Sermon manuscript:
Mt. Sinai was the place where God led Moses and the
Israelites after they came out of Egypt. Mt. Sinai is in the Sinai peninsula—a
very desolate, desert-like place. God had to feed them with manna, and water
them with water from a rock, otherwise they certainly would have died. At Mt.
Sinai God took up residence at the top and manifested his glory. Moses tells us
that his glory was such that there was thunder and lightning, a thick cloud
that covered the mountain, smoke like smoke from a kiln, the earth quaked, and
the sound of a ram’s horn that grew louder and louder.
It was from Mt. Sinai that God gave the Ten Commandments.
These were words that God spoke directly to the Israelites from the top of the
mountain. When God had finished speaking the Ten Commandments, the people said,
“Please, quit speaking to us. If you keep speaking with us we will die. Speak
to Moses instead.” And so it came to pass that God called Moses to the top of
the Mountain while the people were gathered below. Moses was on top of the
mountain for forty days and forty nights. God told him many things. He also
gave him two tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments inscribed upon them,
which Moses brought down with him.
When Moses came down from the Mountain he did not realize
that his face was shining. His face was shining because he had been speaking
with the Lord. This amazed the Israelites so that they were afraid to come near
him. When Moses spoke to the people and when he spoke to the Lord he would
speak with them without a veil. When he was done speaking he would put a veil
over his face. Evidently his appearance was so unnerving that it was easier to
look at the strange sight of a veiled man than it was to see the glory of the
Lord being reflected from his face.
This is important information for our epistle reading this
morning. In the section that was read, Paul is trying to impress upon the
Corinthians that the New Testament, which Paul has preached to them, is more
glorious than even the old covenant that God gave through Moses. There are
several points of comparison that Paul makes. The old was of the letter. The
new is of the Holy Spirit. The old kills. The new gives life. The old works
condemnation. The new works righteousness. The old has been brought to nothing.
The new is enduring. There is an obvious imbalance here. The new is better than
the old. Thus, Paul argues, if the old had so much glory that people weren’t
able to look at Moses’s face because of its reflected glory, then how much more
glory must the new testament have that Paul has preached to them?
Before we get into how what Paul is saying is true, I’d
first like you to notice how easy it would be for someone to think that what Paul
has claimed here is false. Paul says that what the Corinthians have been given
is more glorious than what was given at Mt. Sinai. It is easy to ask: Where’s
the mountain? Where’s the smoke? Where’s the thunder and lightning? Where’s the
horn that blasts louder and louder? Furthermore, where’s the mighty nation of
Israel—hundreds of thousands of people, whereas the number of Christians at
that time were nowhere near that? Where’s the shining face of Paul? There were
none of these things!
And yet Paul has the audacity to say that the glory of the
New Testament is such that the old has come to have no glory at all. It’s like
how the glory of the sun so outshines the glory of the moon that when the sun
is out, we cannot see the moon. The glory of the New Testament is so great that
the glory of Mt. Sinai is nothing. Paul isn’t saying that the two glories are
close. It’s hard to tell which is greater. No, he is saying that the glory of
the New Testament blows the other one out of the water.
Obviously the glory that Paul is talking about is not as
visible to the naked eye as the glory we hear about at Mt. Sinai. The visible,
auditory glory of Mt. Sinai is absent from the New Testament church. None of
the unusual signs that accompanied the apostles were even close in grandeur to
the miracles God worked at the time of Moses. Hollywood would be much more
interested in turning Exodus into a movie script than the book of the Acts of
the Apostles. So what glory is Paul talking about?
He is talking about the glory of Jesus Christ. Specifically
he is talking about Christ the crucified. Elsewhere he tells the Corinthians in
the strongest language possible that he was determined to know nothing among
the Corinthians except Christ and him crucified. Not everybody is going to be
able to see the glory of Christ the crucified. Paul flatly states this not long
after our reading.
He says, “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled
among those who are perishing. In the case of those people, the god of this age
has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from clearly seeing the
light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is God’s image.”
Those who have been blinded by the god of this age look for
so-called “practical” results, or they are looking for a show. Those who have
been blinded by the god of this age are looking for practical things like fame
and fortune. Or they are looking for power. They are looking for a god who will
overwhelm them with signs and wonders. They believe that they would believe in
such a god and submit to him.
Consider Jesus on the cross. The people did not believe in him
while he was struggling for breath, wracked by torment. They knew why he was being
punished. They could read the charge against him nailed above him: “Jesus of
Nazareth, king of the Jews.” They knew that he had said he was the Son of God.
The soldiers laughed because of the ridiculous disconnect between what their
eyes were seeing and the magnificent claims that Jesus had made about himself.
