Them Bones, Them Bones, Them Old Bones And What They Mean To Us. Series

Them bones, them bones, them old bones and what they mean to us. Joshua 24:28-33.

Last week I addressed promises that God had made to the people of Israel when they entered the promised land a land that they had been given some 400 years earlier in a covenant that God had made with Abram, who became Abraham. The people entered into the Promised land as a group of tribes under the leadership of Joshua, the writer of this book. Well, most of it you will see soon that he couldn’t have written the last chapter as he was ……? Dead.

But when we look at God’s promises being fulfilled in The Promised Land, we see that Joshua 24 ends with the story of three burials. Just as a head’s up there is going to be a few references in this sermon to death and dying, however as Christians it’s not all bad as Jesus defeated sin and death and we live in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life. I’m hoping that as I do this almost wind up of the book of Joshua you leave a little encouraged by what you hear as I link the conclusion of the three burials to one in the New Testament and your eternal journey. For as Christians, well as humans there’s a fairly decent certainty that it is coming up at some stage, you will be transformed in the twinkling of an eye (1 Corinthians 15:52). However, death in our knowledge of Christ as Lord is nothing to be feared.

So, we have read Joshua 24:28-33.

In verses 28-31 we have the story of Joshua’s days concluded, I think nice and succinctly. In verse 28, Joshua with God’s leading had given the people their inheritance and the nod to go and get it. In verse 29, we get a reminder of who he is, “The servant of the Lord,” and that he was Mr Nun’s son and that he had reached 110 years of age then died. In verse 30, we read that he was buried in the land of his inheritance up in the hills.

Nice and succinct, what a summary, what a landing, He was done his bit for his people, they had what was required. He was “the servant of the LORD.” Frankly no higher accolade could be given, what a eulogy. Then he was buried where he belonged, nice. Burial one is done!

In verse 32, It’s Josephs turn. In Genesis 33:19 we get a description of Jacob, AKA Israel buying some land, “For a hundred pieces of silver, he bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, the plot of ground where he pitched his tent. There he set up an altar and called it El Elohe Israel.” Meaning of El Elohe Israel is “The Mighty God of Israel.” This was a personal declaration of a man called Israel, that became a declaration for the nation of Israel. So, Jospeh’s Dad had brought the land, and it was his inheritance. Remember Joseph had been 2IC in Egypt when he died and had been embalmed and his body travelled with the nation to his burial place. Why? Because he had made his bothers promise that he would be buried there: Genesis 50:25-26; “And Joseph made the Israelites swear an oath and said, ‘God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up from this place.’ So, Joseph died at the age of a hundred and ten. And after they embalmed him, he was placed in a coffin in Egypt.” I guess looking at the state of embalming in Egypt if you wanted a long-term mummification, you would be hard pressed to find better, even today it’s difficult to find a decent museum without an Egyptian Mummy. Having been 2IC of the whole nation of Egypt, Jospeh would have received a top outcome. So, verse 32 lands Joseph’s burial and the land he was buried in, and it “became the inheritance of Joseph’s descendants.” A small note here is that Joshua and Joseph were both the same age when they died, 110. Burial two is done!

Verse 33 is fairly straight forward Eleazer son of Aaron dies and is buried in his allotted land. Eleazer is the nephew of Moses. He is buried in land allotted to his son, Phineas up in the hills. Burial three is done! All three men are buried in the Promised Land, a real home coming.

The fourth burial we Christians celebrate at Easter. Jesus suffers one of the worst kinds of deaths imaginable is buried, entombed in a stone tomb behind a huge stone wheel, a guard is posted outside to ensure that no one steals his body and at the dawn of the first day of the week, there is a violent earthquake an angel of the LORD comes down from heaven rolls the stone away and sits on it, the guards are so afraid they shake and become like dead men. If you want to follow this Matthew 28: 2-10. Long story short the angel tells the ladies who were present; Mary Magdeline and the other Mary are told not to be afraid, the angel tells them that he knows who they are looking for that Jesus is risen, he’s not there he is risen from the dead and off to Galilee and there they will see him.