Clayton Presbyterian Church
December 3, 2006
A couple had two little boys, ages 8 and 10, who were mischievous. They were always getting into trouble, and their parents knew that if any mischief occurred in their town, their sons were probably involved.
The boys' mother heard that a clergyman in town had been successful in disciplining children, so she asked if he would speak with her boys. The clergyman agreed, but asked to see them individually. So the mother sent her 8-year-old in to see him the following morning, intending to send the older boy in the afternoon.
The clergyman, a huge man with a booming voice, sat the younger boy down and sternly asked, "Where is God?" The boy's mouth dropped open, but he made no response. The clergyman repeated the question in an even sterner tone, "Where is God!!?" Again the boy made no attempt to answer. The clergyman got to his feet. Shaking his finger in the boy's face, he bellowed, "WHERE IS GOD!?"
The boy screamed and bolted from the room. He ran directly home and dove into his closet, slamming the door behind him. When his older brother found him a few minutes later, he asked, "What happened?"
The younger brother, gasping for breath, replied, "We're in BIG trouble this time, dude. God is missing—and they think we did it!"
The question, “Where is God?” is one that occurs with increasing frequency in the Bible. From the beginning when Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden all the way until the Israelites were taken out of their land and into captivity, the question took on greater urgency. This is the path that we are traveling in this sermon series. We began with Adam and Eve. Last week we looked at Abraham and the promises that God made to him.
A lot of time has passed since we last checked in with our hero. Last week, if you will remember, God made three promises to Abraham. The question then became whether Abraham would trust God to fulfill those promises, or would he take the steering wheel and try to accomplish things himself.
Abraham’s great-grandsons all went to Egypt during a great drought. Then initially did very well there. They prospered and multiplied. But eventually they became a threat and the Egyptians enslaved them and valued them for the labor that they could supply. 400 years had passed when God called Moses in a burning bush to go back to Egypt and lead his people out of Egypt, which he of course did. God eventually brought them to Mt. Horeb, from which he gave them the 10 commandments. And God spoke to the whole nation of the Israelites from the mountain—and it terrified them. The presence of God was an awesome thing. They asked if Moses would intercede for them so that they wouldn’t have to be so close to God.
Our Scripture reading this morning comes about 40 years after this time. The book of Deuteronomy is a collection of Moses’ farewell speeches in which he gives the Israelites some final wisdom before he goes to be with God and they take possession of the land that God promised to them. In this speech in chapter 18, he is reminding them of this time at Horeb when they decided that they wanted some distance between God and themselves.
15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet. 16 This is what you requested of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said: "If I hear the voice of the Lord my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die." 17 Then the Lord replied to me: "They are right in what they have said. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. 19 Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable. (NRSV)
What the Israelites were asking for was a mediator, a go-between. They didn’t want to be forced to see God face-to-face. They needed a buffer between God’s righteousness and their unrighteousness. Thus, they asked that God would give them someone to go before God and hear what he had to say and then to come back to them and report it. They did this because the presence of the Lord was too terrifying. And so they drew back. Do you see what is happening? They wanted God to be more distant. They wanted God to be far off.
The reason for this was really just because of their own sinfulness and selfishness. When God is present in all of his glory, it is like shinning the brightest spotlight in all of its intensity. And you know how it goes, the more light that you have the more dirt you can see. Your car or the floor in your kitchen might look pretty clean when the lighting conditions aren’t so good. But, as soon as you shine a bright light, you began to see the dirt that has accumulated. And that is one thing on a car or a floor, it is quite another when you are dealing with the God of the universe who is completely pure, holy, and righteous. The Israelites knew this. They believed that if you looked on the face of God then you would die.
Now, this hadn’t happened. In fact, Moses had even seen God’s face, but he didn’t perish. Instead, he would return and his face would be radiant and white from being in the presence of the almighty God.
The same is true for us. When we sin, we shirk back. We don’t want to pray and have to approach God. Who knows what will happen? Who knows what God will do? Often we don’t want to pray and ask God’s will about something, because we don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to pray and ask God if he is calling me to be a missionary in Haiti, because he just might say ‘yes.’ Or, you might not want to ask God if it is his will for you to buy a new car, or what not, because he just might say, “no.” And so we don’t go to God. We avoid God. And then later we wonder why God seems absent from our lives and why is it hard to discern how God wants us to live our lives. And so, our selfishness, our desire to live life on our terms, pushes God to the periphery of our lives. We want a life that is safe. We want a life that is comfortable, rather than the life that God has in mind, a life of adventure and fullness.
Sir Francis Drake, who was a great explorer of the oceans during the Elizabethan era composed and amazing prayer that I want to share with you. He prayed this prayer about our desire for security and comfort:
Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, when we arrive safely because we have sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the waters of life; having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity; and in our efforts to build a new Earth, we have allowed our vision of the new heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery; where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. We ask you to push back the horizons of our hopes; and to push into the future in strength, courage, hope, and love."
