St. Paul Lutheran Church, Ann Arbor. Oct.7, 2012
Day One:
“I am the Lord your God, who brought
you out of Egypt, out of the land of
slavery. You shall have no other gods before
me.”
The Code of Laws of the United
States of America is 200,000 pages
long. Add in the laws of the state
(all your traffic laws) and of the city
(all of those laws about your house
and yard and recyclables) and there
are a LOT of laws. Sometimes that
can be irritating.
Why must we have so
many laws? Naturally, people will
disagree about whether certain
laws are needed. And sometimes
laws are passed for selfish reasons,
because one group wants to limit
the freedom of another group. But
most laws exist for a simple reason,
in order for peole to live together in
harmony.
Harmony - another word
for that is concord, or Concordia.
Our Lutheran churches have used
that word as a name for our colleges
for many years because Jesus said it
was vitally important that Christians
live together in love. Our love for
one another would show the world
the character of Jesus’ love. And the
law is a description of how we may
act lovingly toward one another.
Many of us argued with our
parents about their laws, their rules
for our homework, our dating, our
use of the car. We might even have
thought that our parents didn’t love
us, or that other kids were better
READINGS FOR WEEK Five:
“The Story” Chapter 5, or
Exodus 19-20, 24-25, 32-34, 40
off to have parents with fewer rules.
But as we grew up we realized that
those rules were good for us. In
fact, those rules existed because our
parents loved us.
But God did not give us the
law in order to force us to love him.
He gave us the law because of his
love for us. He said to the Israelites
in Deuteronomy, “what other nation
is so great as to have such righteous
decrees and laws as this body of
laws I am setting before you today?”
Although God gave the
law on tablets of stone upon a fiery
mountain, yet he gave them to us
out of love. And, when we could
not obey them, he fulfilled them for
us out of love.
Prayer: Father, I have sometimes
complained about your laws. I have often
broken them. But I see your love in them.
Forgive me, and empower me, by your
Holy Spirit. Amen.
Day Two:
When Moses went up on the mountain,
the cloud covered it, and the glory of the
Lord settled on Mount Sinai. For six days
the cloud covered the mountain, and on the
seventh day the Lord called to Moses from
within the cloud.
Important people do not wait for
unimportant people. The one who is
less important is always the one who
has to wait.
So the doctor doesn’t sit
around waiting for you to arrive for
you appointment. You sit around
waiting for him - even if you were
on time for your appointment. In
college we had this rule if a teacher
was late for class. We would wait 10
minutes for a full professor. We’d
wait 5 minutes for an associate
professor. And we’d slip out of the
room at one second after the time
for an instructor. Each teacher had a
different time value.
But seven days? Who would
wait seven days for someone?
Moses waited an entire
week on the mountain, surrounded
by clouds. There were no soft
chairs. There were no magazines or
television shows. There was only
time to think about what God had
just done, and what God would do
next.
What would you have
done? Would you have stayed the
entire seven days? Would you wait
and trust that God would speak?
It might be that he will ask you to
wait longer than that. After God
began to speak to Moses it was still
another forty days and nights that
Moses spent with God. The people
below, looking up at the smoking
mountain but not allowed to go
near it, had no idea what God was
doing or when Moses would return.
And they were afraid to approach
God. They knew that they were
clearly less important, less powerful,
less holy than God. They waited
in fear, and eventually they turned
away from God to worship false
gods. They turned toward gods who
would come when they were called,
gods whom they thought they could
control with their sacrifices.
But this is not the character
of the God that Moses knew. And
this is not the character of the God
whom we worship. Hebrews says,
“You have not come to a mountain
that can be touched and that is
burning with fire; to darkness,
gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast
or to such a voice speaking words
that those who heard it begged
that no further word be spoken
to them... But you have come
to Mount Zion, to the heavenly
Jerusalem, the city of the living
God. You have come to thousands
upon thousands of angels in
joyful assembly, to the church of
the firstborn, whose names are
written in heaven. You have come
to God, the judge of all men, to
the spirits of righteous men made
perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a
new covenant, and to the sprinkled
blood that speaks a better word than
the blood of Abel.”
We wait for God still. We
come to his altar and pray, and we
wait for his answer, given in his
time. But we are not afraid of him.
And we are not afraid that he will
never come, or that he doesn’t hear
us. Because Jesus is our mediator
with the Father, we come in trust
and faith to a glorious and blessed
mountain every time we pray.
Prayer: Father, I you know my sins, you
know my needs and desires. I am content
to wait upon your will. Hear me for Jesus’
sake. Amen.
Day Three:
When the people saw that Moses was so
long in coming down from the mountain,
they gathered around Aaron and said,
“Come, make us gods who will go before
us. As for this fellow Moses who brought
us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what
has happened to him.”
