It is a strange little story, but one that is very important.

            The woman lived in a society that didn’t allow women to own property, have real jobs or in any way to be independent of men. What was worse, she was apparently not of the people she lived with, a stranger in a strange land. She didn’t look like them, she had no respect and no honor was given her. We do know that based on her offspring and how they looked, she was very different. She had a family; parents and other relatives, but apparently no children of her own at the time of this story, and no husband. It seems that none of her family was of any importance and it also seems that it fell to her to provide a living for that family. To that end, she sold herself. She was a prostitute. Life would have been desperate for this woman.

            History gives her an odd name. The name literally means ‘Big Red.’ Being that this was at a time before the color red was associated with prostitution, most people assume that the name was descriptive in nature. Like a red headed, light skinned man being referred to as ‘Red.’ Some of this woman’s later descendants are said to have had ruddy skin and red hair, so the assumption is that being called Big Red was because of the way she looked. No one who was naturally born in her city or area would have had fair skin or red hair. So, again, it is thought she was a trophy of some far flung war. But, assumptions are just assumptions. There may be a totally different reason she was called Big Red. But the evidence fits that it was descriptive.

            The common thread that has bound one society to another society, and eon to eon, is war. Mankind is always at war. We say we desire peace, but we are always ready to fight. It would be n amazing thing to know how many people have died in one conflict or the other. To say that one day man will outgrow war is to be ignorant of what makes humanity tick. One day, yes, there will be no more war, but only when the Lord returns. And so it was, that the city Big Red lived in was now besieged. There were no airplanes to bring over bombs, no artillery to blast away the walls of that great city, no tanks or Humvees to charge the massive fortifications. Just an unprepared people not used to war camped outside the great city that stood in their way. The people inside the city barely slowed down their evilness and hatred. The group outside would eventually tire of this and go away.

            Big Red did not want her family to die in an all out war, but she had no love for the people of the great city, either. One man after another came to her, yet she was barely able to eke out a life. Rejected by the society matrons, she was accepted by the husbands of those matrons, but only in the most base of ways. She would have known of the gathering outside the walls, but there was nothing she could do.

          Then one day there was an uproar within the city. Shouts and curses filled the air in neighborhood. Big Read’s rooms were built into the city’s walls, which was a place not to be desired. In time of war, a determined enemy would attempt to scale those walls. If you lived in the wall you were much more likely to die. Being in the wall, she would only have had to open her door to see what was happening.

          It might have been, though, that you didn’t want to know. So, we don’t know if she did look out. What we do know is that suddenly two men appeared at her door. This was not unusual. She was a prostitute, after all. But these men were not after sex. They were after safety. They wanted to escape the authorities of the city and get back to their own people, who were the very people who now camped without the city walls. These men were spies and now they needed to get their information back to their leaders.

          Big Red lived a hard life. She knew what people were like. Turn these men in and there would almost certainly be a lessening of that hard life. Maybe a reward, maybe some honor given to her, surely something that would have improved her lot in life. But, she was moved by these men. Against any good judgment, she decided to help them. Not only did this endanger her, but it also endangered her family. Her price for hiding these two men and then helping them escape was a promise that she and her family would be spared. This was a foolhardy deal for her to make. Almost certainly these people would fail and she and her family would die, but Big Red, for some reason, believed.

          The two spies escaped and got back to their own lines with their information. The walls were breached and the city fell and Big Red and her family were not only spared but accepted fully into this new society. One of those ‘happily ever after’ stories.

          But it doesn’t end there.

          By now, most of you have surmised that this is the story of the conquest of Jericho. Big Red is translated in our English Bible as Rahab or Rachab. We would think that, at best, Rahab is merely a minor heroine. But, she was much more than that. She married a Jewish man named Salmon. One of her descendants, just a few generations later, was King David. A thousand years after that, she had a descendant named Jesus. Her courage not only changed the Jews, but also changed the world.

          She might have, if she had lived to a great age, known the baby David. However, there would have been no way for her to have known Jesus. But, her perception of those two men and the bravery she showed by reaching out to them and risking all make her one of the greats in history.

          The point of this is that we should never sell ourselves short. Maybe we will not rattle the world in this life. But the foundations we lay may be used to one day build something totally incredible. That is not so farfetched, either. It all adds up, it is all connected.

          Wow. 2022 is right here, ready to be lived. What are you going to do for the Lord? Is it really true that all you can do is sit in the pew? I am sure Rahab woke the morning the men showed up convinced that life was just miserable and that was it. I am equally sure she struggled, at least for a bit, deciding whether or not to help them.

          And here is another thought; the spies that had been sent in were most likely the cream of the crop, so to speak. Only the most trusted, the most revered would be chosen for the job. Yet the name of the spies are never mentioned. But the name of the harlot is held dear among the Jews even today.

          A child’s prayer. “There is but one life, it will soon be past. Only what is done for Christ, will last.” Begin doing something, even if it seems small, for Christ.