These are the words Moses spoke to all Israel in the wilderness east of the Jordan—that is, in the Arabah—opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth and Dizahab. (It takes eleven days to go from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea by the Mount Seir road.) In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses proclaimed to the Israelites all that the Lord had commanded him concerning them. This was after he had defeated Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon, and at Edrei had defeated Og king of Bashan, who reigned in Ashtaroth. East of the Jordan in the territory of Moab, Moses began to expound this law… (Deuteronomy 1:1-5)
Today we begin a new chapter in our wanderings, heading back to the wilderness. We’ll be running through the book of Deuteronomy in anticipation of the season of Lent, which will focus on the Jewish festivals. We think Deuteronomy will be a fitting companion to our worship.
More than that though, there is perhaps no book in the Old Testament that has more direct connections with the rest of the Old Testament or what will come later in the New Testament than this book. It is important background to the whole of the Christian faith that follows. Jesus, Paul, and the other New Testament writers and actors all rooted their faith and many of their words and actions right here in this book.
So, what is the book of Deuteronomy all about? Firstly, this book is located squarely in the “Arabah” of “Moab,” East of the Jordan and just outside the promised land. The final verse of the book of Numbers gives a more familiar term for this place: “the plains of Moab.”
What is this place? It’s the borderlands: the place in between the wilderness and the promised land, the place in between the past and the future, between death and life, between wandering and homecoming. The people have been “born” out of bondage by their crossing through the waters of the Red Sea, but they have not yet been “born again” through the waters of the Jordan into the land of God’s promise. Jesus’ own teaching very much took place in the same “borderlands” between past and future, between Old Testament and New, between Law and Grace, that is: between being “born” and being “born again.” This is why Jesus chastises Nicodemus in John 3 for not understanding the time and place that had come upon him: “You are Israel’s teacher… and do you not understand these things?”
In our own lives, we continue to find ourselves in the borderlands. We live between Jesus’ first and second coming. We’ve received all the promises of the Kingdom of God and even parts of it’s reality through forgiveness and the outpouring of the Spirit, but we’ve not yet stepped foot into the New Heavens and the New Earth where everything we know is set right and made well. More specifically, we face all sorts of in-between time realities. Culture is shifting under our feet and the post-pandemic world is still taking shape: we do not yet know what our future will be like.
Secondly: the title of the book of Deuteronomy in Hebrew is “These are the words.” These are the words spoken into this borderland time between past and future. These are words that recall the past and give the reasons for living hopefully and purposefully into a future given, shaped, and commanded by God. These are the words of promise, of warning, of encouragement, of covenant, of law.
As relevant as these words were for the Israelites back then, they remain so for us in the church today reminding us that our journey with God is more than just what we face in the borderlands of the present moment: our journey is anchored in a God-saturated past and lived in hope for an abundantly good and fruitful God-guaranteed future.
These are therefore, the words that will guide us into the season of Lent, even as they guided Jesus and his disciples along their journey with him to the cross, empty tomb, ascension, and outpouring of the Spirit.