Rahab’s Surprising Deliverance

Scripture: Joshua 2

Sermon: Rahab’s Surprising Deliverance

Topics: Advent, Rahab, prostitute

Preached: December 09, 2018

Rev. Mike Abma

Advent Series on Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba

2Then Joshua son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim (She-team) as spies, saying, ‘Go, view the land, especially Jericho.’

So they went, and entered the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab, and spent the night there.

 ²The king of Jericho was told, ‘Some Israelites have come here tonight to search out the land.’ 

³Then the king of Jericho sent orders to Rahab, ‘Bring out the men who have come to you, who entered your house, for they have come only to search out the whole land.’ 

⁴But the woman took the two men and hid them. Then she said, ‘True, the men came to me, but I did not know where they came from. ⁵And when it was time to close the gate at dark, the men went out. Where the men went I do not know. Pursue them quickly, for you can overtake them.’ 

⁶She had, however, brought them up to the roof and hidden them with the stalks of flax that she had laid out on the roof. ⁷So the men pursued them on the way to the Jordan as far as the fords. As soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut.

8 Before they went to sleep, she came up to them on the roof ⁹and said to the men: ‘I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that dread of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt in fear before you. ¹⁰For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites that were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. ¹¹As soon as we heard it, our hearts failed, and there was no courage left in any of us because of you. The Lord your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below. ¹²Now then, since I have dealt kindly with you, swear to me by the Lord that you in turn will deal kindly with my family. Give me a sign of good faith¹³that you will spare my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.’ 

¹⁴The men said to her, ‘Our life for yours! If you do not tell this business of ours, then we will deal kindly and faithfully with you when the Lord gives us the land.’

15 Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the outer side of the city wall and she resided within the wall itself. ¹⁶She said to them, ‘Go towards the hill country, so that the pursuers may not come upon you. Hide yourselves there for three days, until the pursuers have returned; then afterwards you may go on your way.’ ¹⁷The men said to her, ‘We will be released from this oath that you have made us swear to you ¹⁸if we invade the land and you do not tie this crimson cord in the window through which you let us down, and you do not gather into your house your father and mother, your brothers, and all your family. ¹⁹If any of you go out of the doors of your house into the street, they shall be responsible for their own death, and we shall be innocent; but if a hand is laid upon any who are with you in the house, we shall bear the responsibility for their death. ²⁰But if you tell this business of ours, then we shall be released from this oath that you made us swear to you.’ ²¹She said, ‘According to your words, so be it.’ She sent them away and they departed. Then she tied the crimson cord in the window.

22 They departed and went into the hill country and stayed there for three days, until the pursuers returned. The pursuers had searched all along the way and found nothing. ²³Then the two men came down again from the hill country. They crossed over, came to Joshua son of Nun, and told him all that had happened to them. ²⁴They said to Joshua, ‘Truly the Lord has given all the land into our hands; moreover, all the inhabitants of the land melt in fear before us.’

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION

Let me begin with a question.

Say we could transport Rahab through time and space

so that she was living with us here and now.

And say your brother, or your son, or your grandson, or your nephew,

say some young man in your family

brings Rahab home for the Christmas holidays to introduce to the

family.

And say this young man in your family introduces Rahab by saying,

“Hey everyone, this is Rahab.

She was a prostitute but now she’s my new girlfriend.”

How would you feel?

Of course, on the outside we would be polite.

But I imagine on the inside we would be a bit aghast.

I imagine we would look for a time to get our brother, or son, or grandson,

alone so that we could look him in the eye

and ask with deep concern:

“Are you sure you know what you are doing?

Does it have to be her?

There are so many good women out there.”

I imagine, if we could get Matthew, the writer of the Gospel of Matthew,

in a quiet corner, we might want to ask him something similar.

“Matthew, in writing this genealogy, are you sure you know what you

are doing? Are you sure you want to include those women —

women like Rahab, the prostitute?

There are so many good women in Jesus’ genealogy – why not

include them?”

“Rahab, the prostitute.”

The Biblical text in Joshua 2 and Joshua 6 uses that phrase for Rahab repeatedly. No wonder that is almost the only thing we see – that Rahab was a prostitute.

But let’s look at this text, and the characters in this text, a bit more closely.

JOSHUA

Let’s start with Joshua.

In chapter 1, God has given Joshua the green light:

proceed,

cross the Jordan River,

possess the land.

God tells him to be strong and courageous.

But Joshua does not cross right away.

He first secretly sends 2 spies into Canaan.

Unlike in the book of Numbers,

when God is the one telling Moses that spies should be sent,

the spies in this chapter seem to be Joshua’s idea.

Joshua sends them secretly.

He sends them from a place called Shittim – pronounced She-team (thankfully).

Why include this detail?

Well, again, there is something a little ominous here.

In Numbers 25, Shittim was the place the Israelite men went wild for Moabite women. It was a bad scene. It almost ruined Israel.

So there is something alarming,

when these spies seem to go directly from Shittim,

and into the house of Rahab, the prostitute.

Any alert reader would hold their breath and pray, “Oh no, not this again.”

So the whole plan to sends spies seems almost doomed from the start.

SPIES

Now let’s take a minute to look at these spies.

