The Scarlet Rope in the Window

In the city of Jericho there stood a great stone wall, and built right into that wall was a little house, and in that house lived a woman named Rahab. People in the city whispered about her. They did not say her name kindly. She was not the sort of person anyone expected God to notice, and she was sure of it herself.

But God noticed.

Moses was gone, and Joshua now led God's people to the edge of the land. One night, two of his spies came to Rahab's door. Everyone in Jericho was afraid of that marching people. Rahab had heard the stories too: how, long before, their God had dried up a whole sea so they could walk across on dry ground. She had heard, and something in her had started to hope.

So when the king's soldiers came pounding, asking, "Where are those men?" Rahab hid the spies up on her roof, under stalks of flax, and sent the soldiers running the wrong way.

Then she climbed up to the two men in the dark and told them what she believed.

"I know," she whispered. "I know your God is the real God, the God of heaven above and earth below. Please. When you come back, remember me. Remember my family. Keep us safe."

She was asking to belong. The outsider was asking to come in.

And the spies said yes. "Tie a scarlet rope in your window," they told her. "A bright red cord, where we can see it. When we come, everyone inside this house will be safe. Not one of them will be lost."

So Rahab tied the rope. Red as blood, hanging in the window. And she waited.

The day came when the walls of Jericho fell down flat, every stone of them. The whole city shook and crumbled. But one little house stood. One window kept its scarlet rope. And out came Rahab, and her father, and her mother, and her brothers, and her sisters, every single one, safe and gathered and home.

The woman everyone had crossed off was the one God carried out.

And Rahab stayed with God's people. She married, and had a son, and that son had a son, and on and on the line went, down through the years, all the way to a baby born in Bethlehem.

Jesus.

Rahab is in his family. Her name is written there, an outsider with a scarlet rope, tucked right into the family tree of the King.

That is how God's kingdom works. It is upside down from how the world counts. The ones the world skips, God reaches for first. The ones who feel too far gone are the very ones he runs out to bring home.