So when the children of Israel got to Mt. Sinai, they did NOT like it! The Lord was there. Thick smoke and clouds covered the mountain. There was fire and flashes of lightning and rumblings and the blast of the horns. If you even touched the mountain, you were dead. The holy God was there and you didn't dare get too close! So they said, “Moses! You go talk to the Lord. We'll just stay here while you go do it. You talk to God and then tell us what He says, OK? If your survive?” You know we often think that if we could just see God with our eyes, or see some miraculous revelation or glimpse the Lord in some way, we'd really believe, really be faithful. But the truth is, we'd be like the children of Israel. Run! Let someone else go talk to that God!
The Lord confirmed that their idea was a good one by establishing Moses as His prophet. It was through Moses that the Lord spoke to His people. If you wanted to know what God said, you didn't go to the mountain and ask God, you went to Moses. Moses would tell you the Lord's words. But it wasn't that Moses was trying to be power hungry or act like a big shot. The people WANTED it that way. The Lord won't deal with His people apart from His Word, delivered by Moses. You don't get to God except through Moses. Well, you could, but you'd be dead in a flash! The Lord does this to protect His people. Rather than approach Him in their sins, He comes to them through Moses and His Word so that the people are not destroyed. But Moses won't be around forever. So the Lord tells His people that He is going to raise up a prophet like Moses who will do the same thing. But there will be one thing different...
The difference, when this Prophet comes, is that He will be the Lord Himself. The Son of God in the flesh. When Jesus is born, we learn that God is not going to make us come to Him but He comes to us. When we go to God on our own there is nothing there but the terrors of Mt. Sinai. But when God comes to us, there is a God you can see and deal with without being destroyed. When people approached Mt. Sinai, there was the fearful expectation of God's judgment. But when the Prophet comes, Jesus, He goes to Mt. Calvary to save us from the wrath of God. On Mt. Calvary is not the scary but the hidden God. Not the mighty Lord but the weak and crucified. Not the mountain crowned with fire and smoke but the man crowned with thorns. Not men who quiver in fear but men who stand and mock or weep. And yet, on that mountain, there IS the wrath of God. But now it is not to destroy us but to wound and kill God's own Son. On Mt. Calvary, the Lord of Sinai takes our place and spares us from His destructive power that would doom us.
The Lord does not want to deal with us apart from His flesh and His Word. How does He do that? By His flesh and His Word! Word, water, body and blood—in the means of grace, the forgiveness of sins given in His church. There's no need to go looking for God. He's right here. Right here for you. Repent of seeking the Lord anywhere other than where He has promised to be found. Out there, in the world, in the amazing things and in the disasters, in your experiences and emotions, there's no sure and certain God. Look at the sunset! God loves you! Your house burns to the ground. God hates you! See how quickly and easily what we want to think about God can be confused? But here, in His church, your Baptism says He loves and forgives you. His Word says He loves and forgives you. His Body and Blood say He loves and forgives you. Always. No matter what is going on out there. Because He has come in the flesh for you.
You see, there are two ways to have God. You can approach Him yourself, on your own, apart from Christ. But then there is nothing but the fiery thunderous judgment of Mt. Sinai. There is the God who can and will kill you because He is holy and you aren't. Or you can have God the way He comes to you. Hidden. In the flesh. To save and forgive. On a cross. As a Savior. That God is the One who gave His life for us and took it up again and who promises that He did it to raise you up on the Last Day. The children of Israel needed a prophet like Moses to keep them from getting destroyed by the Lord. Now we have the greater Prophet, God's own Son Jesus Christ who does the same thing only greater, not just protecting us from Mt. Sinai but from all of God's wrath and giving us eternal life by His Words. So off to Mt. Calvary. But first stop is the city of David where the Lord first appears in the flesh at His birth. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.
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