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.
What the scriptures tell us about death as Christians is exciting, not a gloomy end to life final thing.
Paul’s description of our bodies being tents is an interesting one, in some respects an accurate analogy of what our bodies are, houses for our spirit, our emotion and intellect. For we are spiritual beings living this physical experience.
From the New Living Translation, Saint Paul says this, 2 Corinthians 5:1
For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands.
So we gain this understand throughout scripture of our lives being eternal, not finishing here but going on into eternity.
If I was to ask what would be the best known of all New Testament verses I think most people would say; ? [John 3:16] For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
So things are looking good our belief in Jesus takes us into eternity. This is exciting stuff.
In John 11:25-26 we get a declaration from Jesus of who he is; “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.’ Do you believe this?” Does anyone remember who her was in this story? It was Martha, the sister of Lazarus, who Jesus was about to call out of the tomb, out of death. This was a prompt for the Pharisees and temple council to plot Jesus own death. But remember that Lazarus who had been dead four days did at Jesus command rise from the dead. Get excited, This sort of thing doesn’t happen every day.
In John 14:1-4 we read these words that Jesus tells his disciples. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”
When Jesus is on the cross there’s a couple of criminals beside Jesus and we hear Jesus tell one of them; “Jesus answered him, 'Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.'" This criminal, we don’t really know why he was being executed. We know that he wasn’t the most polished performer in life’s journey, but we do know that he feared God and knew his punishment was justified. We also know that he had faith in Jesus and asked to be remembered by him when he came into his power as king. We serve a mighty God, the King of kings.
Paul in Romans 6:23, tells us; "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Joshua, Joseph and Eleazer were buried in the Promised Land, into their earthly inheritance, we as Christians will be buried into the soil also for as scripture tells us that is where we came from and that we are heading back there (ref:Genesis 3:17-19). But as Suzanne Paul would say “but wait there’s more.”
We belong to God, we don’t belong to ourselves that is why he calls us to live holy lives, He’s Holy with a capital H and he calls us to holiness; we are his possession. Paul tells us in Romans 14:8 “For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.”
So we are in this place, of entering into the saving grace of Jesus, Jesus who defeated sin and death, The Word of God, The Son of God, The Son of Man, The Light of the World, The Christ, the one who “Before Abraham, was I Am.” Jesus who identifies himself as one with the Father (ref: John 10:30). With our faith in Jesus, we enter eternity. We are eternal beings and have the option of living for Christ or in sin, the wages of which is death. Like Joshua, Joseph and Eleazer in responding like they did too God’s leading we don’t have our hand forced, we are able to choose, faith in Jesus which leads to salvation, yes, he becomes our saviour or not. We then follow his lead in our lives and not our own desires. For there is no other name by which men can be saved. (ref: Acts 4:12)
As believers, We have been saved, we are saved and we will be saved, the scriptures are clear, so for us there is no fear of death. While we may mourn those who have gone before and I can tell you from personal experience grief is a horrible thing, if they are in Christ, if they were believers, it is my understanding that they too will be in his presence, we will see them again. I am at that point in my life where I am now too old to die young and in some kind of freaky, don’t take me yet sense looking forward to the mystery of death being revealed.
If you are not a believer there is an opportunity, all of eternity is spread out before you, with God, or without God, the choice is yours. Our choice is little like Joshua and Eleazer’s enter the inheritance in the Promised Land or not, into their inheritance or not? I’ve never really been a hell fire and damnation type preachers, but the options are laid out before us. With God, or in hell and I believe it will be hell knowing that we are eternally out of God’s presence.
I am to finish with a person story, A relative of mine was going to die some years ago, with some certainty in the next year and I was about to leave for Sri Lanka in the next few weeks. We were in conversation about that, and they were a little uncertain about where they would end up afterwards. I mentioned that they had previously told me they were a Christian. I read them Romans 10:9 and 10 which says; “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” That word justified is a Biggy meaning put right, or just as if I’d never sinned.
These words are clear cut, my relative told me after we had prayed those words that they had never felt the way they did and thought they might even be dying. When we confess Jesus as Lord, things change we are no longer the same. My relative wasn’t dying there and then, The Holy Spirit was engaging with him, and afterwards he knew where he was going and would often say it.
Lets pray, Father as we accept our inheritance, as we enter into your promise of eternal life in Jesus Christ, our Lord knowing that you raised him from the dead, we thank you for our justification and salvation and praise you for making it so, Amen.
