Men and weird bonding experiences

So they cross the river and scare the living daylights out of every king in Canaan (Josh 5). What do they do next? Nothing I've ever heard of any other army ever doing. They stop and circumcise every single one of them. Even though they allow time for recovery, in a sense, every warrior in the battle begins wounded (think about that).

The first reaction is to see this as some sort of weird male bonding experience (but what human male would pick this one?). For women who think MBE's are strange, perhaps they ought consider their own (see Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood). And our good Bible answer prompts us to say, God had them to do this so that they could be a holy people, and that is true. But what is a holy people? Literally a holy people is a nation set apart, marked for special service.

After this day, every last man in Israel could say that they had experienced the same thing, and not only that, they had experienced it together. They were marked, so that if captured in battle there would be no denying that they were Israelite. No need for an interrogation when an examination will do. But nothing spurs humanity to courage more than the realization that we are not in this alone. We draw strength from each other, and we fear disappointing each other and that urges us on.

Now, circumcision does not equal baptism. But our baptism marks us as a people set apart, a people with our story. Let us draw courage from each other, and from the memory that we stand with every other person who has ever obeyed God in this way (including Jesus, the Christ).