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Category: Exodus (Page 4 of 7)

Around the Table: Part 1

September 5, 2013 / / 0 Comments

“They saw God, and they ate and drank.” ~Exodus 24:11

Regular readers of this space know that the communion meal is the one area of our Christian worship, the one part of our history and tradition and liturgy, that really gets me going. It’s the area in which I’ve done the most research and study and the thing about which I’m most passionate. There’s a whole lot going on around the table when disciples of Christ gather to share a meal. And I believe that on Sundays in our churches, we miss most of it.

Here at Central last night, we began an eleven week study of our Lord’s Supper that will take us from Genesis all the way through Revelation. From the Israelites eating on the mountain with God and Christ sharing that last meal with his apostles to the biblical accounts of the early church’s Christian meals to our communion beliefs and practices today, we’re going to explore Scripture and ancient practices, history and context, custom and command. And, by God’s grace, we’re going to arrive at a deeper and stronger communion theology for our congregation.

We opened up the study last night by considering the very first communion meal shared between God and his people in Exodus 24. This is the holy meal that sets the tone for all the communion meals to come. This is the meal Jesus was pointing his disciples back to around the table on that last night. This is the primary model through which all communion meals are informed and formed.

We set it up by looking at a couple of stories in Genesis. In Genesis 31 Jacob and Laban are fighting within their own family. They can’t get along. Jacob takes off with his wives and children and flocks. Laban gives chase, catches up with his daughters and grandchildren and son-in-law, and they begin to argue with one another there in the desert. After both have angrily vented, Laban proposes a peace treaty.

“Come now, let’s make a covenant between you and I, and let it serve as a witness between us… So they took stones and piled them in a heap, and they ate there by the heap.” ~Genesis 31:44-46

A similar thing had occurred in Genesis 26. Isaac and Abimelech were at each other’s throats over land and crops and flocks. There were lies. Their servants were fighting. Finally, Abimelech suggested a peace treaty.

“There ought to be a sworn agreement between us — between us and you. Let us make a treaty with you… Isaac then made a feast for them, and they ate and drank.” ~Genesis 26:28:30

The meal celebrates the reality of the peace. Eating and drinking together expresses in tangible, concrete, and visible ways the reality of the new relationship between the once estranged parties. The treaty brings about the peace; that peace is then experienced at the meal.

Just like with God and his people on the mountain.

In Exodus 19, the Lord announces a covenant for his people and the people accept the terms. “We will do everything the Lord has said!” In Exodus 20, God summarizes the terms of the covenant, which are then itemized in more detail in Exodus 21-23. This covenant is then ratified, or made official, by the sacrifices in Exodus 24:

“They offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord. Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he sprinkled on the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, ‘We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey.’ Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, ‘This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you…'” ~Exodus 24:5-8

The covenant is sealed with the blood of the sacrificed animals. Both sides have made pledges, both sides have agreed, and now there’s a brand new relationship. This is it, Moses says. It’s done.

“Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel.” ~Exodus 24:9

And God struck the leaders of Israel dead right there on the spot. Yes? Of course! Nobody can see God and live. We know that. The original readers of the ancient text know this. The first hearers of this story knew it. You can’t see God. Duh! You and I have always known that. He is holy, we are not. He is righteous, we are not. He is perfect and transcendent and above all else and we are certainly not. A person cannot see God and live. It just doesn’t work that way.

That’s why the next line in the story is so dramatic. That’s why what happens on the mountain is so extraordinary and shocking; scandalous, even!

“But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.” ~Exodus 24:11

These high priests and Levites and leaders of God’s people, representing all of Israel, ate and drank a covenant meal with God. They were face to face with the Creator of Heaven and Earth, at his table eating and drinking with him in the reality of a brand new kind of holy relationship. God’s people had been washed by the blood; there were made righteous by the sacrifice. The blood had rendered them perfect in the eyes of God and allowed them to enter into his presence. The sacrifice allowed them to commune with God. They were not killed when they saw him. God did not strike them dead when they came into his holy presence. He welcomed them with a fellowship meal of food and drink. They celebrated the reality of the relationship, the reality of their salvation, by eating and drinking with God.

God never intended an altar. He planned for it, yes, because he knew. But he never intended an altar. He always intended a table. God’s goal is a table. The altar serves the table, the altar makes the table possible. The altar is the atoning work of forgiving sin; the table is the tangible experience of that forgiveness.

Jesus himself, the apostles, all the New Testament writers and readers, and certainly the early church all live in a context of a clear distinction between altar and table. The altar and the table are two different things; there are two completely different forms, entirely different functions between the sacrifice and the meal. Those differences were established and understood by generations and centuries of teaching and practice.

