of their sins and they're being cleansed and committed to walking a new way of life. But Jesus comes down to this river. It says it this way. "Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, 'I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?'"

Jesus replied, "Let it be so now. It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness."

Then John consented. As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment, heaven opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my son, whom I love. With him, I am very pleased."

A couple of thoughts about that. There's an interesting phrase that has been discovered in the Dead Sea scrolls in which the concept of the Spirit of God hovering is discussed - that when the Messiah comes according to these folks who lived in Jesus's time or before, the Spirit of God will hover over the poor and the oppressed and the underprivileged. That has led scholars to think that one of the keys to understanding Jesus' baptism is that concept of the Spirit of God hovering. That apparently was a thought that was common in the Jewish culture of the time. 

They seem to have connected that that Spirit hovering and the concept of water with Genesis 1:2. Genesis 1:2 says creation happened like this. There was water and turmoil and chaos. And hovering over that water is the Spirit. Out of that chaos, the Spirit somehow draws life and creation and a whole new reality we call our world and that all comes out of the chaos drawn by the power of the Spirit of God. What seems to be the case is that's how the early Christians viewed Jesus' baptism. That is, Jesus went down into the water. That's death. That's why Paul says, "You've been buried with Christ in your baptism."

Why would you be buried? Well, the water is this abyss, so with baptism, you go down into the water and then you come back to life. Jesus goes down into the water, but as the Spirit of God hovers over him, out of the water comes a whole new creation, a whole new order, a whole new way of doing things where love would be the law instead of hate, where meekness would be the law instead of selfishness, where honesty and openness would be the law instead of hypocrisy. They understood then - that in the early church - that they were the missionaries of that new order. 

Now, my faith lesson to you is this. That's the new creation that you're the witnesses of. And you have become his ambassadors to that new order, which means Christianity ought to represent to the world a loving, caring, better way of living and of doing things. I think that's what Jesus represented as he came up out of the water. 

Every time you bring into somebody's life new order - love for hurt, mending brokenness, comfort in loneliness, whatever you bring to a broken person, to each other, you're bringing the new order. That's why Jesus could say to his disciples, "John was the greatest prophet. But the least of you will do greater things than John, not because you're more important, but because you get to be an agent of the new order and he never did." He simply introduced it.

You're an agent. And it won't happen until you step in.