The Sin of Achan Against a Holy God

Our God is Holy.  Not to be treated lightly, or bought off with bribes.  That was something that struck me as I prepared this story.

We reintroduced Moses as the one who led Israel out of Egypt.  But now he was dead (he sits down), and so we introduced Joshua, whose job it was to bring them into the promised land.  First, everyone had to cross the Jordan river, which was a blue line held about a foot off the ground so everyone had to step over it.  The next obstacle was the city of Jericho.  It was a large city with a high, thick wall.  But Joshua was not afraid.  He organized everyone to march around the city—we pulled one of the couches away from the wall, had a few adults sitting on it while all the kids marched around it.  As they marched, we explained that they circled it once a day, and seven times on the last day.  Then, they stopped and Joshua (actually it was the priests, but too many characters gets too complicated sometimes…) blew a horn, and the walls fell down.  So the Israelites were able to get in and destroy the city (marchers belay the couch-sitters with rubber swords).  Then they burned it all down (sprinkled orange paper scraps over all).

Now, when God had commanded that the city be destroyed, He said everything, and He meant everything.  But this fellow named Achan saw some stuff he really wanted, so he took the prepacked bag that was sitting at the end of the couch, and went and hid it in the storeroom, first using a spatula to “dig up the floor.”

So, the next obstacle the Israelites had to conquer was a relatively small city called Ai.  Joshua’s advisors said, it’s not worth sending everyone to fight against such a small city; just a small company will do.  So just a couple of kids went with Joshua to attack the folks on the couch which was now pushed back against the wall.  But this time the folks on the couch got up and fought back, and the people with Joshua died!  Joshua falls to his knees and cries out to God, “God, why did you abandon us?  Didn’t you promise to fight for us?  If this is what was going to happen, we should never have crossed the Jordan!”  But God, in the person of a haloed angel, pulled him to his feet and said, what are you crying out to me for?  What you need to do is get rid of the sin in the camp and then I will fight for you!

So Joshua calls everyone together and draws a name out of a paper bag: Achan.  He asks Achan what he did to make God so angry.  He confesses he stole some booty from Jericho and that it was hidden under the floor of his tent.  Joshua sends someone to go “dig it up,” and everyone is shown that he took a beautiful mantle, a bag of silver coins, and a gold bar (book wrapped in gold paper).  Joshua commends Achan for confessing his sin, but says that for the good of Israel, he must die.  So everyone stones him with paper wads.  Then several people attack Ai again and this time they are victorious.

For our game, each kid had to rummage around in a bag of shredded newspaper for what was buried there: a piece of cloth, a silver coin, and a square of chocolate of a kind that conveniently comes wrapped in gold paper.  The cloth and coin went back in the bag for the next player, but everyone got to eat their chocolate.

Craft was making a pretty mantle out of some plain gauze hankies by sewing a strip of ribbon along one edge.

I led the Bible study.  As we reviewed the story, I said, so when they were defeated at Ai, Joshua got down on his knees and said,” God, show us where we went wrong!”  Right?  Nope.  “God, you failed us!” was more like it.  So we talked about how we blame God for things that happen that wouldn’t have happened if we’d done things the way he tells us to.  (All too relevant for some of the things that have been going on in some of our families.)  They definitely got the point.  As I said, I had also been struck by how the only way Joshua could make things right was to get rid of the sin.  He couldn’t right things by doing good deeds or making an offering.  He was supposed to right a specific wrong.  Our God is truly Holy.  He loves holiness and righteousness, and is not appeased by substitutes.  Holy and worthy of our worship!