Moses and his assistant Joshua went up to the holy mountain of God, where the Lord spoke to Moses and inscribed His word on two tablets of stone. Then, Moses and Joshua descended the mountain with the tablets, which were likely quite heavy.
How did they share the load?
Did Moses carry one tablet and Joshua the other? Did they take turns? Or did Moses hold the sacred stones the entire way as Joshua carried whatever meager supplies they needed for forty-something days on a mountain?
These details do not explicitly exist in Scripture, which perhaps implicitly shows us that with mentors and mentees, trainers and pupils, teachers and students – or simply two people working together in the trenches in service to a mission – the emphasis is purpose and responsibility.
Of course, role definition is important; strategy and tactics must be understood and diligently executed, but often the details of physical labor clarify with alignment and acceptance of the shared spiritual burden.
In leading people out of bondage and into the promised land, Moses and Joshua participated in a geographical feat, yet the real work was the transformation of hearts and minds, the navigation of an existential shift from disempowerment to trusting in the power of our one true God.
What is the textbook for restoring dignity to a people who for centuries experienced nothing but social disillusionment and political indignities? Well, Moses helped transcribe it. And Moses taught faith by believing in the God whose name he barely understood. He taught obedience by obeying.
What if the point of Joshua’s assistantship was to witness how God worked through Moses, how God supplied the strategy and tactics, and how God explained the labor?
Therefore, the essence of the load was taking care of the people. And that was a feat in itself.
Atop the mountain, God abruptly told Moses to go down because the people had become corrupt and made themselves an idol in the shape of a calf. “Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and I may destroy them,” the Lord said to Moses.1
Moses came quickly to their defense: “Lord, why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? … Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people.”2
Alone with God, Moses relentlessly protected and defended the salvation of his people’s souls, seeking God’s grace to give them another chance to turn back. When facing the people, Moses ruthlessly rebuked idol worship and godless behavior.
Thus the leadership lesson, as Moses and Joshua managed peaks and valleys, was not about how heavy the stones were or who carried the tablets. Rather, the lesson was about the weight of what they carried, as Christ Jesus would later clarify.
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”3
So, whether Moses said it firmly with words or gently with the light of his spirit, what he conveyed to Joshua on their way to and from the mountain, is that when the Lord tells you to be strong, God also means to have the strength to love.
Because you can’t lead the people unless you love the people.
And loving people means serving them by offering what they really want and need – a chance to be heard.
Hear their fearful voices, acknowledge the sorrow that shrinks their souls, and transmit love and light into their hearts. Stand in your peace and reveal to them the radiance of Almighty God. Let them see that our God, the only true Living God, is here, there, everywhere, within and without, totally real and thoroughly unknowable. May they realize that Love is not fashioned into a symbol but is a catching force that consumes, that radically comes close, forgives, and stays.
