The Bible Year, Week 4 (February 2, 2022)
I am amazed at how quickly we are moving through the Bible.
We finished Genesis back on Wednesday, January 19. Just eleven days later, on
Sunday, January 30, we finished Exodus. And
we are already ten chapters into Leviticus.
The first 15 chapters of
Exodus tell the foundational story of Israel. God delivers his people by
bringing them through the waters of the sea and into the wilderness. So now what?
Well,
now on to the Promised Land. It was 250 miles from where they left Egypt to the
land that God had promised Abraham. Given the number of Israelites – all ages
of men, women and children, plus their possessions and livestock – perhaps two
to three months would be needed to make the journey.
So why did it take them 40
years?
The problem is that the shortest route would take them
right into the land of the Philistines who would most likely kill them all. And
the shortest route would take them through the most arid parts of the Sinai
desert where they would likely perish anyway. There are no short cuts to the Promised Land. They must take a longer, winding route. But even that longer route might only require 6 months.
The
fact that it took them 40 years tells us that something else is going on. Their
time in the wilderness is not just a physical journey, it is a spiritual one.
They have been in Egypt for 400 years. They haven’t
learned what it means to be God’s people again. They haven’t learned what it
means to trust in God. While they may know God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, and they certainly know how God saved them from slavery in Egypt, they
do not yet know how to live in response to all that God has done and promised.
And we see that lack of trust immediately after the
exodus. At the beginning of chapter 16, we read their complaints about their
hunger, wishing God had just put them to death back in Egypt rather than bringing
them out to the wilderness to die. And
in chapter 17, they make the same complaint about being thirsty.
In both cases God intervenes. Most famously by given
the Israelites “manna” to eat. Manna literally means “what is it?” They had no clue exactly what it was they were
eating, only that God was providing for their needs each day. But manna came with conditions. They could only collect
enough for one day at a time and trust that God will provide for the next day. They
have to learn to trust God. It’s hard.
And they fail.
Trusting that God will provide is difficult – then and
now.
In Chapter 19, Moses leads Israel to the foot of Mount
Sinai. God invites the people of Israel to enter into a covenant relationship. This
covenant builds on God’s promises to Abraham all the way back in Genesis 12
when God promises to bless Abraham so that through his family, God would
restore his blessing to all creation in an act of redemption and restoration.
That promise is the foundation of this new covenant
with Israel. But now they have a part to play too. They are called to live in a
very particular way. God says you will
be a kingdom of priests for me, which means that they will become God's
representatives and show all of the other peoples what God is truly like. In
order to fulfill their end of the covenant, Israel must live by God’s laws and
be faithful to the justice and righteousness, the compassion and the generosity
of God.
The people of Israel respond emphatically: Everything that the Lord has said we will
do. So in cloud, lighting and thunder, God’s presence
appears on top of Mount Sinai, and Moses goes up into that presence. There he
receives the 10 Commandments which serve as the basic terms of the Covenant. These commandments show how the
Israelites and God are going to be in relationship with each other.
· You must have no other gods before me.
· Honor your father and your mother
In Matthew 22, Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment
is. He first quotes Deuteronomy 6:5 - Love
the Lord your God with all your heart, all your being, and all your
strength. Then he quotes Leviticus
18:19 – You must love your neighbor as
yourself.
You see, Jesus lifts up the impulse behind all of the
laws of God: that we may love God and love our neighbor. Those are our
guardrails today. In every age and in
every culture, the church discerns together what it means to love God with all
that we are and love our neighbors as ourselves. The Ten Commandments are a
good place to start. But Jesus draws us deeper into a heart that is overflowing
with love, even love for our enemies. (Matthew 4:43-44)
We can learn a lot about our relationship with God and
the life of faith from reading these Old Testament stories. These ancient stories
are our stories too.
We affirm that God is still present with us even
now. We don’t have to build a tabernacle.
God made a home among us in Jesus Christ, and is present with us now through
the Holy Spirit.
But we should also pay attention to the experience of
being in the wilderness. As I said, it was as much a spiritual journey as a
physical one. And our own spiritual
journeys will take us through the wilderness. There are now shortcuts.
We give our lives to Christ and we seek to live a good
life, but things still fall apart. We go through divorces. We have trouble with
our kids or with our aging parents. We have difficult relationships. We lose our
job or hit dead-ends in our career. Life brings troubles of its own. And often
we are our own worst enemy, just like the Israelites.
And we pray to God. Why? Why me? How long will I
struggle? How long will I be lonely? How long until I get some answers and know
which way to go?
What do all these wilderness experiences have in
common? They are all hard. They are annoying. They are frustrating. They are
exhausting. They are necessary. Because there are ways that we grow spiritually and
emotionally that can only happen in the wilderness.
Only in the wilderness can we really learn what it
means to trust in God to provide all that we need for today. And trust that God will be there for us tomorrow, even if we don’t know what
tomorrow will bring.
Only in the wilderness can we learn the resilience
necessary to deal with all of life's ups and downs. Only in the wilderness can we find healing for our body, mind and soul. Only there can we learn to forgive and be forgiven.
I find comfort in these words from Magrey DeVega:
You may feel like you
are wandering right now,
but you are not lost.
You may feel like you are going nowhere,
but God is showing you the very next step.
And when the time is right, you'll get the next step after that
and the next step after that.
You may feel like you are surrounded by a vast wasteland
but you are never truly alone.
The wilderness is the only way to the Promised Land.
It’s the only way to new life.
It’s the only way to resurrection.
+++
A few notes and reminders:
but you are not lost.
You may feel like you are going nowhere,
but God is showing you the very next step.
And when the time is right, you'll get the next step after that
and the next step after that.
You may feel like you are surrounded by a vast wasteland
but you are never truly alone.
It’s the only way to new life.
It’s the only way to resurrection.
- Our Pastor's Bible Study meets every Wednesday night at 5:30 pm in-person (FLC) and online (Zoom). I hope you will join us!
- I also encourage you to join the Ocala FUMC The Bible Year Small Group on Facebook. The group allows for ongoing discussion of the daily readings.
- The Sunday sermons may be a helpful resource as we move through the readings. You can watch the full sermon on YouTube (CLICK HERE)
- Remember to check our website regularly for additional resources and updates (CLICK HERE)
- Remember the great teaching videos at The Bible Project! I find the Book Overviews the most helpful. You will notice I often use this material in the summaries I share in my sermons.
- The Bible Year videos on Amplify are also a great place to find weekly summaries of our readings.
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