The Stone That Heard a Promise

By the time Joshua was an old man, the day they dug Achan's stolen gold out of the dirt was a story the grandfathers told.

The fighting was over, and every family had fields of its own. Joshua called all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, under a great oak tree. (Shechem was the very place where Abraham had built his first altar in this land, under an oak, hundreds of years before.)

First he told them what God had said. "I brought you out of Egypt. I gave you cities you did not build. You eat grapes from vines you did not plant." (That is like moving into a new house and finding supper already on the table.)

Then Joshua looked out over the crowd. "So serve the LORD, and be faithful to him. Throw away the gods your fathers worshiped long ago, across the great river and down in Egypt. Choose today whom you will serve. But as for me and my family, we will serve the LORD."

The people did not even stop to think. "Never!" they shouted. "We would never leave the LORD! He brought us out of slavery. He kept us safe on every road. We will serve him too, because he is our God!"

That sounded like a happy ending. But Joshua shook his head.

"You are not able to serve the LORD," he said. "He is holy. He will not share you with other gods. If you leave him for them, he will turn and bring trouble on you, after all the good he has done."

The crowd stared at him. Then they shouted louder. "No! We WILL serve the LORD!"

"Then you are witnesses against yourselves," said Joshua.

"We are witnesses!"

"Then throw away the foreign gods that are among you," said Joshua, "and turn your hearts to the LORD." Some of those shouting families still had carved gods wrapped up in their tents, and Joshua knew it.

"The LORD our God we will serve," they answered, "and his voice we will obey."

So Joshua made a covenant with them that day. A covenant is a solemn promise that ties people together, and this one tied Israel to God. Joshua wrote the words in the Book of the Law of God. Then he had a large stone hauled over and stood it up under the oak.

"Look at this stone," Joshua said. "It has heard every word the LORD spoke to us. It will be a witness against you, so that you do not lie to your God."
Then everyone went home, and the big grey stone stood under the oak and waited.

The stone remembered every word. But a stone cannot help anyone keep a promise. It cannot pull a hidden idol out of a tent, or turn one heart back to God. Joshua was right. Once he had died, and the old leaders after him, the promises began to slip.

Judges came and went, then kings, then prophets. So God made a promise of his own: "I will give you a new heart, and put my Spirit within you."

Long afterward, a man came who did what no one at Shechem could do. "I always do what pleases my Father," he said. On the night before he died, he lifted a cup at supper. "This cup is the new covenant," he told his friends, "in my blood."

The stone at Shechem could only listen to a promise. Jesus kept every word of it, and he writes his new covenant on hearts instead of stone.