A Story to Experience
Most of the time bulletin boards give me an idea of what a place is about, so I like to check them. Recently a bulletin board prompted me to answer a very familiar question: “If you could go back in time, what Bible story would you like to experience?” My answer would not always be the same, depending on the circumstances in which I find myself.
As a child, one of my favorite Bible stories was Joshua’s great victory over the five kings of the Amorites when he asked God to help his army win a battle before attaining a much-deserved night’s rest.
“The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day” (Joshua 10:13b), and God brought victory.
I remember when my sister and I left each day for school at the same time our mother left for work. Just before she prayed a blessing for the day, she made sure we were aware of our after-school chores. We knew very well that the moment our mother got home, the first thing she would do was inspect our job performances.
For a good portion of my childhood, our family did not own a watch or clock. On sunny days, my sister and I used the backyard wall shade line as a time clock for a rough estimate of the time, as our dad had taught us. With a fairly good idea of when mother would be back from work, we procrastinated doing our chores so we could have longer playtimes. In our childish and selfish imaginations, if the sun could just stop as it did that day in Gibeon.
In many ways our growing and maturing should not steal from us some of our childlike thoughts. In fact, childlike faith is essential to our walk in total dependence on God. On the other hand, the immature thoughts of a child are expected to grow from self-centeredness to selflessness. Joshua had the whole nation of God in mind when he asked for more time to end the battle and celebrate the victory the Lord had promised.
In another Bible story, the sun is mentioned as serving its Creator by darkening instead of maintaining its light. The story’s central person also goes by the name Joshua, not the one named by Moses (Numbers 13:16) but the one named by the Lord through an angel (Matthew 1:21). We know him today as Jesus. The battleground of this story was not Gibeon, but Golgotha, which represents the staging area, and not only for one nation but all the nations are to enjoy and celebrate the victory. The purpose of the battle was again liberation with eternal dimensions.
Luke’s Gospel shares the story in chapter 23, saying that as Jesus “breathed his last” on the cross and “the sun stopped shining” to protest the cruel death and its motive, “the curtain of the temple was torn in two,” marking a crucial transition in Jesus’ mission.
From that point forward, minds accustomed to pondering His promises were fired by this one: “Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:11-12).
In the days that followed, their words were well-measured, their hopes laid low, their movements bizarre. How would they reconcile the tomb with the bloom of “greater things?”
Thank God the story does not end there.
Three days after the burial of Christ Jesus, the sun did not shine longer—as at Gibeon—or stop shining—as at Golgotha.
In normal, everyday fashion, the sun’s first rays led some of Jesus’ friends to the tomb to hear, “He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” (Mark 16:6b–7).
While Gibeon would have been a great place to witness the fruit of obedience, courage, and dependence on God, being at Golgotha, “watching from a distance” would have helped me appreciate the enormity of the sins from which He delivered me.
However, my first choice of a Bible story to experience would be the story in the garden on resurrection morning. Praise Him who, in the words of John, “is called Faithful and True . . . the Word of God . . . King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:11–16).
He is risen! Alleluia!
Eugénio Duarte serves as general superintendent in the Church of the Nazarene.
Please note: All facts, figures, and titles were accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of original publication but may have since changed.
