Whenever I read the story of Joshua — the marching silently around the city seven times, the blowing of the horns, the shouts, the walls falling down — I can’t help but think of that Eighties rock classic, “The Walls Came Down,” by The Call, a song written by the late Michael Been. Musically, the song enacts the sense of impending destruction, the falling of walls. And while Been may have been taking predictable (and perhaps simplistic) pot shots at the military-industrial complex as the genesis of wars, I suspect there’s more to it than that; it, after all, just a three and one-half minute song.
While written before the Berlin Wall came down, it seems to fit that event so well. More than that, it points to an apt metaphor for divine agency: Jericho’s walls, which excavations indicate may have been as much as four and a half feet in thickness, fell not because of soldiers, horns, or shouts, but because God willed it. Just so, He makes other declarations, knocks down other walls, as Julie Miller once sang, “Walls of fear and walls of doubt/ Walls of pride can’t keep Him out/ He walks through walls/ He walk through walls” (from “He Walks Through Walls, 1991). God is on the move. Nothing can stand in the face of divine agency.
The shout given by the Israelites was one of faith. God had already declared victory. They only gave voice to it. That God gave them victory was pure grace, a fortified city given into their hands. It would be a false reading to say that their shout caused the wall to fall flat. God did not say “I will give” but “I have given.” But perhaps the military analogy puts you off, or the destruction that happened afterward. So, focus here: What is our shout of faith? What is it that God has declared about our lives? Somehow it’s here I am compelled to get it wrong, to think that God is saying “I will give if you (fill in the blank), not “It is finished.
There are many such declarations like that which God made to the Israelites. But one that I hear in my head repeatedly is that of Colossians 5:17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” Not becoming new or new if I do the right things, but “is new.” I have to remind myself of that because the face in the mirror is still the same. I often can’t see the new me, but I have to take it on faith. Maybe shout. Remind myself that I have been transferred from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of light (Col. 1:13). Done.
Maybe that’s what the Israelites were doing: they were preaching to themselves, reminding themselves of what God had said, that He “had given” the land to them. So too has he taken dominion over me.
There’s a another great Michael Been penned song by The Call, entitled “Let the Day Begin.” It’s a reminder of newness, of life that begins again every day: “Here's to you my little loves/ with blessings from above/ Now let the day begin/ Here's to you my little loves with blessings from above/ Let the day begin, let the day begin, let the day start.” So maybe, when you find the stultifying wall of works-righteousness facing you, or some other personal demon, take a walk around it. Circle it six times. Blow the horn. Shout the truth to yourself: I am a new creation. And wait for the sound of walls coming down. Let a new day begin.
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