In many ways we have combined the two. Down through the centuries, God’s Church has actually turned the table into an altar. It has destroyed the original form and function of the table. The intent of God’s table and our Lord’s meal has been terribly distorted. The aim of our study is to restore our understanding of the feast, if not our Sunday assembly communion practices.

I’m excited about our study. I’m thrilled already with the early response. By God’s grace, going forward, his Gospel and our salvation in Christ Jesus will be better experienced and more fully expressed around the table here at Central.

Peace,

Allan

God’s Always in Front of Us

June 24, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Just another couple of posts to recap our trip to South America and reflect on the things we experienced together. This one on the super quick twenty-four hours we spent with the brand new Great Cities Missions team in La Paz, Bolivia.

Luis and Damira, Brad and Katie, Rick and Julie and their kids have only been in La Paz for five months. They are a brand new missionary team with lofty dreams, tremendous courage, and a thrilling anticipation of what our God is going to do with them and through them in this capitol city. At the same time, this is a brand new missionary team that hasn’t yet mastered the native language, is still really learning how to work with one another in this foreign setting, and is understandably anxious about this thing God’s put in front of them. They’re still learning the culture, still trying to figure out the customs, still going through the ups and downs of adjusting to this brand new life. And, like every missionary team, they’re in need of some real hard-core encouragement and support at about the five and six months mark.

We knew this going in. We knew the main part of our job during this leg of our trip was to encourage these three young couples to stay the course, to strengthen their faith in the One who called them there and promises to always provide, to bless them with our words and our prayers, to lift them up in loyal support. We knew all this going in. We were prepared to hear some tough stories, to share some tears, and to pray for a more visible sign of God’s presence in their lives and in their work. We were ready.

What a surprise to realize once we got there that God was way ahead of us.

When we met them late that first night for some sandwiches and coffee, they were all still giddy from the three baptisms they had participated in the week before. Three people had submitted to the lordship of our Christ. Three people had given their lives to Jesus. God’s power was evident in these conversions and acted to lift the spirits and renew the enthusiasm of the missionaries. Not only that, but six days earlier they had signed a lease agreement on what will be their new church building on a main street there in La Paz. It’s a beautifully refurbished space with wood floors, lots of windows, and tons of potential. They couldn’t wait to show it to us the next morning, and we couldn’t wait to see it. God had provided the building. God had opened the hearts of the three new converts. God was encouraging these missionaries with his richest blessings of hope and peace when they absolutely needed it most.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I thought we had been sent to do it. But God was way out in front of us on this. Like always.

Of course, we did our best to encourage this young team. Kelley assured them that we were Aaron and Hur to their Moses, holding their arms up in prayer and support when they grew weary. We sang together in the Brooks’ apartment, in English and in Spanish, praising God and declaring our complete submission to his will. We spread out all over that new church building and prayed in biblical terms, trying to call things that are not as though they were, praying for the people of La Paz, thanking God for the praises that would soon be flowing out of that building and for the men and women and children who would come to know our King in that place.

But it seemed to me they didn’t need nearly as much encouragement as I had been led to believe. God was strengthening them. God was already showing them the vision. He was already revealing himself to them in powerful ways. He was already assuring them that, just as he had faithfully provided for them in the past, he was providing for them now.

God’s always way ahead of us on stuff like this.

Praise his name!

Allan

 

So Much Glory

January 3, 2013 / / 0 Comments

We’ve just completed a year-long study here at Central of the foundational words of our God in Exodus 34:5-7. This is the passage in which our God describes himself in his own words to Moses and his people at Mount Sinai. It’s the longest such passage in all of Scripture and paramount to the understanding of our heavenly Father and his ways. These words describe God’s eternal nature, his character, his mode of operation, his glory.

“The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.”

As a church family, we dove into these holy words in January of this past year and worked through them together a little bit each month. By God’s grace, we are trying to assimilate these words into our own lives. We want to live into these words. We want to become, as a people of God, everything these words tell us about our God. And we want to get better at seeing and recognizing the glory of God all around us.

A few weeks ago, as we were getting close to wrapping up the series, I asked our congregation to submit photos that, to them, reflected this eternal glory of God. Send me the pictures, I begged, that communicate God’s faithful love, that demonstrate his patience, that speak to his great forgiveness, that represent his holiness, that show his compassion and grace. Send me pictures that, to you, show God’s glory. And the pictures came in by the dozens.

Nearly a hundred different pictures accompanied by nearly a hundred different stories, representing God’s glory in nearly a hundred different and beautiful ways. Our enormously talented worship minister, Kevin Schaffer, arranged all the pictures and set them to music in three separate slide shows our church family enjoyed together during the sharing of communion on Sunday January 30. (You can see all three videos by clicking here.)