We’re often very critical of the
Israelites. We point out their many
compaints and their whining all
through their time in the wilderness.
We imagine that we would have
been more faithful.
When we have had a life
changing experience, when we’ve
survived an accident, or witnessed a
tragedy, or been forgiven for a huge
mistake and we have said, “I will
never be the same again.” How long
is it before we are acting just like we
did before?
In 2000, my son James and
I were part of an eyeglass clinic
team in Haiti. Our first exposure to
such abject poverty was shocking to
us. Seeing thousands of people who
had, almost literally, nothing, caused
us to look at our own lives very
differently. Instead of complaining
about how slow our computer was,
or wishing for a larger screen TV,
we were sure that we would never
whine about our problems again.
This was such a profound
experience that our new attitude
lasted about one week.
We knew that might
happen, and we deliberately tried
to keep hold of our newfound
gratitude. But it seemed we could
not stop the process. Slowly, bit by
bit, the world encroached on us.
We were surrounded by so many
desirable things that we couldn’t
keep our focus on what we knew
was most important.
The Israelites were living
at the base of a fiery mountain, in
sight of God’s powerful presence.
But seeing it day after day they came
to disregard it. And seeing instead
their daily needs, the activities of
their neighbors, the settled success
of the nations around them, the
grass began to look greener on the
other side of the fence. Maybe a
different god would be better.
So Aaron collected their
gold jewelry and melted it over a
fire, “and out came this calf!” In a
similar way, we suddenly find that
something has taken God’s place
in our life. Our favorite team, our
child’s career, a new love, or even
our own opinions become more
important than our relationship
with God. And we suffer. We don’t
get a plague and we aren’t bitten by
snakes. But we live in a wilderness,
having lost our real purpose.
The good news? God is
in the business of rescuing people
from the wilderness. He did it again
and again for the Israelites. And he
is ready to do it for you.
Prayer: Lord, how many times have I
fallen? How many times have I vowed to
change? But each time, out comes some
object that I obsess about. Jesus, give me
yourself. You and only you. Amen.
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Day Four:
“You have been telling me, ‘Lead these
people,’ but you have not let me know
whom you will send with me. You have
said, ‘I know you by name and you have
found favor with me.’ If you are pleased
with me, teach me your ways so I may
know you and continue to find favor with
you. Remember that this nation is your
people.” The Lord replied, “My Presence
will go with you, and I will give you
rest.” Then Moses said to him, “If your
Presence does not go with us, do not send
us up from here...”
Moses has been honored for
centuries. He has been held in high
regard because he did amazing
things in leading God’s people
out of slavery and through the
wilderness to a new land. He led
them through the Red Sea. He led
them in battle. He led them through
times of starvation. He led them
spiritually, establishing the worship
that would become the temple
practice for more than 1,000 years.
Moses was truly a remarkable leader.
But here we see the truth
about his leadership. Moses is just a
man. He had pleaded with God not
to send him to Egypt, and God had
to get very firm with him and finally
promise to send Aaron to help him.
Moses wavered at the Red Sea and
needed God’s reassurance. And
here he pleads with God to send
someone with him, and for God to
go with his people. He knows, they
cannot do it by themselves.
A lot of people admire
their pastor, or a teacher or another
church worker. And that’s a good
thing. But sometimes we tend to
put them up on a pedestal. We don’t
actually consider them to be holy.
But we count on them to have the
answers, the key to making our
church grow, or the perfect answer
to heal our family or repair our
marriage. When congregations are
calling a new pastor, they may want
a man who will ‘bring in the young
people’ and make things good in the
church again.
Unfortunately, the pastor
we call knows that he doesn’t
have it in him to fix or to lead the
congregation. He doesn’t have the
answers. He doesn’t have much
more than you do. All he has is
God’s Word, and God’s calling, and
the leading of the Holy Spirit.
That’s what we depend
upon, just as much as the Israelites.
Just imagine being responsible for
a whole nation - not just to make
laws or spend their budget - but
to lead them in tents through a
dangerous land - to lead them in
war to conquer a new land and
build homes. Imagine bearing the
responsibility for their disputes, for
finding food, for choosing a future.
“If your Presence does
not go with us, do not send us up
from here.” We could say this same
thing with Moses. Lord, don’t let us
move from this spot unless you are
leading. We will surely fail. We don’t
know what we’re doing.
But... if the Lord is with us,
as he promised, then what do we
need to fear? What is there that we
cannot do? If the Lord is leading,
then we can follow fearlessly.
“I will do the very thing you
have asked, because I am pleased
with you and I know you by name.”
That is God’s answer to you also.
You are his sheep, and he calls you
by name. Don’t fear to follow.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, Good Shepherd,
if you do not lead me it will all end in
disaster. Lord, lead, and teach me to follow
you. Amen.