There are only 2 of them, and yet we do not learn their names.

In Numbers 13 there are 12 spies, and we not only know their names, but the names of their fathers and their tribes.

These spies are anonymous.

Maybe that is for a reason, because, to put it mildly,

they are not very good at their job.

Their job is supposed to check out the land and the city of Jericho.

And yet, not a word is given about them checking out the land.

And as for Jericho,

well, the only place they seem to check out is Rahab’s brothel,

and even that they do poorly

because the King of Jericho knows what they are up to the minute they arrive.

What we are told is that they “spend the night at Rahab’s.”

Clearly, this wording has a double entendre.

It has two levels of meaning.

In “spending the night” at Rahab’s

these two spies seem to want to be like James Bond.

But in terms of their actual ability to spy,

these two seem closer to Maxwell Smart or Inspector Clouseau.

It is pretty clear that things could have been very, very bad for them.

JERICHO POLICE

Now to a 3^rd set of characters – the Jericho police.

If the Israelite spies are a bit bumbling, like Maxwell Smart,

the Jericho police are a bit like the Keystone Kops.

They do no real searching.

They do no real investigating.

They simply and gullibly listen to instructions,

and end up running here and there

on a wild goose chase.

RAHAB

When it comes right down to it, Rahab is the only one that looks pretty good in this chapter.

She outshines them all.

She knows where to hide the spies.

She knows what to say to the Jericho police.

She knows how to get the spies out of the city undetected,

even after the city gates have been closed.

She knows how long the spies need to lay low

before it is safe for them to return to camp.

But perhaps the most striking and most surprising thing

is that she knows the God of Israel,

She knows this God is the God of heaven above and earth below.

She knows that this God will be delivering her city

and her country into the hands of the Israelites.

She knows what even Joshua and the spies do not know.

And Rahab knows that everyone in her city,

everyone in her land

was melting with fear.

They had heard of Israel’s miraculous escape out of Egypt.

They had heard of Israel’s miraculous military victories thus far.

Rahab knows that any courage Jericho may have had,

has drained away.

When the spies – Maxwell Smart and Inspector Clouseau —

finally make it back to the Israelite camp,

the only usable “intel” they had

was what Rahab had given them.

Rahab had, seemingly single-handedly,

saved what could have been a disastrous spy mission.

WHO SAVES WHOM

You know the end of the story.

When Israel crossed the Jordan,

they marched around Jericho.

The city fell,

and Israel was true to their promise .

Rahab and her whole extended family —

all the people that could cram into her home —

were spared.

They became part of Israel,

so much a part that Rahab becomes a mother of Israel,

the mother of Boaz.

Rahab’s deliverance is described with echoes of the Passover.

Just as Israelite families crammed into their homes –

homes with door frames adorned with

the red blood of the Passover lamb,

as the heavenly army passed by —

so too, Rahab and her family, crammed into her home,

a home adorned with a scarlet cord,

as the Israelite army passed by.

So who delivered whom?

Is this more a story of Rahab delivering the family of Israel,

or is this more a story of Israel delivering the family of Rahab?

RASKOLNIKOV and SONIA

Perhaps the most famous prostitute in literature may be the character Sonia in Dostoyevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment.

Raskolnikov is a man, a poor and desperate man,

who kills a woman, two women actually, for money.

After he kills them, he is haunted by guilt and grief.

He meets a young woman,

a prostitute named Sonia.

There is something about Sonia that draws Raskolnikov to her.

He feels he can help her, save her.

The more he is drawn to Sonia,

the more compelled he feels to confess his sin,

to confess his murder,

to her.

But he is afraid – afraid that she will be repulsed by him.

So he delays, until he can delay no longer.

He finally confesses what he has done,

and waits for Sonia to turn away, walk away, run away from him.

But Sonia begins to weep.

She weeps and asks, “What have you done?

What have you done to yourself?

Surprisingly, she embraces him and says,

“You must be the most miserable person in the world.”

He asks, “So you will not leave me?”

Sonia: “No, never. I will follow you.

I will follow you wherever you go.”

And she does.

She follows him all the way to a prison in Siberia.

The novel asks the same question we asked of Rahab:

Who saves whom?

Does Raskolnikov save Sonia

or does Sonia save Raskolnikov?

Who saves whom?

CONCLUSION

The answer to that question in both Sonia’s case and Rahab’s case

is in the one character I have not explicitly mentioned.

That character is God.

God hovers in the background of Rahab’s story,

and of Israel’s story.

In a very real sense,

God uses Rahab to save Israel,

even as God later uses Israel to save Rahab.

But in using Rahab, the prostitute,

to save Israel,

we see once again,

God’s tendency to use

the weak of the world to shame the strong;

the foolish of the world to shame the wise;

the despised of the world to shame the respectable

so that if any of us are tempted to boast at all,

we can only boast in the Lord.

And so,

there sits Rahab, the prostitute,

in that genealogy —

a genealogy that will end with one last woman: Mary.

Mary,

a young woman

who finds herself bearing the shame

of an unwed teenage pregnancy.

But isn’t this so like God

to take this seemingly

weak

feeble

foolish

despised and pregnant young girl,

to begin to turn the world,

the whole world, upside down.

Amen