Lessons on the Rock
By Dean Collins
About 20 years ago, one of my uncles took me to what felt like the middle of nowhere to an area known as Mulberry Gap in Tennessee, not but a few miles from the Virginia border. My late uncle showed me the house where my father was born. He also showed me where my grandfather’s sawmill was located, as well as where his general store used to sit. Other than the house, there wasn’t much around this very rural area. My grandfather died when my father was maybe 9 or 10 years old. After looking around, I crawled under a section of the house and picked up a couple rocks. I wanted something to hold onto that connected me to the stories of my dad and my grandfather.
If you are ever around small children, you know that, generally, children like rocks. They like to pick them up. They like shiny, interesting shaped rocks, and sometimes I think they just like rocks because they can pick them up and put them in their pockets. And then if you ever teach a child to throw a rock in a lake or river or puddle, you will learn you might end up spending hours gathering and throwing rocks!
In the song that Moses wrote just before he died on Mount Nebo, he referenced a rock several times. Moses called God the Rock:
“The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.”
A repeated message from the Exodus story is that God is the Rock that made their deliverance from the hands of Pharaoh possible. Moses was clear that God isn’t just another rock. Moses also clearly summarized that along the journey through the wilderness, the Israelites were often forgetful. They looked to themselves, to the idols of other nations, and even back to their oppressors as rocks of sorts. But in doing so, they had forgotten the Rock who bore them and brought them all the way through the wilderness.
When you read Deuteronomy 32, you notice that when Moses referred to God he called him the Rock, and when he referred to idols and other man-made gods he called them rocks with lower-case spelling. There is a big difference between God Almighty and the various idols mankind has established throughout the centuries.
When Joshua took charge to lead the Israelites through the Jordan River and into their inheritance, he told each tribe to pick a leader. Those leaders were to pick a rock from the bed of the Jordan, and when they arrived on the other side of the river, they were to build an alter from these twelve stones so that they would remember what God had done for them.
The Israelites were told that there would be a day when their children would want to know what these stones mean. And Moses gave them this instruction:
“When your children ask their fathers in times to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”
When Jesus finished his Sermon on the Mount, he told his listeners that if they listened to his words and obeyed them, they would be like a house that was built upon a rock. Lives that are built upon rock have a sure foundation. Storms come. Winds blow. Yet the house still stands. To build on any other foundation than the rock of Jesus will eventually crumble.
Moses and Joshua had a very similar message to the Hebrews. Their very existence came from God their Rock. He had delivered them and established them in the land he promised them. And if they remained faithful to the Rock, they would experience life. In the grand story of God many centuries later, the Rock of our salvation, Jesus, told his followers and us the same thing. Only lives built on Jesus and his word will make it through the storms of life.
I sometimes look at those two rocks I picked up in East Tennessee. They remind me of my origins on earth. But it is when I turn to the words of Jesus and follow his call to discipleship that I know whose I am. It is Jesus, the Rock of our salvation, who steadies me and leads me to do all that I can to share the joy and good news of the kingdom of God.
Maybe as you travel through this day you might want to find a rock along the way and pick it up as a reminder of who you are in Christ.
Father, thank you for the consistency of your word. Thank you for the teachings of Moses and of Jesus that tell us clearly that you and you alone are our firm foundation. Today we recommit our lives to you. Thank you for the simple images you gave us to remind us of your great love and of the strength that is ours in Christ. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Your Time with God’s Word
Deuteronomy 32:4, 18, 30-31, 37; Joshua 4:1-10, 20-24; Matthew 7:24-27 ESV
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