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"Living With the Glory of God"
How did you do with this morning’s Old Testament reading?
Right about here is where the story of God derails for most
of us. Thirty-eight verses of “setting up and consecrating!”
And that’s not the half of it. There are fifteen chapters of
detailed descriptions of each of the items being set up and
consecrated that precede what you heard this morning. I am
100% certain that if God were trying to get this story produced
in Hollywood all of this material would wind up on the editing
room floor.
How is the modern person who is used to fast-paced, never
slow down living in 21st century America supposed to make
any sense out of this or should we just skip over this part
of the story and move on?
Well the first thing we need to do is step back a little bit
and get the big picture in focus again. We tend to lose our
place in the story when we get too wrapped up in the “what”
and forget the main question is the “why” behind all of this.
So, here it goes – the first ninety chapters of the story
of God – in seven words: I am going to send a Savior! Adam
and Eve, created to live in perfect relationship with God
and one another. The fall – disobedience, rejecting God to
try and live life their own way. And God said, “I am going
to send a Savior!” The Flood – the devastation of human
rebellion very nearly makes the story of God a “short
story.” Instead God says, “I am going to send a Savior.”
The adventures of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – twists and
turns, times of faithfulness and times of remarkable stupidity –
and what does God say – you’re right – “I am going to send a
Savior.” Four hundred years of slavery – Moses – 10 plagues –
a miraculous escape from Egypt, through the waters of the
Red Sea – a mountain covered with smoke and fire and thunder
and lightening – the 10 Commandments – and fifteen chapters
of details on how to make a tent with all its furnishings as
a place of worship – can you guess what it’s all about? Hmmm,
might it be, “I am going to send a Savior?”
There are two things for you to take out of today’s lesson
from the story of God that we are calling Thy Kingdom Come:
God is holy AND He desires to dwell right smack dab in the
middle of the human race.
The idea of holiness is a difficult one to get our heads
around, much less our hearts and our lives. “God is holy.”
I don’t suppose we get any argument about that, but what
exactly does that mean and what difference does it make?
You can see it in the text at vs. 9 where God commands
Moses, “Take the anointing oil and anoint the tabernacle
and everything in it; consecrate it and all its furnishings,
and it will be holy.”
To be holy simply means to be pure, perfect, without any
spot or blemish or flaw. You might say that holy is the
opposite of what we are but exactly what God is. Does it
make sense to you that holy and not-holy cannot be mixed
together? If the two come into contact with each other
one of two things must happen either the not-holy will
contaminate the holy or the holy must purify the not-holy.
Now you are starting to get the picture. God who is holy
desires more than anything else to be right smack dab in
the middle of our lives. That’s the way he created Adam
and Eve. That’s the way he longs to be with us. Of course
we cannot contaminate God’s holiness. In fact, because He
is God, if his holy presence comes into contact with our
unholiness, it would simply destroy us.
So what’s a God who is holy and yet longs to dwell with
people who are unholy to do? Ah, yes, he must find a way
to make us holy again. That’s what the promised Savior will
do – he will make people holy again so that they can experience
the presence of God.
All the details of the tabernacle are there to remind the
people of God’s holiness and his passion to dwell among them.
Until things are made right, until the Savior comes, God must
hide himself, behind a curtain so to speak, revealing only
glimpses of his holiness lest his unholy people be consumed
by his presence. In, with, and under the tabernacle, the
altar of burnt offerings, the wash basin, altar of incense,
the lampstand, the curtain, the ark and all the other
contents is the presence of God concealed to be with people
while at the same time protecting them from himself.
The people are learning, they are being trained, to recognize
holiness, to see their need for it, to long for it with all
their heart, for the day when they will no longer have to be
separated from God by a curtain. The portable tabernacle of
a wandering tribe of former slaves would eventually become
the Temple of Jerusalem as they took possession of the land
God had promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The purpose of
the Temple was the same as that of the tabernacle – to keep
them focused on the holy presence of God in their midst
until the Savior came to make things that are not holy,
holy again so that we might dwell face to face with God.
