Sinai is Here

It is an obvious thing to say, “Reading the Bible is so rewarding…” It is also a whole other thing to go through it, struggle to gain understanding, and then stumble upon a gem that makes your heart glow.  I’m on my fifth read through of the Bible, and my brain just explodes every now and then.  I can’t help but wonder in those times, “What in the world?  Am I the only one seeing this?  How does this not get preached on?”

The Book of Psalms is where I have focused my slow study.  In Sunday School this morning we were reading out of Colossians and I kind of chuckled because there are only four chapters in it.  Oh, Psalms…you and your one hundred and fifty chapters (and more if you’re Catholic or Eastern Orthodox).  It has been easy to feel like they are never ending, but my goodness are they absolute treasures for the church.  

Our subject today is the sixty-eighth Psalm.  David uses the Psalm to track the Lord’s holy procession through the desert like He is a conquering king making His victorious march to His throne in Jerusalem, in the temple.  David encourages us to “extol” the LORD, and it is interesting that the word “extol” means “to clear a highway”.  I’m still meditating on what this means for us since we often use “extol” as a word meaning “praise”.  How does our praise clear a highway for Him?  I do have some thoughts on that, but there is something even more interesting and important in verse eighteen.  

I was minding my own business, kind of surface enjoying the poetry before me when I stumbled mentally on the phrase, “Now Sinai is in the sanctuary.”  What?  Sinai is a mountain.  Is David saying a mountain has fit into the sanctuary?  Is Zion/Jerusalem the new Sinai?

Some notes in my study Bible helped me understand that David has been, through the Psalm, tracking the LORD’s march through history from Sinai to the Temple.  Now, the Temple hadn’t been built yet in David’s day.  That would be a project for his son, Solomon.  So, the promise of the Temple is there in David’s mind.  He is also making a deep connection between the Ark of the Covenant and Sinai.  We have to go back a little bit to understand why.  

In Exodus, God recruits Moses to go to Pharaoh and tell him to, “Let my people go.”  But go to what?  God tells Moses that the end point of the journey was the long promised land; the Land Flowing With Milk and Honey.  The LORD tells Moses to tell Pharaoh that He wants him to let the Israelite slaves to go into the desert, to Sinai, to serve Him at that mountain.  

God’s purpose was certainly to release the Israelites from the bondage of slavery because…well…slavery bad.  And, yes, God would fulfill His oath to Abraham to bring His chosen people to the Promised Land.  However, I believe God had a deeper purpose, and that was Sinai itself; or rather the experience at Sinai.

A lot of weird stuff happens at Sinai, and I’m not even talking about the Golden Calf and the orgy party, or the ground swallowing people.  I’m talking about before the Israelites screwed things up.  There’s a moment where God invites Moses and the elders of the tribes to eat with Him.  He is surrounded by a dense cloud, but they can see His feet.  HIS FEET!  God also warns Moses that none of them are to touch His holy mountain, Sinai.  If they come up on it they will surely die.  But then before He gives them the Law He tells the entire nation of Israel to come up the mountain and Moses has to remind God of what God said.  And then we have the weirdest moment for me.  God gives the Ten Commandments with His own voice to His people, Israel.  They go nuts.  They beg God to stop, to put Moses and, ultimately, the priesthood between them and Him.  They couldn’t handle the presence of the LORD.  Later in the tabernacle and in the Temple there were times where it was too much for the priests themselves to handle.  They couldn’t do their work because the cloud of God’s presence was too dense and affected them deeply.  

That was the Sinai that I think David is talking about.  Sinai is where God met with His people, and spoke to them.  It was where they saw Him and experienced Him in power.  When the Ark of the Covenant was fashioned it became that place; it became a portable Sinai.  When it came to rest in the Temple God’s presence, His Glory, His Name came to rest there.  Isaiah talks about a point before the Exile where he saw the Glory depart from the Temple and he grieved.  The Ark was no longer a Sinai.  The Temple was no longer the place where God met with His people in power and it never would be again…well…until…

Coming off of the Advent season my mind has still been lingering over some of the components of the story of Jesus’ birth.  We are told that He would be called “Emmanuel” which means, “God With Us”, and He was in a literal sense.  However I’m starting to suspect that when we look through the scriptures, “Emmanuel” has always been the point…from the very beginning.  Literally, “In the Beginning”.

“God with us” was one of the features of life on Earth at the Garden of Eden.  The Garden was God’s original desire, it was what He called not just good but Very Good.  He literally came down from heaven in the cool of the evening and hung out with Adam and Eve.  I believe it has been so dear to God’s heart that He be with us that it is the reason God set Israel free from slavery to begin with.  How great is freedom?  How great is a land Flowing With Milk and Honey?  Pretty great.  How empty is it without the presence of the Lord?  

Without ever knowing or experiencing God Himself all things are vain and fruitless.  We may have freedom and fertile land but we would be without meaning, hope, and really without knowing someone as immensely great as God is.  We would not know divine love, care, mercy and goodness.  Israel without Sinai would be no different than the other nations.  “Promise made, promise kept.  Yay, God.  Thank’s, but we’ll take it from here.” Which if we’re honest is how many of us live our day to day lives.

With the advent of Jesus, He in His bodily for was now Sinai.  When He died and rose from the dead it was still not enough to satisfy the desires of God to be with His people.  Jesus ascended for the expressed reason that if He left we would be given something greater than even Jesus.  We would be given, from the Father, the Holy Spirit within us.  Not just God with us, but God with-in us.

Sinai is not in the Temple, the sanctuary, the holy city, or the Church.  Sinai is here.  Sinai is now.  Sinai is in you, if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.  God is not separated from you.  He calls you to abide in Him, to literally make your home in Him.  He promises that when He comes knocking if we open the door then He will come in, sit with us, and eat with us.  YES.  He will eat with us like He ate with Moses and the Elders of the Tribes, in a way.  He speaks and we can hear His voice.  We can speak to Him and He hears.  He plants His law in our hearts and we supernaturally bear fruit.  We are not separated.  He is there with your right now, and you can know it is certain because it is His desire from the foundation of the Earth.  

Yes, we see through a glass darkly for now.  Yes, there are times when it doesn’t feel like we are close to Him.  But that is entirely our fault through many ways and forms.  Paul tells us that there is now NO separation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  And so it is.

Sinai is here.  Sinai is now.  Sinai is within you, waiting for you to realize it and live like it.  Knock on His door.  Invite Him in.  See what happens next.