In the darkness, Joshua was overcome with alternating emotions of elation, sorrow, euphoria, and dread, while chaotic and confusing images stormed in his mind. He could make sense neither of his intense feelings nor of the images, and was afraid he was losing his sanity. Joshua felt a pressing need to seek a place where he could sort through his confusion, and found himself walking through the night deeper into the lonely desert.
Joshua found a scrawny bush that provided a little shelter, and he lay down under it. The day had been long and tiring. Joshua was exhausted, and was asleep within minutes, but even in his sleep, he still experienced the chaos of thoughts and feelings. Out of that chaos emerged a more defined figure. It was a little boy. Joshua could discern the little boy was withdrawn, but saw that he was approaching a group of other children.
“C-c-can I p-p-play with you?” asked the boy. The other children pointed at the boy and howled with laughter at his stuttering. The little boy ran away. Joshua felt what the little boy felt – humiliation, loneliness, and fear.
The picture swirled and the little boy was replaced by a man. He was a farmer. He had worked twenty hard years to provide adequate food and a nice home for his family. He stood upon a hill and with deep satisfaction surveyed the home and farm he had built. Far away, a cloud of dust arose and came nearer and nearer until a host of horseman burst into view. The fields were trampled, the animals slaughtered and the home set ablaze. Within an hour all was lost.
A little girl visited her favorite aunt and uncle. Long after everyone was asleep, her uncle came to her and woke her. ‘Uncle what are you doing?’ asked the little girl, but her uncle covered her mouth with his rough hand. The little girl struggled and cried, but no one heard her.
Joshua awoke in a sweat. He lay on his back looking up at the dark sky. Tears filled his eyes like wells and they overflowed to run down each side of his face. He slept no more for the rest of the night.
When the sun appeared, Joshua searched for a better shelter. After a time, he found a small cave to protect him from the sun, and (wonder of wonders!) there was a depression in the floor of the cave about three inches across and filled with water about two inches deep. Joshua smelled the water, and it did not appear foul. He put his lips to the surface and sipped. It tasted like good water. He sipped again, and then drank it all. The water from the depression completely satisfied his thirst, but it was all gone. There was none left.
All day long Joshua sat in the hot cave, prayed to God, and considered his mission as Messiah. The voice of God stated at his baptism, ‘You are my beloved son,’ which confirmed that Joshua was indeed the Messiah because the assertion alluded to God’s words to David regarding the Messiah:
He said to me, ‘You are my son; today I have become your father. Ask of me and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will rule them with and iron scepter; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.’
His responsibility as Messiah was immense; his task enormous. Joshua remembered the words of Solomon:
Lord, you chose David to be king over Israel, and swore to him about his descendants forever, that his kingdom should not fail. But because of our sins, a Roman rose up against us – a man alien to our race. He laid waste to our land, so that no one inhabited it; he massacred young and old and children. As the enemy was a stranger and his heart was alien to God, he did in Jerusalem all the things that gentiles do for their gods in their cities, and the children of the covenant adopted these practices. Those who loved the assemblies of the devout fled from them as sparrows fled from their nest. They were scattered over the whole earth by the lawless ones. For there was no one among them who practiced righteousness or justice.
Observe, Lord, and raise up for them their king, the son of David, to rule over your servant Israel. Fortify him with the strength to destroy the unrighteous rulers, to purge Jerusalem from gentiles who trample her to destruction, to drive out the sinners from the inheritance, to smash the arrogance of sinners like a potter’s jar, to shatter all their substance with an iron rod, to destroy the unlawful nations with the word of his mouth.
He will gather a holy people whom he will lead in righteousness; and he will judge the tribes of God’s holy people. And he will have gentile nations serving him under his yoke, and he will purge Jerusalem and make it holy as it was even from the beginning. And he will be a righteous king over them, taught by God. There will be no unrighteousness among them in his days, for all shall be holy, and their king shall be the Lord Messiah. He will not rely on horse and rider and bow, nor will he collect gold and silver for war. Neither will he build up hope in a multitude for a day of war.
Blessed are those born in those days to see the good fortune of Israel.
How was Joshua to accomplish all this? Would God provide him a clear plan, or would God simply lead him moment by moment. What of the armies? Some said that Messiah would need no armies; others said that he would lead the armies of righteousness to victory over the Romans. If he were to lead armies, he would need righteous and able generals. Where would he find such men? How would he approach them?
As the sun sank into the west, Joshua prepared to sleep. As he lay down he noticed the depression in the floor of the cave had refilled with water. He got up to investigate it. He could not tell from where the water came. There did not seem to be any hole in the floor for it to seep up like a spring. He looked for a possible drip, but neither detected any falling drops nor found any place from which a drip would come, and he had heard no dripping throughout the day.