And I learned so much.

I learned about grace and forgiveness from Andrew and Stephanie and Evie. Mike showed me the connection between a newborn baby and a glorious sunrise. Mary Ellen spoke of God’s glory as reflected in her parents’ marriage of 73 years and John Todd saw it in his mother’s long and faithful friendship with Marilyn. I learned that Lyndsay was baptized by Paul Sneed, that Shirlene’s kids weren’t exactly chomping at the bit to move back to Amarillo, and that Joe and Margie once saved Becky’s life. My brothers and sisters at Central see the glory of God in hummingbirds and rainbows, in mountains and sunsets and in pink balloons at a sweet teenager’s funeral. Josh and Brittany see God’s faithfulness in their chocolate lab, Connie sees God’s patience in the spiritual journey of her grandmother, and many of us experience God’s grace in Judy and Linda as they so courageously battle cancer. Pictures taken in Africa and New Mexico, Brazil and Oklahoma, Canada and right here at home. There is so much of God’s glory. God’s glory is everywhere, testifying to his love, reminding us of his grace, showing us his forgiveness, witnessing to his faithfulness.

Through those pictures and the stories, I have learned so much about my church family at Central. I’ve seen inside your hearts a little more this past month. You’ve revealed to me a little more about where you’re coming from and how you think and how you experience God. That makes me a better preacher today than when this project began. And we’re all interested in that!

I pray that in thinking about these pictures and then sending them in, we all were forced to consider God’s nature in new and exciting ways. I hope we’ve all grown to begin seeing the presence and the power of our God in places we’ve never before thought to look. And my desire is that we will all seek to reflect that same heavenly glory so that our kids, our neighbors, our city, if facing a similar assignment, would feel compelled to send in pictures of us.

Peace,

Allan

Dead on the Shore

December 10, 2012 / / 1 Comment

“That day the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore.” ~Exodus 14:30

God’s people were trapped. This rag tag band of slaves was cornered. The sea on one side and the desert mountains on the other and the mighty power of the Egyptian army thundering over the sand ridges right toward them. They watched in horror as their violent doom descended on them. It was over. They were as good as dead and they all knew it.

But then our God showed his power and sovereignty over nature and history by splitting the sea right down the middle so every last one of these rescued slaves could escape the enemy on dry ground. God caused the waters to spill back over the Egyptians — all their chariots, their horsemen, their archers. Scripture says “not one of them survived.”

“And Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore.”

Their enemies were powerless now to ever do them any harm. Ever. The escape was complete. The rescue was final. Their salvation was secure. They saw it. They saw their enemies dead now and strewn lifelessly about on the shore like washed-up seaweed. They saw it. And they feared the Lord and put their trust in him.

I believe God caused his people to see their dead enemies for a reason. He wanted them to see it. He wanted there to be no doubt that they were truly saved. They were totally secure. All threats had been erased. All evil against them had been eradicated. They really were free and in the faithful and loving arms of their all-powerful God. This visible and indisputable evidence gave God’s people the courage they needed to move from Egypt to Israel. God was taking them through the waters of salvation to a brand new place and they all needed to know that it was OK to press on in faith. He was taking them from one country to another. He was changing their story. They are no longer slaves; they are now the children of God. “The water flowed back,” Scripture says, cutting off thier connections to Egypt and their old way of life, their old story. They would only press ahead now, into the brand new story of freedom in YHWH, of salvation in the Lord.

As Moses and Miriam are leading the people in songs of praise to God for his mighty and final deliverance from their enemies and from their old horrible lives of slavery, it would have been impossible to imagine that within just a few weeks those same people would be begging to go back to Egypt. When things got difficult, their first instinct was to go back to Egypt. Their old lives were miserable; but they wanted to go back. Their old stories were terrible; but they longed to jump back. It was awful; but I suppose it was comfortable. Maybe. I’m not sure what made them want to return to Egypt back then. I’m not sure what makes us want to keep going back today.

Some of us are living the wrong story. We’re all on the other side of the Exodus. We’ve all crossed over from slavery to sin and death to a brand new life as God’s eternal people in complete subjection to him. In Christ, we’ve moved out of one country and into another. But some of us are determined to pass through those waters back to Egypt. Some of us are working for things and chasing dreams that the world says are important. And we’re not satisfied. We’re restless. Some of us are depressed or despondant because we don’t have the status or the security that our world says is so valuable. We’re unhappy. Some of us are living the story the world says is our story instead of the brand new story we’ve all been given by our God.

