March Madness

It is that time of year when there are several NCAA basketball games on throughout the month. The first part of the month involves conference tournaments. Conferences like Big XII, Big 10, PAC-10, ACC, SEC, WAC, along with several others compete to see who wins. The winners of each conference have an automatic bid into the top sixty-eight, with a chance to make it to number one.

I don’t watch NCAA basketball that much – football is my sport of preference between the two. However, during this time of year, I will watch and enjoy watching basketball. This month tends to be filled with very exciting games and the occasional upset. Fans are hoping for their teams to continue on and upset when their team fails to play to potential and are defeated. Others play the “fill-out-your-bracket” game and enjoy seeing teams win to get them closer to the monetary prize.

As maddening as all this basketball is during the month of March, there is something else that is madness about a march. This isn’t the month of March; rather I am talking about the concept of marching in order to defeat an enemy.

In the book of Joshua, one of my favorite books of the Bible, the Israelites have reached the Promised Land, Moses has passed away and Joshua is in charge. The city of Jericho is within sight. Joshua now sends men in to spy it out before the Israelites take the city. The city has been spied out and the preparations have been made for the Israelites to overcome the city. The maddening part is the method to overcome the city of Jericho.

God tells Joshua to have the Israelites to march around the city one time for the first six days. At the end of the march they can go back to camp. Then, on the seventh day they are to march around the city seven times.

Are you kidding me? God has every method to defeat someone by His people and He chooses to have His people march! This isn’t a type of marching where people just walk over the people, defeating them. This marching is going around the city walls one time for six days, then going home, and seven times on the seventh day. To quote one of the only lines of The Princess Bride, “Maddening, just maddening.” If this was a basketball game, it would be about as entertaining a battle as watching a team stall and stall. Observers would be “booing” the people because there was not any action happening.

I can just imagine the men who were defending the walls were getting a good laugh seeing the Israelites simply walking around then going back to camp. I wonder if the Israelites even brought much for weapons those days they were simply walking.

After the seventh day comes and the Israelites march around the city of Jericho seven times they blow their trumpets and after the noises come forth the walls start to crumble. All the walls, except Rahab’s, who housed the spies, fell inward and the Israelites defeated Jericho.

God’s method to defeat Jericho was “march madness.” Who could have orchestrated much more of a maddening plan than to have people simply march around a city, followed by blowing a few trumpets? No combat at all.

The next time you see a battle on your hands, the solution to the battle may be something that is maddening. However, God can do amazing things with a maddening method!