Rivers to cross

https://odb.org/2026/04/24/rivers-to-cross

Joshua 3:9–11, 13–17 (NIV): 9 Joshua said to the Israelites, “Come here and listen to the words of the LORD your God. 10 This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites. 11 See, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you. 13 And as soon as the priests who carry the ark of the LORD—the Lord of all the earth—set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap.” 14 So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them. 15 Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, 16 the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah (that is, the Dead Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho. 17 The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD stopped in the middle of the Jordan and stood on dry ground, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground.

When Chris McCandless wandered off the grid and into the Alaskan wilderness, he expected to return. But he crossed the Teklanika in April, well before summer ice-melt would swell that river into an impassable torrent. Months later, out of food, McCandless couldn’t get back. His tragic death is memorialized in book and film.

The people of ancient Israel faced a crucial river crossing in order to enter the promised land. However, “the Jordan [was] at flood stage” (Joshua 3:15), a challenge that would grow their faith. God told Joshua, “Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses” (v. 7). (Tim Gustafson, Our Daily Bread 24th April 2026)

If you have been to the Jordan River, accessible from either the Jordanian or the Israeli side, you will know that people do conduct baptisms there today as a symbolic act to remember Jesus’s baptism by John the Baptist. In fact, in our trip to Israel in 2013, our local pastor conducted a baptism service for one of our members.

Of more significance, however, is that the River Jordan is mostly calm and shallow. In fact some parts of it dries out during the drier seasons. But during the harvest season of March to April in spring, the river floods its banks. If you remember your Geography, flooding of riverbanks is a natural phenomenon that helps rivers unload the sediments they carry downstream and is a key element to making its surroundings fertile. For example, the Chao Phraya has a major flood every decade or so and runs through central Bangkok on its way to the Gulf of Thailand (about 40 kms away from Bangkok). You could say that the major floods of the Chao Phraya over the centuries have made Bangkok the city it is today, similar to how the volcanic ash made Java such fertile ground.

In the book of Joshua, when the Israelites were about to cross the Jordan River into the Promised Land of Canaan, the river was flooding its banks. Now instead of waiting for the Jordan to normalise (and it is common during ancient times to wait for nature to take its course), the LORD God chose to bring them across when it was flooding, when it was at its peak and the most dangerous. See Joshua 3, verse 15.

The LORD God that we serve, our heavenly Father, has a knack for the dramatic! To do the most difficult thing at the most difficult time to show to both the Israelites and the surrounding nations that He is indeed the God that created the heavens and earth! He parted the flooding river for the children of Israel to cross on dry land when the priests carried the Ark of the Covenant into the water!

With the excellent example shown by God in Joshua 3 and Moses having parted the Red Sea (the sea is more momentous!), or the soaking of the offering with buckets of water before Elijah calling down fire from heaven to consume it, we must stay encouraged that the deeper and tougher our situation, the more likely will the LORD act and intervene on our behalf. We cannot determine how and when, but rest assured that He will! Jesus loves us and is compassionate as we can see in the Gospels. He is at the right hand of the Father interceding for us. We will see the light at the end of the tunnel! Commit our situation to him and trust Him! The rivers we need to cross in life may be flooding its banks, but our God will bring us through them safely and victoriously! Amen!