Sunday, Oct. 6
Exodus 39:1 – 40:38 Read it here
A lot happened in the 40 chapters of Exodus. Yet, if this were a movie, you would know the ending is intended for a sequel.
Chapter 1 began with the Israelites in captivity in Egypt. It ends, not in the Promised Land, but on a journey. They’ve traded the predictable certainty of slavery for an unpredictable adventure.
Even though they have left where they lived for generations and have not yet arrived at the place God is preparing for them, they are now home, for they are now following God.
All the preparations for the tent of meeting, with its furnishings and structure and outfitting the priests needed one more thing: God’s presence. Now that they have prepared, God arrives to meet them.
Even when we have met God and known him, we experience times when we don’t see God except as a memory of past experience and a hope for future experience. The people have seen this happen, and reacted in different ways, just as we all do.
When Moses was with God on the mountain, they reacted out of fear. Maybe the God who had saved them once was through with them. Maybe the God who changed the hardened heart of Pharaoh was left behind in Egypt and had not come with them into this desolate land. Maybe Moses, and the angel that led them, weren’t up to the task at hand.
In that instance they responded by reverting to the old ways and made themselves a God. Aaron, who was supposed to be speaking for God, instead gave in to his own fear and doubts and went with the familiar instead of the faithful. They made themselves a god. Like any god made by human hands and imaginations, it wasn’t big enough to save them.
During all this time they have been building the ark and the tabernacle, we don’t see God speaking to them—yet they act out of faith, continuing to follow the commands God had already provided. They acted with confident expectation that, if they did what God had told them to, they could once again be assured of God’s presence and direction.
And it worked.
The tabernacle is built, and God fills it with his presence.
He stays with them for a season, then moves on, trusting they will follow, and they do.
That’s what home is when you live in the kingdom of God.