I
wonder if C.S. Lewis had Hebrews 12 in mind when he told the story of when Mr.
and Mrs. Beaver told the children about Aslan the Lion. Lucy responds, “I think
I should be quite frightened to meet a lion. Tell me, is he a safe lion?” “Safe?”
Mr. Beaver answers. “’Course he’s not safe. But he’s good.” Those who meet
Aslan or hear his earth-shaking roar are filled with awe. They know Aslan has
the power to hurt them badly. Yet when Lucy and those on the side of good look
into Aslan’s eyes, they see a kindness and tenderness that’s fiercely
determined to show them love.
God’s holy. He’s pure, right, and just. He’s so against
sin and evil, that nothing stained by sin is allowed to come close to him. We
know that we have no real hope of ever being able to come close to God the way
we are. In Leviticus, God calls us to be holy because
he is holy. Nothing that is less than holy can
see God, as the writer here reminds us. He offers a few examples of what
unholiness looks like: bitterness, sexual immorality, or godless and focused
only on what they want right now. The writer to Hebrews is connected to the
temple and holiness is part of his day-to-day life and work and he reminds us
that holiness is important to everyone who follows Jesus. Lance and Mikenna,
this is an important day in your faith journey with Jesus as you have decided
that you want to follow Jesus, to walk on his way. Part of following Jesus is
becoming holy, so what is being holy then?
Holiness is about being set apart as God’s
people. We’re created in the image of God and holiness is
about being God’s image. The writer of the letter takes us back to Israel at Mount
Sinai
after they left Egypt. In the Bible, mountains often were considered significant
sacred places where the people would go to meet God and Sinai becomes a huge
moment in Israel’s relationship with God. God covers the mountain with a dark
cloud and his voice rolls out from the cloud like thunder. Within the cloud
flashes lightening and the sound of thunder warns the people to stay back. God
tells Moses, “Put limits for the people
around the mountain and tell them, ‘Be careful that you do not go up the
mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be
put to death. He shall surely
be stoned or shot with arrows; not a hand is to be laid on him. Whether man or
animal, he shall not be permitted to live.’ Only when the ram’s horn sounds a long
blast may they go up to the mountain.”
The people are told to make themselves
ready to be in God’s presence. It’s no casual thing to be in the
presence of God. Israel had just seen God destroy the Egyptian army after opening
a path through the Red Sea. This is a God of power and majesty on the top of
Mount Sinai. Even Moses is affected by the power and majesty of God, “I am trembling with fear,” he says as he prepares to
go up the mountain to meet with God. Moses knows this is a living God who has decided
that he’s going to build a relationship with this group of people. Moses realises
that he’s nowhere near holy enough to be in the presence of God, but he trusts
God’s mercy and grace and heads up the mountain to talk with God. On the
mountain, God gives them the Law to show them who he is and who he’s calling
his people to be.
Mountains draw people’s eyes upwards. As our eyes are
drawn upwards, they look beyond the top of the mountain and the universe itself
is displayed before us. It begins to dawn on us what it means that God is the
Creator of everything we see, and much more beyond that. We’re called to look
at God through eyes that recognise that God is a royal, powerful, awe-inspiring
God. We talked about wonder being part of our faith journey in our Profession
of Faith classes. Here at Sinai is a call to worship a God of holiness and
majesty. He’s no ordinary God, this is the creator of heaven and earth, the
defeater of powerful empires and their gods.
Mount Sinai is time of change and
transformation for the people. The people hear God’s voice and are
given laws that will shape how they live with God, each other, and the nations
around them that also show them who God is. Bryan Whitfield writes about
worshipping God with reverence and awe as, “an encounter with God in which
God’s people hear God’s voice and are, by the Holy Spirit, transformed. God,
after all, accepts us as we are. But God never leaves us as we are.” Profession
of Faith recognizes that this is simply another step in following Jesus,
another step in becoming who God is calling us to be. Following Jesus as we
listen to the guidance of the Holy Spirit is a life-long journey, a journey we
call sanctification, a journey of becoming more like Jesus. We walk this
journey together as a church family, as part of the family of God.
Mount Sinai is often associated with fear
and trembling, but the writer to the Hebrews doesn’t want to
leave us trembling in fear. He takes us from Sinai to Zion. We move from a barren
frightening mountaintop in the wilderness to a city on a hill, the heavenly
Jerusalem, the place of the living God where the people of God gather. John
gives us a wondrous picture of the heavenly Jerusalem in Revelation 21. John writes, “I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for
her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling
of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and
God himself will be with them and be their God.”
On two other mountains we meet God in Jesus: The Mount of Transfiguration, where he’s
revealed in his holiness as the Son of God in whom God the Father is pleased,
and Golgotha, where Jesus takes away our sin by becoming our sin, as he comes before the God of Sinai and the Law. Jesus
takes our place and enters the place of judgment in our place. Jesus is the
only one who can keep the Law of Sinai; his sacrifice for us allows us to
approach the God of Zion now. We’re called to come into the presence of God, to
come close as a child draws close to their parent. God is a consuming fire, not to destroy, but to purify us, make
us clean so that we will not be destroyed as we come close. God’s consuming
fire brings out the image of God in us by burning away the sinful parts of us,
like fire help the gold and silver smiths burn away the dross so that the pure
silver and gold are left behind. God’s worthy of our praise and we approach him
with reverence and healthy awe inspired fear because of his love and commitment
to us.
On Mount Zion there’s an awesome awareness of the power of God as thousands of angels worship the
Father. God is the great judge, but our presence there is guaranteed because of
Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant. Revelation 4 gives us a picture of the
throne room of heaven, an image that echoes Sinai and the theme of worship that
flows through the Old Testament and this letter, “From
the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. In front
of the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God….
In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were
covered with eyes, in front and in back…. Day and night they never stop saying:
“‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,’ who was, and is, and is to
come.”
The writer pulls together the different things he’s been talking in his letter, bringing us into the
presence of God. Jesus takes away the fear of Sinai as we worship in the throne
room on Mount Zion. We come into the
presence of God as a child draws close to their parent. God’s a consuming fire; not to destroy, but to purify us, make
us clean. God’s worthy of our praise and we approach him in worship with
reverence and healthy awe inspired fear because of his great love and absolute
commitment to us.
Worship is at the heart of Mount Sinai and Mount Zion, shaped by the mountains of
Transfiguration and Golgotha. The Message translation of Romans 12: gives us a
picture of what that can look like, “So here’s what I
want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your
sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before
God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can
do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it
without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed
from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly
respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its
level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed
maturity in you.”
Danny Quanstrom writes, “God’s consuming fire burns up our old selves in
order to reveal our new selves as children of God as we begin “to forgive and
to take responsibility for the wrongs we may have committed against others.” What is God burning away
in you so that your life can truly be a life of worship for Jesus and the
kingdom of heaven?
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