Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” So the place has been called Gilgal to this day. – Joshua 5:9

Today’s Scripture Reading (November 26, 2015): Joshua 5

Jenny McCarthy recently blasted Charlie Sheen on her radio show for waiting for four years to reveal that he had tested HIV positive. McCarthy, who played one of Charlie Sheen’s love interests on Two and a Half Men, admits that she is a little hyper about Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD’s) and makes anyone she is in a relationship with sign a waiver that specifies that they are clean before the relationship can continue. And in a world where actors regularly have to disclose any diseases and medications they might be taking to each other on the projects that they work together, McCarthy argues that the fact that Sheen had tested HIV positive might have been a pertinent fact to release to fellow actors.

But, as far as Jenny and Charlie is concerned, I am not sure about the time line. If Charlie found out that he was HIV positive in 2011, 2011 was also the year that he imploded and left Two and a Half Men – in other words, he may not have known when he was acting with Jenny that he was HIV positive (and neither Jenny nor I know how Charlie handled his interactions with actors after his diagnosis.)

But I also feel for Charlie Sheen. He is right when he says that those three letters have a profound effect on your life. And if you doubt that, all you need to do is to read the headlines since the Sheen revelation – headlines that question whether Sheen is capable of headlining his own new half-hour comedy project, which would be an incredible fourth major comedy project of his career after Spin City, Two and a Half Men, and Anger Management. Sheen is about to feel the reproach of the industry focussed on him as he moves forward in his new HIV focussed world. 

It is an almost a strange line to read as we consider Israel’s entrance into the Canaan that it was on this day that God had removed “the reproach of Egypt.” And to be honest, scholars have argued over the wording of this phrase since the book was written. But the most obvious solution to the words is that God is saying that Israel has carried with them their slavery throughout the whole time of their desert wanderings. But now that their wanderings are over, the reproach of their slavery has been finally removed.

For Israel that was the story of the entire generation of men and women who died and were buried in the desert. They could never really remove the reproach of slavery from their identity of who they were. They continued to see themselves as slaves. But for this new generation, the reproach could be removed and they could begin to see themselves as a nation and a holy people devoted to God.

It is the dream that God has placed on all of our lives. The idea that we can be separated from the reproach that our past has brought on us. Our future is bound up in the one who has said “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). In Christ, the reproach of the past is gone, and all that is left is the future we have in him.

Today’s Scripture Reading: Joshua 6