March 2 – Exodus Week 9

Main Focus: God is indescribably holy yet we can follow Jesus into his presence.

This week marks the start of Lent, the six weeks that lead up to Easter (be sure to check the events page for Easter-season events like Ash Wednesday). It might seem odd to be in Exodus this time of year, but as we’ll see in discussion this week, the exodus account is God’s way of revealing shadows of heavenly realities. Specifically, this week we’ll see a clear impression of the problem solved by Christ’s death on the cross: the problem of an unholy people incapable of entering the presence of a holy God.

We’re moving through Exodus at a steady clip, and over the next four weeks we’ll cover the second half of the book (Exodus 19-40). This week is the prelude to the covenant in chapter 19, with Israel approaching Mt. Sinai; the next three weeks will cover, in order, the giving of the law (ch. 20-23), the confirmation of the covenant (ch. 24), and the specifications for the Tabernacle (ch. 25-40). Here in Exodus 19, Israel finally arrives from Egypt to worship at the same mountain God revealed himself through the burning bush (Exo 3:12).

As our Main Focus suggests, we’re mostly talking about God’s holiness this week. There’s loads more in the passage though, such as God’s giving of the law after redemption from Egypt rather than before (which shows obedience flows from salvation, not salvation from obedience), or the strange rules for approaching God like washing your clothes and abstaining from sex (19:15). On that latter point, it’s not quite clear in the passage if the addition of temporary abstinence was an explanation of what God meant or just Moses’s extra addition to God’s command, just to be safe. Either way, we can take those protocols to indicate that preparation for worship leads us to observe a special, not-your-average-day way of living.

Moving on, perhaps what catches most of our attention in the passage is the intensity of it all, the fire and lightning and heavenly trumpet blasts. God’s holy presence is severe, cataclysmic even, and God does nothing to soften the blow of it so that he can impress upon his people the seriousness of his words (19:9). And that’s not just because he wants them to listen up; he has a job for them. We’ll specifically ask about his intention for Israel in verses 5-6 and chew for a moment on what it might mean for God’s people to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” We’ll come back to that thought in the last question because it’s still God’s intention for us today (cf. 1 Peter 2:9).

We’ll then ask how the passage can help us understand God’s holiness and our lack of holiness. And though God’s holy presence is intense, we shouldn’t miss that it’s also intensely good—he is perfect and just and the source of all goodness. The problem here isn’t merely that God is holy and we can’t be in his presence, as if he’s radioactive and we simply don’t have the right hazmat suit on. No, God’s holy presence is the place for which we were created and, since Eden, the place from which we’ve been exiled. The problem is that God invites us to draw near to him and yet, sinful as we are, we can’t.

As we go through this section of Exodus, the Letter to the Hebrews is going to help explain it, especially the covenant confirmation and Tabernacle building in coming weeks. You can look at Hebrews 12:18-29 for some other parallels to this week’s passage, but in discussion we’ll turn to Hebrews 10:19-25 to see the solution to the problem of our unholiness: Jesus is the mediator who can, once and for all, usher us into God’s presence. That passage will help us see how we can now draw near to God (among other things, not in fear but in confidence) and how we can grow in holiness.

We’ll ask what, in particular, is most challenging to each of us about growing in holiness. For many of us, “holiness” is just not something we think about often, or feel has much bearing on our daily life. For others of us, we simply don’t know where to start. All of us, however, can benefit from talking about what it means to live a holy life, particularly because the work of making disciples involves teaching them to obey all that Jesus has commanded us (Matt 28:20).

Finally, we’ll return to that idea of being a holy people together. On that topic, when we read “holy nation,” it might provoke thinking in national categories (i.e. what it means for America to be more Christian), but reference Peter’s use of it in 1 Peter 2:9 and you’ll see that word “nation” describes the global, multi-ethnic and multi-national church, not a single country. Instead, we can talk more immediately about what it means for our group, us right here and now, to carry out this mission of being a light of God’s holiness to the surrounding nation(s). And that will give us plenty to contemplate, particularly in how Jesus can empower us to do his work in the world.