Last Stop in Egypt
This Sunday we make our last stop in our current Exodus series. We actually arrive at Mt. Sinai, the same place where Moses started his journey. God was true to his word and brought the Israelites out to worship him on this particular mountain (Ex. 3:12). But, as we will see Sunday, Sinai is no closer to the promised land than Egypt is, in fact, it is farther away! What is God up to?
What God is up to with the Israelites is the same thing that he is up to with you and me. He is leading us, not to a physical destination, but rather he is leading us to himself. Exodus 19 is full of God. He is proactive, holy, majestic, and merciful. What a reminder that God himself is our destination, and that he invite us, he wants to meet us in worship.
It was quite something for the Israelites to meet YHWH at Sinai. And while God has not changed our picture of him has enlarged. The writer to the Hebrews puts it this way:
For you have not come to what may 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 no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” 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)
What a story! The Israelites met God in thunder, lighting and a thick cloud. When we come to worship Sunday we come to Jesus our Mediator and the way is open!
Photo by Dyaa Eldin Moustafa on Unsplash