This week’s Scripture can be read at –
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua%205%3A13-6%3A5%2C%2015-16%2C%2020&version=NRSV

VII.
Let’s take some time to slowly and deliberately go back to the first part of this passage and as best we can enter the scene and even try to visualize it as we stand with Joshua.

Once when Joshua was by Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing before him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you one of us, or one of our adversaries?” He replied, “Neither; but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and he said to him, “What do you command your servant, my lord?” The commander of the army of the Lord said to Joshua, “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so. (Joshua 5:13-15)

VIII.
We find Joshua looking toward Jericho, and I suspect he is trying to figure out what to do to take the city. Does he have a lot of questions in his mind, is he worried about what he will do and what the people he leads will do? Is he more than worried? Is he scared?

Then he is not alone and asks for the identity of the man standing with him.

Once the man identifies himself as the “commander of the army of the Lord,” we see Joshua dropping to the ground, bowing his head and “worshipping.”

All that probably seems very much in order.

Then he asks a question of the “commander” – “What do you command your servant, my lord?”

I wonder if Joshua might have thought the commands he would hear next would be how to take the city – but that was not what he heard!

“Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so. (Joshua 5:15)

IX.
Moses found himself standing on holy ground, now Joshua does. In the Scripture we can find many times God’s servants found themselves in holy places.

But what of you and me?

Has there been a time, a place you so encountered holiness, you had to do something? Maybe you bowed your head, maybe you raised your hands, maybe you prayed, maybe you were so moved that only silence seemed right.

I remember a time when I was at a retreat, sitting on the porch of a cabin while rain was pouring down outside. I had such a vision of how the rain was bringing life to all I saw, I have to call it a holy moment.

Another time my wife and I were standing on a beach and the sound of the waves coming on the beach was so loud it was deafening, the sound seemed to drive everything else from the moment. In that moment, both my wife and I were called to acknowledge the power and holiness of the experience.

X.
Take some time and see if you notice when you have been on holy ground.

Are you open to encountering the Holy in the days ahead?

charles
{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}