Joshua drank the water and lay down to sleep. In his sleep, Joshua experienced a shooting pain. He saw a man a man in agony; he felt the agony. There was a wooden frame, and men were driving stakes through the man’s flesh and into the wooden frame. The man cried out in anguish. The men lifted the frame from the ground and as the man’s body came into view, Joshua could make out his face. It was he! It was Joshua, himself! Joshua on the wooden frame cried out again in pain, and Joshua in the cave awoke.
So now he knew how it would be. God had spoken at Joshua’s baptism. He had identified Joshua as Messiah by calling him, ‘My beloved son,’ but he had identified him further by adding, ‘In whom I am pleased.” The second allusion was to a statement mentioned by the prophet – the servant who would suffer much. Somehow Joshua’s mission as Messiah would involve him in great personal suffering and death. Joshua slept no more that night.
When the sun appeared, Joshua checked the water depression and again it was full. He drank the water and all that day he prayed and thought about suffering. The prophet Isaiah described the servant who was to suffer:
Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I am pleased; I will put my spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth.
Joshua considered the difference in tone between the words of Isaiah and those of Solomon. They reflected Joshua’s own mixed responses to unrighteousness and injustice. On the one hand, he wanted to punish evil and utterly destroy it with a harsh and heavy judgement, but on the other hand he was compassionate toward those trapped in sin, and wished to protect them and nurture them in righteousness. He identified within himself both the wrath of Solomon’s Messiah and the mildness of Isaiah’s servant.
The prophet described the servant further:
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of as all.
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth he was led like a lamb to the slaughter. He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken.
Joshua shuddered with foreboding. He was unsure what it meant to be the messiah, and he was certainly unsure what it meant to be the servant who suffered. One day followed another and each day Joshua drank water, prayed and tried to understand the work God had given him and how he would accomplish it.
On the twelfth day, as Joshua was drinking his water, he noticed a scrap lying in the back corner of the cave that he had not noticed before. He went back into the dark corner and picked the scrap out of the dust. It was a small piece of parchment. Evidently, someone else had used this cave and had left the parchment behind. Joshua took it to the front of the cave where there was light. He read a few words and immediately recognized the passage from the books of Moses. It was concerning the children of Israel in the desert. He read the short manuscript fragment all the way through, then he read it again. He read it a third time. After that Joshua read the parchment several times a day.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
Truly, as some teachers said, this was the foundation of the entire law of God. Every ethical precept depended on this principle, ‘Love God,’ along with the companion principle, ‘Love your neighbor.’ Joshua’s duty was to love God and to bring all Israel to love God. As Joshua contemplated the love of God and of his fellow man, the image of the face of Miriam of Bethany suddenly permeated his mind. He smiled and was happy at the memory of his special love. He had been so focused on the things of God that he had not thought of Miriam in days. However, his joy turned immediately to bitter sadness, because as soon as he thought of Miriam, Joshua realized that he could not marry her. His work so great and so dangerous that there would be no place for a wife, nor would it be fair to ask a wife to undertake such a burden. He would have to do his work alone; marriage was out of the question. A bit of the suffering became real.
“Be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Fear the Lord your God, serve him only.”
When God came to Israel in Egypt, they were nothing but slaves. They had nothing, and they were nothing. But God delivered Israel from slavery and led them into the desert in order to prepare them for a land of their own. Once settled in their own land, they did forget God and their worship was corrupted. Joshua must restore true worship of God.
“We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Before our eyes the Lord sent miraculous signs and wonders – great and terrible – upon Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household.”
Egypt once mastered Israel. Now, Israel was again subjugated by a foreign power. Joshua must deal with Rome which held Israel in bondage as surely as Egypt had done many generations ago. How was he to do it? With Egypt, God had used signs and wonders. Perhaps, that was the approach. Miraculous power would both demonstrate God’s superiority over Rome and gather the people of Israel to the cause of the messianic kingdom.
But as Joshua continued he read, ‘Do not test the Lord your God as you did at Massah.’ The story of Massah was not in the parchment, but he remembered it. Israel was camped in the desert at Rephidim. There was no water there, and the people were thirsty and complained against Moses accusing him of murdering them all with thirst. Moses answered, ‘Why do you put the Lord to the test?’ God provided water from the rocks, and Moses called the place Massah because the people tested the Lord by questioning, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’
Israel faces the same problem today, thought Joshua. People question, ‘Is the Lord really among us or not?’ and they show they do not believe he is because they do not trust him. Joshua realized that even after witnessing the great miracles God performed against Egypt, his people did not trust him once they were in the desert. Though God performed marvelous wonders in Egypt to secure Israel’s release from slavery, they did not trust him to provide for them in the desert. They whined, complained and accused at the first difficulty. Joshua concluded that signs and wonders were not effective devices for leading people. They do not ensure trust and loyalty.
“Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey.”
Trust and obedience were the two behaviors the children of God should express. As the son of God in the desert, Israel repeatedly failed at both trust and obedience. Joshua was now the son of God in the desert, and he would not fail.
On the thirty-seventh day, Joshua’s hunger returned. He awoke very hungry. His reading from the parchment did not help take his mind off his pain.
‘For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land – a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread would not be scarce and you will lack nothing.’
His mind fixed on the figs. How he would love to have a fig! Just one! He could taste it as though it were already in his mouth.
The town filled with figs was not so far away, but Joshua put the figs out of his mind. God had brought Joshua to the desert, and had supplied him with water. Until God led him from the desert or supplied food to him, Joshua would continue to obey him in the desert and trust him for his needs. He would not fail God in the desert as had the children of Israel.
On the thirty-eighth day, Joshua awoke hungrier still. He went to the water depression in the floor of the cave and it was empty. In the evening, the depression was still dry. No food; no water. Joshua refused to complain. God had led him into the desert as he had led Israel. He would not lead him into the desert and desert him. Israel had distrusted God and complained. Joshua would not complain.
Hungry and thirsty he read from the parchment,
‘For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land – a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and the hills’
Pools and springs seemed imaginary. He would settle for a soaked rag.
The next day there was still no water in the cave. Joshua was dehydrated, and the heat of the desert affected him physically. Through bleary eyes he read,
‘The Lord your God led you in the desert these forty years to test you in order to know whether or not you would obey him. He caused you to hunger and then fed you with manna to teach you that man does not live on bread alone.’
Perhaps there was water and manna beyond the cave, thought Joshua. He struggled to bring himself to his feet and stumbled out of the cave into the fading light. He fell to the ground and crawled through the dust in the darkness until he passed out.
“Food!” said a voice near Joshua’s ear. Joshua became aware of the voice as he gradually approached consciousness, but he did not open his eyes.
“Food! Food!” repeated the voice invitingly. Joshua opened his tired eyes into slits to see a dark blurry object sitting near him. Joshua was bone weary. He could feel the dust formed into a crust all over his skin. His hunger and thirst had intensified. His body in pain cried out for nourishment.
“Where?” Joshua whispered coarsely through his parched lips. His whisper was so slight as to be almost inaudible.
“What do you say?” asked the voice.
“Where is the food?”
The dark, blurry object moved. It was a man. He looked to his left and then to his right. He swept his arm almost full circle about his body. “Food is all around you,” he said.
Joshua gathered enough strength to lift himself somewhat off the rocky ground. He looked around, but there was no food. He looked back to the man who crouched on the ground. He wore a black hooded robe, and Joshua could hardly see his face. “What do you mean about the food?” Joshua asked.
“There is plenty for you to eat,” said the man. “It is all around you.”
“Where?”
“Here, and there,” replied the man pointing randomly. “Do you not feel your power? From God’s elements you can create your own food.”
Joshua was weary and his thoughts were not sharp. “I do not understand.”
“Just feel your strength,” said the dark man. “Can you not transform these rocks into loaves of hot, moist bread?”
Even though he was extremely dry, Joshua could feel his mouth become damp from the thought of warm bread. He imagined himself holding it in his hands, breaking it apart, and putting it in his mouth. He could feel the bread touch his lips, his tongue, and the roof of his mouth. He began to chew, but his mouth was empty. He touched his lips with his fingers and found only dust.
“You can have it, you know. Just say the word, and the loaves are yours for the eating. You belly will be full.”
Joshua knew he could do such a thing. It seemed easy. He would just pick up a stone, and by his simple will it would become bread. His stomach ached.
“I am the Son of God,” he croaked. “I will trust God, and not demean his gift of power.”
“Is God’s gift to you of any account if you starve in this place? Can you establish your kingdom if your bones are bleaching in these sands?”
“It is not right. I will not do it,” said Joshua. He looked more closely at the man, and he seemed familiar. A memory unsuccessfully tried to burst into Joshua’s consciousness. “I know you,” he said to the man.
“You do not know me,” he replied. “But you will. My name is Benjamin. We will accomplish great things together. God has sent me to help you develop a strategy for establishing your kingdom.”
