|
|
|
| Strength for the Journey #14 Why Even Think of Turning Back? |
 |
Why Even Think of Turning Back?
Reading: Hebrews 12:14-29
Introduction: “When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, ‘Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ Aaron said to them, ‘Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.’ So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, ‘Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD.’ They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel” (Exodus 32:1-6).
“Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD!” Imagine the chosen people of God encamped at the foot of Mount Sinai, with the mountain covered in smoke symbolizing the presence of their God in conversation with their leader Moses. It had been less than 40 days since God called them into assembly before him, less then forty days since they had consecrated themselves and experienced the thunder and lightning and the earthquakes. God Almighty had spoken and Moses had recounted the words of the 10 commandments to them. They had experienced the holy fear of God. They had begged Moses to go before God on their behalf from now on because the presence of God was too terrifying for them. So Moses went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone.
In less than 40 days, there was no more fear of the mountain. There was no more faith in their God or their leader. And Aaron, the brother of Moses, the man who stood with Moses before Pharaoh through each of those ten plagues on Egypt, fashioned the image of a calf. He obviously agreed with the peoples’ assessment, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” He proclaims, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD.” What happened to the fear of dying if any person or animal even touched the mountain? How could the mountain of God be that close and the fear of God that recent, and these people celebrate a “festival to the LORD” by eating and drinking and reveling (a word suggesting more than just a nice worship service) before a golden calf?
You remember the rest of the story. God is angry; Moses is angry. The tablets of stone get smashed. The golden calf is melted down in a huge fire and the liquid is mixed with water which, in turn, the people are forced to drink. Moses just barely talks God out of destroying the people. In fact, the greatest fear Moses is said to have in the entire sequence is the fear that he will not be able to stop God from destroying these stiff-necked people. The Ten Commandments; the visible signs of God-presence on the Mountain; the people even telling Moses that they will gladly do all that the Lord has commanded them to do. With smoke still covering the mountain, they have a complete memory loss as the fear of God becomes a different kind of fear.
Centuries later, the Hebrews preacher tells his audience, “You have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them. (For they could not endure the order that was given, ‘If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned to death.’ Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, ‘I tremble with fear.’) But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:18-24).
In place of the fear that dominated that initial scene at Sinai, the preacher offers his audience a completely different vision of the worship assembly to which they have been called. Remember that in the preacher’s worldview, everything about the material world was a shadow, a copy of the real world, the invisible realm. We have been through all of these preceding chapters that lay out the greater vision of God and the activity of his Son the Christ who has now entered into the throne room of God. Because the pioneer and perfecter of faith already has entered into God’s eternal presence, the preacher’s audience also has been invited into the sanctuary behind the curtain. They are the beneficiaries by faith of promises that all of the faithful through the ages preceding the coming of the Son could only long for. They are now surrounded by a cloud of witnesses as they take the baton in the great race called life and bear witness to God’s gracious ways and make their way toward the goal which is eternal life in the presence of God.
It is a goal that is certainly yet to come, but it is also breaking into their present existence. The material world may still be one’s experience, but the invisible has broken into the present. The preacher wants them to see themselves already in the midst of Mount Zion, the city of the living God—the non-material realm, the real world. For those Christians then who were suffering abuse for their beliefs, enduring hardship and shame and the loss of identity in the material world, this vision was vital to spiritual survival. They needed to know, in the face of some people choosing to abandon the assembly, that they were participating in a much greater assembly. When those who did gather to worship looked around the room at one another, they needed to see more than the physical bodies in the room. They needed to see the thousands upon thousands of angels, they needed to see all of God’s faithful witnesses that preceded them in entering into the throne room through their deaths. They needed to see all of the rest of God’s faithful witnesses alive in their time also gathered before God in worship.
Obviously, the image still applies to God’s faithful today, only the crowd in the throne room is bigger than it was then. The preacher would have us at this moment share in the same vision! He would have us believe that the heavenly realm, the invisible, already has broken into our material world. His view of heaven is not the same as one we may otherwise be accustomed to. He believes that the invisible, real world has broken into our present existence. It is the only lasting existence. The material world, both the earth and the heavens, will cease to exist and only the real world will continue. But because God broke into our material existence in the form of the Son, we now are empowered to break through into his existence and his presence. That is the vision that can sustain life in the present material world.
The preacher sets this vision, along with its counterpart of fear at Mount Sinai, in the midst of exhortation. Last week we heard the call to endurance as he encouraged them to “lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed” (12:12-13). In a material world in which his audience faced increasing hostility and shame because of their faith, he goes on to say,
“Pursue peace with everyone, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and through it many become defiled. See to it that no one becomes like Esau, an immoral and godless person, who sold his birthright for a single meal. You know that later, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, even though he sought the blessing with tears. For you have not come to something that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest…” (12:14-18).
