Exodus 13:19

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him: for he had straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you." Exodus 13:19 .

A very simple thing it appears to be to us that Moses took the bones of Joseph with him. The circumstance is full of poetry and moral significance. Do not we all carry with us the bones of the past? This is the very pith of history. If we did not take the past with us the present would be a continual disappointment, a line coming and going without bringing with it any opportunity of service and enlargement of soul. Much depends upon our conscious and intelligent relation to the past We ought to have brought a good deal with us from all the centuries that are gone. If we have come up out of them empty-handed, we have by so much turned the counsel of God to non-effect Every wise heart is carrying up with it memories, vows, oaths, traditions, sacred impressions, and is under the responsibility of trusteeship to the future to be faithful to all the highest claims of the past. Poor is he who has no history behind him. He becomes the victim of every combination of circumstances; the dupe of every tempter that assails his heart with unfamiliar and lying promises. To carry up the past may steady our whole movement and give it dignity in times of fear and depression. However little we may be in ourselves, we are charged as messengers of Heaven to carry on certain work and to connect transient periods of time and so assist in the consolidation of human history. On the other hand we must guard against the worship of ancestry which is founded upon mere superstition. We do not carry the bones of Joseph, we honour his service and redeem our own pledge. What bones all Christians have to carry! Think of all the heroes, witnesses, martyrs, and confessors of the past, and let the humblest Christian pilgrim realise that he has it distinctly in his charge to carry forward such histories and testimonies to the age that is to follow. Whatever Israel carried through the wilderness derived importance from the fact that it was associated with the bones of Joseph. Those bones kept Israel from going back to Egypt. When Israel reeled in its purpose and thought of returning to the land of tyranny the question would arise again and again, What are we to do with the bones which we promised to carry up and to protect by burial in another land? By many curious lines and ties does God bind us down to the fulfilment of our destiny. The record is not all written in plain letters; many an invisible line now and then comes into sight to show us that under all the great letters which the naked eye can see there are writings and meanings which are only disclosed to patient waiting and scrutiny.