The enemies are dead on the shore! Do you see them? Our Father wants us to see those dead, lifeless, completely conquered enemies! In Christ, he has totally destroyed sin and death and Satan and all the things that might separate us from him. The pain, the past, the failure, the anxiety — all of it is helpless against our God. He’s already drowned it out in the salvation waters of our baptisms. It’s over! Whatever had so messed up our stories is gone now. In the promised Messiah, God has given us an eternal victory even more decisive than what the Israelites saw on the shore.

That’s our story. Our story is about the power of our God who acts in mercy and grace through his Son to deliver us from our enemies and bring us into a brand new life as his brand new people. Our identity is completely changed. Our values are totally different. Our story is radically transformed. Because the Kingdom we serve is not of this world. And neither is the King we worship!

May we be a people of the correct story — the story of salvation from God, not the story of fate and chance that comes from the world. And may that salvation story shape us by God’s grace into the holy people he has called us and saved us to be.

Peace,

Allan

Salvation Belongs to Our God

December 5, 2012 / / 0 Comments

The Red Sea crossing in Exodus 14 is the ultimate foundational event that creates and identifies the people of God. And we always refer to it as the Exodus. But you may be interested to know that the word “exodus” never occurs one time in the actual narrative. The Hebrew words used in the book of Exodus to refer to the creation and redemption of God’s people are these:

ga’al – to protect or preserve the integrity of the family or clan

padah – to pay the purchase price to free a captive or a slave

ha’aleh – to cause to go up

hevi – to cause to bring in

hotsi – to cause to go out

As Israel is delivered from Egyptian bondage and saved through the waters of the sea, the focus of the activity is on God and what he’s doing. God is doing all of it. Israel is completely helpless and powerless to contribute one thing to the salvation process. It’s all on God. Israel’s job is to trust God, to “stand firm,” to “be still,” and to “see.” God is the one who brings them out and delivers them and saves them with his strong arm and outstretched hand.

Just as the Israelites passed through the waters of the sea, we pass through the waters of baptism into a new life in the Father through Christ Jesus. And, again, our God is the one redeeming and saving. We bring nothing to the table except our willingness to trust him and submit to him and his salvation purposes.

“Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.” ~1 Peter 2:10

Peace,

Allan

For the Sake of Others

November 29, 2012 / / 0 Comments

In keeping with his promises to Israel, God saves them. The Hebrew Scriptures make it very plain, telling in great detail using God’s own words, the how and the why of God saving Israel. “I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.”

“My treasured possession:” royal property belonging to God purely by his own will and desire.

“The whole earth is mine:” the Lord can do as he pleases; and it pleases him to make Israel his own.

“A kingdom of priests, a holy nation:” Israel is different; set apart from the other nations.

Yes, the people belong to God and, yes, they are called to be separate from the rest of the world. But Israel is not separate in that they live in isolation from the other nations. As holy and priestly, Israel is the means by which God will save and bless the entire world. The purpose of God’s people is international in scope. It’s nature is global. Israel is a holy and priestly nation that God has chosen to work through to bring about his eternal plans for mankind.

God calls his people to live holy lives, to stick out like a sore thumb in the ways they live. Why? For the sake of others! To save the world!

God has created a people to be the means for reconciling the nations to himself. And when God’s people disobey God’s laws, when they live in ways that are not holy, when God’s people do what everybody else is doing, yes, it has serious implications for their relationship with God. But, much bigger than that, it thwarts the salvation plans of heaven for everybody else.

Look at the golden calf.

“Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies.” ~Exodus 32:25

Rather than redeeming the nations, Israel rejects the God who saved her and becomes a laughingstock, a point of ridicule. As a result, the world is less attracted to the true God than ever before. All throughout the Old Testament, Israel’s disobedience to God leads to their reproach by the rest of the world. And that’s totally counter to God’s purpose for his people. He made his people for the sake of others.

Even in the exile, where Israel felt the full weight of the consequences of her disobedience, the focus is on how this is impacting the salvation of the rest of the world. God promises to bring the remnant of Israel back to the land in order to renew his universal purpose in calling Israel in the first place.

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” ~Isaiah 49:6

Even in the darkest period of Israel’s history, when her own release from captivity was the most pressing concern, God reminds his people of the broader picture. He reminds them that it’s not about them. Why are they going to be released? Why are they going to be rescued? For the sake of others, not themselves. To bring salvation to the rest of the world.

As God’s people and devout followers of his Son, it’s not about us. It’s about the rest of the world. Your church is not about you and the people you sit with, it’s about your city. Your Bible class or your small group is not about you and your friends, it’s about your neighborhood, your community. It’s not about us. It’s not about any of us. It’s about God using us to save others. We are saved, we are brought together in him, we exist for the sake of others.

“You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you… that they may see your good deeds and glorify God.” ~1 Peter 2:9-12

Peace,

Allan

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