Look, here comes Jesus. The holiness of God and humanity
brought together in the miraculously ingenious conception
in the womb of a woman, conceived not by the will of a man,
but by the Holy Spirit. Jesus becomes the tabernacle and
Temple in living breathing human form. God’s holy presence,
still concealed, still hidden, under flesh and blood. Once
he is finished with his life and work there will be no more
need for a Temple.
Jesus shows us what holiness in human flesh looks like. For now,
living in an unholy world, with unholy people, it is a life
often filled with suffering and sorrow and pain. He lived that
life without ever succumbing to the angry, bitter, frustration
that so often dominates our lives. He did not lash out in hatred
toward those who imagined that they had found and created their
own way to holiness. He challenged the religious leaders to come
down off their high horses and discover the true and only way
into God’s presence – repentance, true genuine sorrow over their
lack of holiness and absolute inability to produce it on their
and faith in the one who could restore it to them.
Jesus didn’t despise and turn away in disgust from the politically
powerful who rejected the very idea of God and his holiness. He
knew that all authority comes only from God. He humbled himself
before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate and accepted a sentence
of death by crucifixion.
Jesus looked with compassion on the countless multitude who had
neither power nor position and gave them a glimpse of hope that
life would not always be this way.
That’s what holiness in human flesh looks like – supreme self
confidence, awareness of who He was and what He was doing that
allowed him to deal with an unholy world without being contaminated
by it. That holiness, is what he took to the cross and there by
his willing sacrifice he opened the way back into God’s holy
presence for all people of all time. At his death the curtain
of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. By faith,
that is simply, believing and trusting that his death on the
cross makes you holy, you can now stand in the presence of God
without fear.
The cross of Jesus surrounds and protects you. When God in
all his majestic holiness looks at you he sees a spotless,
unblemished, pure and holy child in whom He delights. By
faith, until the day you die, or Jesus returns again in
glory, which ever comes first, you are now dwelling in the
presence of God. You are empowered and equipped day by day
to interact with the mess of life that goes on all around
you with supreme self-confidence, knowing exactly who you
are, what you are doing, and where you are going. It is
the most delightful way to live.
There is a picture out there somewhere entitled, “the
Laughing Jesus.” Someone gave me a copy of it once – but
I’m not sure what happened to mine. Vicar has a copy of it –
printed from the computer I think – hanging in his office.
It shows a portrait of Jesus with his head thrown back in
a full-fledged uninhibited laugh.
I came across an article by a mom talking about cleaning
out her closets and throwing away her children’s Sunday
school projects that had accumulated over the years. One
she kept was a picture her daughter had cut and pasted
when she was three years old showing people in different
acts of worship. She remembered her daughter shouting
each activity as she pointed to the picture, “Praying!
Giving! Reading the Bible!”
She saved the best one for last – a boy with his mouth
open wide in song. Singing being her favorite form of
worship she anticipated her daughter’s answer. “Laughing,”
her daughter announced as she pointed to the boy. From a
book she had read she remembered a quote, “Laughter is
carbonated holiness,” which made her think of a line
for Woody Allen who said, “I am thankful for laughter,
except when milk comes out of my nose;” which reminded
here of an experience she had with a Diet Coke; which
brought a whole new level of meaning to laughter being
carbonated holiness.
Karl Barth, a theologian, wrote, “Laughter is the closest
thing to the grace of God.” Of course Barth meant the good
kind of laughter, born from joy or relief or the sweet
surprise of community. There is also derisive laughter,
rooted in pettiness or rudeness or cruelty. But you can
tell the difference between laughter that comes from being
delighted with life from the destructive kind.
The woman concluded her article with this: “Laughter is
serious business. It’s the kind of sacrifice of praise that
puts our insides right.” She’s not talking about being silly,
or uncaring toward what’s happening around us. Listen to what
she says, “The old cliché is true: Laughter is a medicine that
reminds us that our sickness will one day be healed and we
shall be whole and holy. Laughter attaches us to the goodness
that inhabits this world, and to the gladness that hints at
the world to come.
I wonder if the “laughing Jesus,” and a more intentional
awareness of our own laughter in life might be the image to
leave in your mind this morning as you consider God’s holiness
AND his desire to dwell right smack dab in the middle of your
life. Think about. Made holy by Jesus as a free gift of God’s
grace gives you the eyes to see yourself and the world differently.
Amen.
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