CONSECRATE YOURSELVES
Joshua 3, 4 and 5
“Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.”
To consecrate is to set apart for holy purposes. Part of the implication is to separate ourselves from what would be considered “dirty” and at the same time to do the necessary to “cleanse” ourselves. The other part of it is to dedicate, to pledge to serve exclusively.
In the past, consecration ceremonies were held for people entering monkhood (or nunhood) or being ordained as a pastor, or, in the Catholic Church, in becoming a member of the Catholic order. Outside the Christian church, we have Buddhist monks going through purification rituals and perhaps we can consider the muslim act of fasting for a month an act of consecration. Even when entering the mosque for prayers, a muslim would perform cleansing rituals.
The core idea is that we cannot carry on “business as usual” when we approach God and when we carry out divine business.
In the modern church, this notion is largely lost. Even in a worship service, people waltz in and out with no regard and little respect for the object of their worship. In wanting to emphasise the ease in which we access the means of grace—we tell people that prayer is as easy as closing our eyes (or not even), with little regard as to where we are, how we are dressed, what we have been involved in; and that Christ has done everything and so we need not do anything but enjoy the fruit of his sacrifice—we often cheapen God and his concerns.
In doing so, we teach people that the physical—who we are, what we do, what we think, what we feel—does not matter; only the spiritual matters, and we perpetuate the disregard among Christians for the quality of what we bring before God.
However, as we consider the experience of the Israelites as they begin their new life in the Promised Land, we read of the elaborate preparations they underwent before a sword was even drawn.
What would they have done to consecrate themselves? Most likely it is to take part in ceremonial cleansing, perhaps even a special prayer of dedication. The Presence of God was invoked with the Ark of the Covenant and Joshua preached the Word, reminding the Israelites how God would keep his promises.
When the crossing of the Jordan was completed, they were all circumcised, a symbol of their pledge to count themselves as God’s People who enjoy God’s Covenant with them.
The point we should note is that being God’s People and doing God’s work has implications; we cannot expect that in God’s eyes anything goes. This is not to say that God cannot involve himself with us otherwise—God is free to act and decide—as we saw in Rahab’s experience. But if we wish to be a part of the amazing things that God seeks to do then we must choose to become the people he is pleased to share his name with.
“That day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel; and they stood in awe of him all the days of his life, just as they had stood in awe of Moses.”