When we pull away from God out of a desire for comfort or control, we miss out on all that he has for us.
The Israelites chose the same thing that we too often do. They chose to push God away or to ignore him. And things went from bad to worse. However, as we said before, this is where God is at his best (if it even makes sense to say that).
God gives them a promise. His promise is that he will raise another up. It won’t be Moses, but one like Moses. God will give his Word to this one. He will speak the truth and will reveal God’s mind and his heart and his will to the people. If they people won’t listen directly to God, God will not forsake or abandon them. God loves us too much to leave us to our bad decisions. He will ensure that his Word does not fall silent. He will send this one, who is like Moses, so that his people may still have his Word.
As more and more time went on, the Israelites wondered when God would send this Anointed one, this prophet of prophets. And finally, he sent him 2000 years ago in the form of a little child in Bethlehem. Jesus was the fulfillment of that promise.
He was the one who came that would speak God’s truth. Because he himself was God, we have the full, unvarnished revelation of God to us. But, because he was a human, we could relate to him. This was the genius and the miracle of the incarnation. We really have God—God himself, and not a cheap imitation. But we meet him in a form that we can accept.
One of the greatest Christian theologians that ever lived was named, St. Augustine. This is what he wrote about Jesus’ purpose on earth.
God became a man for this purpose: since you, a human being, could not reach God, but you can reach other humans, you might now reach God through a man. And so the man Christ Jesus became the mediator of God and human beings. God became a man so that following a man—something you are able to do—you might reach God, which was formerly impossible to you. — Commentary on Psalm 134, 5.
God did send a mediator, just like Moses was, only better. He was fully God but in human form. God bridged the distance between heaven and earth, which sin created.
This promise which was made to the Israelites in the Old Testament, was finally seen in the New Testament to have been about Jesus. In Acts 3:19-20, the apostle Peter is preaching to the Jews, explaining to them that this is the promise, even as he reminds them that they were the ones who killed him. What Peter encouraged the Jews to do in verse 19 was to “repent from their sin and turn to God.” That is the best thing you can do from sin.
But I want for us to notice the results, the consequences of turning from our sins. As it goes on to say in verse 20, “so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” If we turn from our sins, we come into the presence of the Lord. And it is the mere presence of the Lord which brings the refreshment and the renewal. That is what it is to be near God—life itself.
Last year at this time the movie, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, was in the theaters. When the children in the movie first come to the enchanted land of Narnia they find it locked in an unending winter, which never turns to Spring. However, as Aslan the Lion, who represents Christ in the movie, draws closer in his returns to Narnia, the ice begins to melt. New growth starts poking up through the snow, until very soon the whole landscape is awash with blooms and blossoms. Everything has turned from a frozen white to a vibrant green—all because the king has returned. His mere presence brings life.
New life does come at a cost. The Israelites were partly correct. God’s presence also brings death, but not to our whole selves. It only means death to our old selves, the sinful and selfish parts of our life. Because you see, new life needs somewhere to go. Some of the old life has to go in order to make room. The new life that we get from God can only come if we are willing to give up our old life. But if we are, then God wants us to have renewal and refreshment and new life by his presence in our lives. This is what happened in Jesus, God came near. But he wasn’t recognized.
On several occasions, King Abdullah II of Jordan has disguised himself and mingled with his subjects. His rationale for this unorthodox approach is to better understand and serve his people. Taking the character of an ordinary old Arab man, he has appeared in public with a fake white beard, wearing the traditional Jordanian kufiah, and the Arabic white dress. While so disguised, the king walked around two government buildings without security and was not noticed. While waiting in a long line, he engaged people in conversation and listened to their point of view.
Such incognito appearances have marked the 42-year-old monarch's reign since he assumed the throne in 1999. He disguised himself as an old man previously while visiting a hospital. Another time, he circulated around Amman behind the wheel of a taxicab. Still another time, he passed himself off as a television reporter trying to cover a story at a duty-free shop.
Jordanian government employees aren't taking any chances. They have started to spend time looking at people's faces, fearing they could meet the king in disguise.
Some even today look at Jesus and see just another person. But for some they look to Jesus and see the King. They see the one who was promised to the Israelites to bring the word of truth. They see the one who came so that all of the families of the earth might be blessed.
Are you one of those?
Let’s Pray. . .
Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, when we arrive safely because we have sailed too close to the shore.Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the waters of life; having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity; and in our efforts to build a new Earth, we have allowed our vision of the new heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery; where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. We ask you to push back the horizons of our hopes; and to push into the future in strength, courage, hope, and love."