A Glorious Coincidence?

One of the things I've always been fascinated about when I'm studying the Bible is when I see texts--words, stories, images--tie together and unfold each other. Imagery congeals into fleshy subtance. Meaning precipitates. Events echo and reverberate. Propositions polymerize into connected chains. (Can you tell I'm a science teacher?)

One such instance occurred yesterday morning as I was reading the closing chapters of Exodus. In chapters 35-40 the erection of the tabernacle is described in detail. The tabernacle, or tent of meeting, was meant to be the site where sinful Israel would meet with her holy God--but not without a covering of blood, the life which atoned for her sin.

As its construction reached completion, the following words are recorded:

Thus all the work of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting was finished, and the people of Israel did according to all that the LORD had commanded Moses; so they did. . . . According to all that the LORD had commanded Moses, so the people of Israel had done all the work. And Moses saw all the work, and behold, they had done it; as the LORD had commanded, so had they done it. Then Moses blessed them. (39:32, 42-43 ESV)

Then the following words bring the building phase to its end: "So Moses finished the work" (40:33).

As I chewed on this passage, Genesis 1:31--2:3 came to mind.

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

The italicized words may be a coincidence, an artefact of my overly-enthusiastic imagination. But didn't Moses pen them all? It seems to me that there is some direct and intentional parallelism going on here. But what might it mean? In creation, God finished the work he had done; he saw that it was good and blessed it with his favor and approval. When Moses saw that the people had finished the tabernacle according to God's commands, he blessed them as well.*

The story doesn't end there, though. As the sign of his approval, the Lord's radiant shekinah glory-cloud moved in to the tabernacle and took up residence, dwelling there among his people. "Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle" (Exodus 40:34). Whereas once he refused to meet with sinful, idolatrous Israel within the borders of her camp, opting instead for the top of Mt. Sinai or a tent of meeting outside the camp, God now moved to dwell among his people and reveal his glory there.

Does this imply that in the creation of the universe, God was preparing for himself a place to dwell as the universe's King? Or does it perhaps reveal that the tabernacle is the creation of God's new dwelling place on earth? Should the reader infer that Israel herself is the beginning of a new, redemeed creation of sorts? Taking it further, what does this mean for the church, the fullness of Israel, where God dwells with his covenant people by means of the life-offering of Jesus Christ? I haven't put a lot of thought into it beyond this, but I think it is so awesome to see these sort of connections in Scripture. To me they reveal so much; they are the lifeblood (no pun intended) of study. How much of this stuff is going on in the New Testament as it echoes and retells the Old, and we just don't see it?

"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God' " (Revelation 21:3).
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*Another thing I thought of was that in Genesis 1, God commands or speaks, and his Spirit carries it out. In Exodus 35-40, God lays out the plan for the tabernacle in his commands to Moses, and the Spirit fills Bezalel and Oholiab with the wisdom and skill needed to craft and engineer it.

Advent: God Drawing Near

It's almost inescapable: Christmas is celebrated with placid pastoral scenes of a babe cradled in a bed of straw, with his adoring parents around him beaming. (Of course, in many nativity scenes, the holy family are literally beaming with light!) We think it's a time of good cheer and peacefulness, a time of repose, a time to say, "no more worries." And all that it is. But as I've been studying Exodus over the past few months, the picture painted there of God-come-down is entirely different.

On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloudover the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently, and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. (Exodus 19:16-19)

When the God of the heavens tore open the heavens and came down to meet with his chosen people, he came as "a consuming fire" (24:17). "Our God comes and will not be silent," attests the psalmist. "A fire devours before him, and around him a tempest rages" (Psalm 50:3). God coming to Earth is not a welcome sight for most people. Just ask King David!

In the same sermon from 1928 which I quoted from earlier, Dietrich Bonhoeffer says much the same--that the fearful event of God-among-us should lead Advent to be a time of self-examination.

Perhaps, after all, Advent is a time for self-examination before we open the door [to Christ]. When we stop to consider, the contrast between those early Christians and us is extraordinary. They trembled at the thought of God coming, of the day of the Lord, when Jesus, "Judge eternal, throned in splendor," would shatter the complacency of all the world. But we take the thought of God coming among us so calmly. It is all the more remarkable when we remember that we so often associate the signs of God in the world with human suffering, the cross on Golgotha. Perhaps we have thought so much of God as love eternal and we feel the warm pleasures of Christmas when he comes gently like a child. We have been shielded from the awful nature of Christmas and no longer feel afraid at the coming near of God Almighty. We have selected from the Christmas story only the pleasant bits, forgetting the awesome nature of an event in which the God of the universe, its Creator and Sustainer, draws near to this little planet, and now speaks to us. The coming of God is not only a message of joy, but also fearful news for anyone who has a conscience.

It's difficult for me to keep this in mind, when I've got 27 Christmases of warmth and cheer behind me. But perhaps only when we consider this, pondering it in wonder and awe, will the child who becomes the Prince of Peace really be good news.