Gracing Us With His Presence.

Most of the time in modern usage, if you hear the phrase, “gracing us with your presence,” it is immediately preceded by a thick, sarcastic “thanks for…” when someone is late to an appointment. But in a very real way we’re reminded in our readings how God graces us with His presence.

Today in the readings we are finally getting on the move again. We’ve been sitting at the base of Mount Sinai for quite some time now, hearing about various rules and regulations. We’ve counted the numbers of the various clans. We’ve learned the numerous tasks of the Levites in caring for the many artifacts that make up the tabernacle, the portable church that the Levites literally carry with them as they travel. (Thanks, sea cows, for giving your hides for the protection of these holy bowls, utensils, and poles! Pg. 225)

I’ve spent a lot of time lately setting up spaces and taking them down with the help of willing volunteers at Trinity. Each week the gym needs to be set up and taken down again in order to make the ‘activity center’ one that accommodates the needs of a Sunday morning bible study class. Roll out the mats. Pull out the carts for tables and chairs. Set up the tables. Place 8 chairs around each one. Often it’s high school boys that put in time on their Saturdays to move furniture. Then, each bible study ends with willing volunteers from class staying after to pick up what has been used. Thank you, willing servants! We benefit from and appreciate your work!

I think this is a faint reflection of what it would have looked like to have a whole sector of the Israelite people, families working together, each with their items to carry. It’s a beautiful sight to see people doing such a simple act of service together.

It only becomes an ugly or undesirable thing when one person is tasked with carry all of it. God well understood the need to share the burden. (No one person could have carried all that stuff!) That’s why the Kohathites, the Merarites, and the Gershonites were each given jobs: “Assign to each man the specific things he is to carry, (pg. 228)” Everyone had some corner of the church that they needed to lift up and carry with them. Imagine what it would have looked like the community got on the move and then came to rest. Thousands of people unpacking their respective bowls and utensils and assembling them all into a worship space. Whenever the cloud of God’s presence rested, they rested. Whenever it moved, they followed God’s lead, “whether two days, or a month or a year… (pg. 235).”

The key thing here: God went with them! The blessings at the end of today’s readings remind us of this movement of God’s presence. When they moved Moses said, “Rise up, O Lord! May your enemies be scattered; may your foes flee before you.” When they rested, Moses called out, “Return, O Lord, to the countless thousands of Israel.”

No small thing. God’s presence was the distinguishing mark of the Israelite community among the surrounding nations. Remember back to how Moses pleaded with God in Exodus 33:15 (pg. 172) “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here… What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”

God didn’t want to do it. He was going to stay true to His covenant with Israel at Sinai. The problem was Israel didn’t hold up their end of the deal, they didn’t obey. They made a Golden Calf. Therefore, they deserve death and the permanent departure of the Lord’s presence. God was bound by the Sinai covenant to scrap the Israelite people and to start over with Moses and his family.

BUT Moses pleaded with God. He interceded on behalf of the people in Exodus 32. He asked God to look with favor on the Israelites, but he didn’t plead on the basis of the Sinai covenant. He begged on the basis of the covenant with Abraham. “I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.” What’s more, God “relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened,” (pg. 170). God RELENTED. He, we could say, REPENTED. He changed his mind. Though God is a God of order and justice and judgment, He will turn that aside in favor of his greater qualities: GRACE. MERCY. To be sure there were consequences of their actions: a plague swept through the people, they had to drink water with the dust of the golden calf they had cast. But the greater evil was avoided because God did not remove his presence from them. He continued with these stiff-necked people.

In the same way today, God graces us with His presence. We are sinful and don’t hold up our end of the deal. Yet God continues to stick with us; He’s committed with a steadfast, undying love. A love that is willing to experience death for us, death on a cross. I hope that you may live out your days being reminded of how God graces us with His presence. If moving some chairs or setting up tables or refilling candles, or laying down ice melt helps to keep that in the forefront of your mind, jump in and be of service. You may just find that carrying your corner of the church is as much a grace and blessing to you as it is to those whom you are serving. 

As always, thanks for reading. 

Pastor Karl