Joshua struggled with the face and the memories. “I remember you,” he said.
Benjamin had kept tabs on Joshua from time to time since he was a babe in Miriam’s womb. Perhaps Joshua had noticed him on occasion. “You may remember me, but you do not know who I am!”
Joshua’s face contorted in pain and confusion.
“Do you wish to do great things?” asked Benjamin.
Joshua replied hoarsely through his dry throat, “I wish to obey God.”
Benjamin said, “God has sent you to establish your kingdom among men, and what better way to win men’s loyalty than to feed them. Feed them and they will follow. If you are the son of God, turn these stones to bread!”
Joshua tried to recall what he had been reading about bread. What was it? ‘A land where bread will not be scarce, where bread will not be scarce – not be scarce.’
Joshua interrupted Benjamin, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord!”
“Alright,” accepted Benjamin. “But in order to win a following, you must do something to get people’s attention. I am trying to help you here. That is why God sent me.”
Suddenly, Joshua was standing on the edge of a tall wall, and he lost his balance. He threw himself backward to avoid toppling off the great height. His body, already weak, trembled from the near accident. He looked down the mountain below him. People were working and walking and going about their business. He looked below the wall behind him. It was the temple court. He was on the corner of the temple wall high above the Kidron Valley. Benjamin stood on the wall beside him, with his black robes flapping gently in the breeze. No one took notice of them on the wall.
“So you say you will trust God – that is good! A demonstration will provide a quick start to your work for God,” said Benjamin. “If you are the son of God, throw yourself off the wall and allow God to set you safely down. You know the scripture says he will protect you. You can trust him!”
The advice was appealing. It would be comforting to toss his tired body over the side and have God set it gently down on the grass below. People would rush to him, recognize him as Messiah and within minutes they would storm the Roman fortress of Antonia at the opposite corner of the temple, and after that success they would drive the Romans from Israel completely.
“For what purpose?” asked Joshua. “This is testing God by asking, ‘Is God really among us?’ It is written, ‘Do not test God!’”
“It is a sign,” replied Benjamin. “What harm can there be in bringing people’s attention to the truth? Without signs, you will take forever to reach people.”
Joshua had a moment of clarity regarding his memory of Benjamin. “You are Ashta,” he said.
Benjamin was shocked. “What do you know of the name, ‘Ashta’?” he asked.
“I knew you from the beginning,” said Joshua. “From the time you were created.” But then his memory began to fade, and he was not sure what it meant.
Benjamin was unprepared for such a surprise. Joshua might be more significant than he had anticipated. What was the lying creator-god trying to do? Benjamin decided that to subvert God’s plan, he must become bolder.
“Joshua, you are a good man and worthy to control the destiny of all the world. Do not limit yourself to this small strip of humanity. Egypt and all its glories can be yours to control -- Babylon, Greece, Rome, and all the nations to the north, east, south and west. You can lead them all in peace and righteousness, and you can begin now.
I will give all these nations to you. My kingdoms and all their wealth and glory will become yours; my governments with their power will become yours; my armies will become yours. We will work together to bring about the perfect society of peace and righteousness. All I ask is that you accept them from my hand.”
Joshua saw all the nations and their wealth, power, and glory.
Joshua was weary, and the thought of the great effort required in establishing the kingdom sapped him further. How easy it would be to receive the kingdom pre-packaged with no effort at all! Joshua paused before replying, “It is written, ‘Worship God alone.’ I can acknowledge no authority other than God.”
“Then you are on your own, you fool,” said Benjamin angrily. Suddenly Joshua was again lying alone in the hot desert. He felt the glaring sun beating on his tired and starving body. He knew he was about to faint and would probably die. He closed his eyes.
A hand touched his face. A small stream of water flowed against his lips. Joshua instinctively sucked at the water.
“Not too much,” said the voice, but it was not Benjamin’s voice; it was someone else. Belfaire put his arms under Joshua’s head to lift it up.
“Drink,” he said. “But not too quickly.” He poured water over Joshua’s head and face, and rubbed away the grime with a wet fleece.
Joshua looked up to see his benefactor – a tall man with golden hair wearing a bright white garment. Tears glinted in Belfaire’s eyes. He lifted Joshua to his feet and helped him across the hot sand to a rock shelter. “Here is food for you,” he said. Joshua saw that this time there really was food. Honey from the desert. He ate only until his hunger dimmed. Then he slept.
He awoke refreshed, but still hungry. Joshua ate more of the honey and began his trip back to Jericho. As he walked, he noticed the stones that might have become bread, and he knew he could have done it had he wished.
