"People, I think, are feeling the rumblings of change."
Pastor Neil Kring from The Revolution spoke yesterday, on the second to last day of 2018. As he has spoken with people in the Thomas Park-Avondale neighborhood this year, he has noticed a trend. People are ready for a change.
It feels to many who grew up here like the "glory days" are long past, when the industrial south side of Muncie was an area of economic prosperity. For decades now, residents here have suffered from poverty, depression, addiction, incarceration, family turmoil.
People are hungry for good tidings in 2019, for new "glory days."
At the same time, people often don't admit just how desperate they are for change and how powerless they are to bring it about. We tend to minimize our plight and envision ourselves victorious in our resolutions in the new year by our own efforts.
Neil likened this to how the Israelites must have felt after crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land. They envisioned themselves victorious in the coming year. They would route the enemy, conquer the land and claim their inheritance as the people of God.
But then:
"At that time the Lord said to Joshua, 'Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again.' So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the Israelites at Gibeath Haaraloth." (Joshua 5:2-3)
That had to throw them for a loop.
As Neil explained, a procedure normally done on infants who forget all about it at an early age has an entirely different effect on a man of military age. One day, these men were full of resolve to conquer the enemies of the Lord - the next, they were debilitated.
God had delivered the Israelites from Egypt, parted the Red Sea, fed them manna from heaven, dried up the Jordan so they could cross, and had done many more miraculous things that demonstrated it was never by their power the Israelites prevailed.
Their victories were God's. The rite of circumcision would be the latest reminder.
So many circumstances in life are debilitating. Poverty, joblessness, homelessness are visible hardships. So are less visible ones, like addiction, family turmoil, depression and anxiety. The last thing we think we need to feel victorious going into a new year is to be circumcised.
Yet, that is exactly what the Lord prescribes. Circumcision for those of us who are Gentiles is "circumcision of the heart" as Paul wrote (Romans 2:29). Just as we head into a new year, ready with full hearts to do battle against the struggles of life, the Lord tells us to stop. He commands us to fashion crude knives of flint. Then, he tells us to cut.
Why? Because he would rather us go forward more debilitated into the land he has promised us than go with no wound to remind us we are powerless without him.
God's people are not powerful. He does not follow us into the struggles of life. Our God has all power. He goes before us, and we follow.
Joshua, the leader of the Israelites, needed to be reminded of this. On the eve of battle with Jericho, he came upon a man with a drawn sword outside the city. Joshua asked him, "Are you for us or for our enemies?"
'“Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?” The commander of the Lord’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.' (Joshua 5:14-15)
Before you make your list of New Year's resolutions for yourself, your family, your community, stop for a moment and consider that God is not on your side. He does not back your resolutions. He does not guarantee the victories you want to see.
Neither does he side with your enemies! God works against the causes of poverty, depression, addiction, sickness and death. He goes before us to do battle. He does it in his way, in his time.
He invites us to follow. But first, he commands us to circumcise ourselves, to carve words like those given by the angel to Joshua outside of Jericho onto our hearts, so we never forget that it is in him alone we have reason to hope for change.
The Lord is on HIS side. The key to a joyful new year - or for all new years to come - is to join him. To make his list of resolutions ours.
To find his resolutions, we need only study his word, pray for his guidance, and perhaps take off our shoes. For the place where we stand is holy.
