Joshua 3:3-4
So it was, after three days, that the officers went through the camp; and they commanded the people, saying, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests, the Levites, bearing it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure. Do not come near it, that you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way before.”
Dear Heavenly Father,
We have not passed this way before. We in the Anglican Communion stand at a border, not a geographical border, but a border that is both spiritual and natural, institutional and personal, in time and beyond time. We have not passed this way before.
Father, order our understanding.
There is a space between us and Jesus of Nazareth of about 2000 years. We wish to know the way by which we must go.
Father, order our footsteps.
Jesus was the prophetic fulfillment of the ark of the covenant, the vessel of the presence of God. In Him dwelt the fullness of the Godhead.
Father, order our wills to shoulder the yoke of Jesus.
The tablets of stone–Jesus came to fulfill the Law. It is easier for heaven and earth, and for the Anglican Communion, to disappear, than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.
Father, order our hearts to receive Your law.
The bowl of manna–Jesus is the Bread of God, come down from heaven to give life to the world.
Father, order our hearts to receive Your love.
The flowering almond branch–Like first life in the spring, Jesus is the firstborn of the dead. He is the mediator of the new covenant, entering the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood.
Father, order our prayers to agree with the intercession of Jesus Christ.
We have not passed this way before, but we trust that as surely as the sun rises, You will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth. Amen.
Joshua 3:14, Colossians 2:9, Matthew 5:17, 11:29, Luke 16:17, Jeremiah 1:11, John 6:33, Hebrews 9:11-15, Hosea 6:1-3
