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St Francis Magazine Vol 8, No 2 | April 2012 The tabernacle which was the ‘dwelling of God’ with Israel, finds its embodiment in Christ who ‘tabernacles’ (Jn 1:14) with humans. Parallels between water from the rock for Israel and Christ the living water, bread from heaven in the form of manna and Christ the living bread from heaven, and the light of the pillar of fire and Christ the light of the world can also be drawn. Just as the Psalms tell of YHWH leading ‘his flock’ Israel, also through the wilderness (Ps 78:52), Jesus leads his ‘little flock’ the disciples, who are in number the same as the 12 tribes of Israel. He sends out 70 and Moses appointed 70. Jesus makes frequent comparisons between “that” generation which was the wilderness generation, and “this” generation of his day. The life of Jesus also bears some analogy to that of Joshua who effectively has the same name as Jesus, namely “God saves.” Like Joshua, Christ is the leader of his people, and leads them through a frontier, in the case of Joshua it is via Jericho and the river Jordan, but for Christ it is past Jericho to his death at Jerusalem. Joshua arrives in the promised land of Canaan, but Christ leads “many sons to glory” (Heb 2:10) to the promised land of the New Jerusalem. 4. Israel as a pilgrim people: In his analysis of the book of Hebrews, William Johnnson proposes that pilgrimage constitutes one of the books controlling motifs 101 . Others have examined his proposition and suggest that it might be better to say that Christ’s priesthood is the dominant theme and that it is better to say that derivatively then, one in the New Testament,” Southwestern Journal of Theology, 20 no 1 (Fall 1977), pp. 69-­‐79. 101 William G. Johnsson, “Pilgrimage motif in the Book of Hebrews,” Journal of Biblical Literature, 97 no 2 (Je 1978), pp. 244-­‐46. 237