The B Side

Last week I got it wrong. Palm Sunday is today, April 13^th 2014. Today’s message is raw and unfinished. I’m not sure it should ever leave the Studio, so if it is a bit disjointed then it may have to be polished off with a live performance soon : )

1989 was a momentous year around the world which began darkly. This weekend in fact we remember the Hillsborough Disaster from April 15th that year when 96 fans were killed watching a football match. I was in Cardiff that day a quarter of a century ago and remember the shock of hearing what had happened. 

It was later that year that Communism fell in Eastern Europe - Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia and most famously Eastern Germany when on November 9^th 1989 the Berlin Wall came down.  The Berlin Wall which had stood for 28 years was suddenly swept away by a tsunami wave of freedom.

Berlin Wall Falls November 9th 1989

The Communist Empire was over. The people were free once more! Immediately following the fall of the Berlin Wall the South African government began the process of freeing Nelson Mandela from prison which finally occurred in February 1990. This wave of freedom had started a few years earlier. Because of the Cold War and the ominous stockpile of nuclear weapons there had been tremendous fear in Europe for more than a quarter of a century. Events like the Chernobyl disaster of Saturday, 26 April 1986 proved the threat was real. At the same time there was a hope rising around the world for freedom. Following the Live Aid concert of July 1985 people everywhere realised it was in their hands to rise up together to gain liberty.

The Style Council who were the 2nd act at Live Aid on July 13th 1985 released “Walls Come Tumbling Down” which prophetically spoke about what was coming. The video for the song was recorded in Warsaw, Communist Poland at a small club on April 13th 1985. The album was released a few days later. Paul Weller bellows at the small bemused Polish audience who know nothing of freedom;
 
“Are you going to try and make this work or spend your days down in the dirt? You see things can change, Walls Come Tumbling Down! Governments crack and systems fall ‘cos unity is powerful, lights go out, Walls Come Tumbling Down!”
 
In April 1985 it did not seem possible, four and a half years later it came true!

Paul Weller was of course recalling a story from Joshua about the battle of Jericho. The walls that came tumbling down that day in history were Jericho’s.

But as with any great city to fall so easily, there has to be an insider, a collaborator. Do you know who I am speaking of?

Joshua 2

Rahab and the Spies

1 Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. “Go, look over the land,” he said, “especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there.

² The king of Jericho was told, “Look, some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land.” ³ So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab: “Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land.”

⁴ But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from. ⁵ At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, they left. I don’t know which way they went. Go after them quickly. You may catch up with them.” ⁶ (But she had taken them up to the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax she had laid out on the roof.) ⁷ So the men set out in pursuit of the spies on the road that leads to the fords of the Jordan, and as soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut.

⁸ Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof ⁹ and said to them, “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. ¹⁰ We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. ¹¹ When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.

¹² “Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign ¹³ that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them—and that you will save us from death.”

¹⁴ “Our lives for your lives!” the men assured her. “If you don’t tell what we are doing, we will treat you kindly and faithfully when the Lord gives us the land.”

¹⁵ So she let them down by a rope through the window, for the house she lived in was part of the city wall. ¹⁶ She said to them, “Go to the hills so the pursuers will not find you. Hide yourselves there three days until they return, and then go on your way.”

¹⁷ Now the men had said to her, “This oath you made us swear will not be binding on us ¹⁸ unless, when we enter the land, you have tied this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you have brought your father and mother, your brothers and all your family into your house. ¹⁹ If any of them go outside your house into the street, their blood will be on their own heads; we will not be responsible. As for those who are in the house with you, their blood will be on our head if a hand is laid on them. ²⁰ But if you tell what we are doing, we will be released from the oath you made us swear.”

²¹ “Agreed,” she replied. “Let it be as you say.”

So she sent them away, and they departed. And she tied the scarlet cord in the window.

²² When they left, they went into the hills and stayed there three days, until the pursuers had searched all along the road and returned without finding them. ²³ Then the two men started back. They went down out of the hills, forded the river and came to Joshua son of Nun and told him everything that had happened to them. ²⁴ They said to Joshua, “The Lord has surely given the whole land into our hands; all the people are melting in fear because of us.”

There are some very remarkable things about this story as I’m sure you will have noticed.

Firstly what is a prostitute doing as the heroine in any Bible story? A prostitute lives a life of betrayal. Faithfulness means nothing to them. They have often been betrayed themselves by someone very close to them. 80-90% of prostitutes have been sexually abused or suffered incest as children. The average age of entry into prostitution is only 13, too young for a girl to make the choice herself. It is not difficult to believe someone such as Rahab would betray her city.

However there are some people that Rahab wants to save and they are her family - father and mother, brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters in law, nephews and nieces. Given the statistics we know about a prostitute, that’s remarkable. The chances are very high that it was someone in Rahab’s family who first betrayed her. But her love for them runs very deep.

The second remarkable thing is why Rahab did not expose the spies but showed them kindness instead. It would have been worth a great reward from the king. Maybe enough to leave the life she was living. These spies had come to her brothel to stay the night. They were just like all the other men she had encountered, unworthy of any kindness. How else could she have known they were Israelites, that they were different?

Clearly something made these men stand out to Rahab. Which meant they weren’t particularly good spies were they? The obvious conclusion is that these two clowns were not candidates for MI5. Or were they? Their espionage is so bad it turns out to be brilliant.

Perhaps I am being unfair to the spies. If they had been living in our day they could have googled it. There are some very useful tips on how to be a spy. Better still ask someone who knows ; )

A spy has to be able to blend in, to look ordinary. Where else to be than an inn and brothel where all the people are only there for one thing, inattentive to details around them? It's also very loud so you can have a good conversation in secret without raising any suspicions. Perhaps it was because of what they didn’t do that she knew they were different.

But the most remarkable thing of all is that Rahab is counted as a person saved by her faith joining all the other Bible heroes. From the New Testament in Hebrews 11:31 we can read “By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient”

What did you say? This faithless betrayer who could trust in no one but herself was saved by faith?  Yes, because she believed. You might say that is ridiculous and the Gospel itself is ridiculous for making such a claim.

But belief matters. If Rahab didn’t believe she wouldn’t have hid the spies and covered their tracks. Her brave act of risking her life to save the Lord’s spies was because she believed.

What has this got to do with Palm Sunday? EVERYTHING!!! I told you last week Jesus is the One True King. He is not an imposter or out to deceive you like some spy.

Have a look at the Royal Line of David leading to Jesus in Matthew 1. If you look closely you will get a big surprise to see a name you did not expect. Can your name be added to that list?