The warnings about Sinai and Esau are reminders of what happens if they fail to obtain the grace of God. The fear of Sinai was not a motivation that could sustain faith. Neither can the fleshly appetites of one’s humanity. That’s the power of the Esau story. Esau could not see past the present moment, and his life was doomed by those momentary desires.
We need a vision that is bigger than the moment, bigger than human desires to have peace at any cost. It is so easy to become focused only on the moment and give up the long term for the short term satisfaction of human appetites. All that is alluring about the material world and human desire can side-track holiness and the ultimate reality of life in the presence of God. It turns out that fear is not a long term motivation. It cannot sustain a life of holiness and it certainly cannot sustain relationship with Creator God, even when God is obviously a being to be feared. That was the lesson of Sinai. So God has taken down the walls of exclusion that kept everyone back from the Mountain. He has removed the barrier of sin, the dividing wall between humans and the inner sanctuary. Now we are invited to join the angels and the saints in eternal praise and worship.
Only in the final warning does the preacher finally give the secret to sustaining that hope and living out that faith. “See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking; for if they did not escape when they refused the one who warned them on earth, how much less will we escape if we reject the one who warns from heaven! At that time his voice shook the earth; but now he has promised, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.’ This phrase, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of what is shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire” (12:25-29).
Gratitude, thanksgiving to the one who is our supreme benefactor is where we find the memory and sustenance to keep fixed on the goal and enjoy eternal God presence and find strength for the journey in this world even when life’s circumstances seem to be against us.
Last week, I was not here to enjoy Harvest Sunday at Woodmont Hills. As Rubel may have explained, I was at an annual convention that I have been attending for a number of years in conjunction with my academic career. This year the convention was in Toronto. Since I am in the habit of attending multiple worship services here each week, I did so last week as well. At 7:00 am, I joined about 70 other professors and their spouses for a worship assembly. All of these people were connected to the Restoration Movement. But they represented all branches of our heritage, and it was a marvelous time of fellowship among people who otherwise have little or no contact with one another. As I recall, we didn’t sing a single hymn that was less that 60 years old—there was no praise team or drama or the slightest hint of contemporary worship. Yet it was an incredible time of reverence and awe before the Lord.
Later that morning I went to a tiny town north of Toronto called Grand Valley. There I preached at the Grand Valley Church of Christ. Including myself, I think there were 15 in attendance; 10 adults and 5 children. The minister and his wife have been serving that little church for the past 6 years, and they were the only two people present that were part of that church when they arrived 6 years ago. Those who were there when they came have since either died or moved away. I didn’t spend a lot of time being upset about the synthesizer they used that had the songs programmed into it to help them with their singing. I wasn’t bothered by the fact that a woman was the song leader because she is the one person who can carry a tune. I didn’t get give much thought to the fact that the prayer was led by the other strong Christian in the church, also female.
What I couldn’t stop thinking about was the courage of these people to do that every Sunday. I loved looking into every person’s eyes as I spoke. I was amazed at their loving concern for one another. I was embarrassed by my own fear that I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t give up all of this life and sustain a life of faith in that setting. Those people have to have a vision that is bigger than their corporate assembly. But in a setting like this one, that larger vision may not seem necessary. That’s why some people struggle when they do leave settings like this one. Faith has become defined by great worship in a safe place—the family of God at Woodmont Hills. But could our own life together here become idolatrous? Do we run the risk of Esau in cultural settings like this where our physical, material appetites are so easily filled, and even our worship can become so self-satisfying? If God called us to be a sustaining presence of faith in a remote place like Grand Valley, Ontario, Canada, would our vision of worship with thousands upon thousands of angels be great enough to sustain us when not even the faithful showed up? Would we still need to make good on doctrinal disputes in order to prove ourselves right and others wrong? The sustaining vision is not about us, it’s about God. Yes, God is a consuming fire! He is the essence of existence! He is also the gracious giver of life itself and the only one who can sustain any life.
So we have come to Mount Zion this morning—so much more than any particular church setting. We are invited into the throne room of Creator God this morning, joined by all who been faithful throughout human history, joined this morning by throngs of faithful people alive in our time, joined by those 14 people who are gathering this morning in Grand Valley, Ontario. “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe.”
Delivered at Woodmont Hills, December 1, 2002.
media
|
|
|
Site-specific content Copyright (c) 2000 FaithSite.com or Used by Permission
All other content Copyright (c) 2000 FaithSites, Inc. All rights reserved.
Use of this site is subject to Terms of Service and to our Privacy Policy.
If you are offended by anything on this page, click here.
| |