They said to him, “Come down from that cross, then we will believe in you.”
They just wanted a little sign of power, instead of the miserable display of
weakness that appeared to not live up to the claims.
In like manner people think that Christianity would be a whole
lot more persuasive if only we could muster up some razzle dazzle. If we could
just have lightning come from our fingertips. Or if we could heal some diseases.
Or even if we could just blather in tongues! Something! Anything! By making a
powerful impression we would prove our case. Then people would believe and obey
God’s commandments.
This is where the example of Mt. Sinai and the Israelites is
so instructive. What we think should
happen with overwhelming displays of power is not what does happen. God partially revealed his glory at Mt. Sinai. Even
with just this partial display of his glory the people were going out of their
minds in fear. They were so afraid they thought they were going to die.
Meanwhile with this powerful display of God’s glory God says, “Thou shalt” and
“Thou shalt not.” God issues his commands and there wasn’t a single one among
them who could have had any doubt that God had the power to enforce his
commandments down to the letter.
But what happens while Moses is on top of the mountain for
those forty days and forty nights? The people make a graven image, a golden
calf, even though God very emphatically forbade such a thing in the Ten
Commandments that he had just spoken to them! They knew the commandment. They
knew God could severely punish them—they felt his tangible presence and power.
And yet they broke the commandment anyway. Run through your mind the whole
history of the Israelite people under Moses. They saw the most powerful signs
and wonders and yet they broke God’s commandments continually.
This shows us that our reason is blind and foolish when it
comes to these things. What we think will work, doesn’t work. We always think
that the Law will do the trick, and the harsher the better. It is true that the
Law is good and holy and powerful, but we are evil, sold under sin. So the only
thing that the Law can do with us is condemn us and kill us. And since the Law
is the way that it is, and we are the way that we are, no sinner wants to be
around the Law in its clarity and simpleness unless he or she has been made
secure by turning to Christ. Apart from Christ it makes sinners terribly
uncomfortable because it kills and damns.
Since our faith in Christ is so weak so often, we can’t
hardly help ourselves: We throw a veil over this Law that makes us so
uncomfortable. We modify it, lessen it, make it reasonable, make it so that we
can actually fulfill it. But this is a sure-fire way to deaden our conscience
and make us immune to the Gospel. The Gospel is only accessible to those who see
the Law unveiled, who die to the Law because they know that they have not kept
it and cannot keep it, and vow to live in Christ instead. The letter of the Law
came with glory, but contrary to what we might think, that glory did not
convert and save. The Law condemned and killed all those who did not fulfill
it.
Perhaps now you can begin to see what Paul is talking about
with the glory of the New Testament of the Holy Spirit. Thunder, lightning,
smoke, and earthquakes are glorious. Stern commands and sentences of death and
damnation are so glorious that we cannot stand to look at them as being
applicable to ourselves. But what are these things compared to God’s image,
Jesus, who meekly comes to poor miserable sinners? Our Savior comes to us as
the baby Jesus, born of the virgin Mary. Who can be afraid of a baby, suckling
at his mother’s breast? He comes to us as a Good Shepherd, who lays down his
life for the sheep. He puts the wayward sheep on his shoulders and carries it
back to the flock. This is God. The God of Mt. Sinai is the same God who
searched out broken hearted Mary Magdalene on Easter morning to bring her the
glad tidings of great joy which is for all people.
This ministry of the Holy Spirit works righteousness, as
opposed to the ministry of the letter which works condemnation. The Law is
always saying, “Do this!” but it is never done. The Gospel says, “Believe
this.” and it has already been done. For the Gospel delivers God’s own
righteousness in Jesus Christ. Jesus fulfilled the Law with all its demands. He
did what we have not done. All that we have not done was placed upon him and he
suffered and died in our place. Thus the Law has been brought to an end—that
Law that came with such great glory. This is a glory that is so much greater
that the old glory ceases to have glory. This glory is God’s humble and gentle condescension
to us in our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit’s proclamation of the forgiveness
of our sins.
This New Testament of the Holy Spirit also has a better
effect in our lives than does the stern preaching of the Law. The Holy Spirit
is given to those who believe. The Holy Spirit is God. By his almighty power he
curbs and softens the evil heart that we have inherited from Adam.
The prophet Ezekiel tells us what God told him about baptism
and the New Testament church. God says, “I will sprinkle purifying water on
you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurity and from
all your filthy idols. Then I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit
inside you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a
heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you and will cause you to walk in
my statutes, and you will carefully observe my ordinances.”
The greater glory of the Holy Spirit is hidden in the lives
of Christians. In whatever callings a Christian might have, the Holy Spirit is
at work. He pumps love into our daily life. The result is a quiet and peaceable
life. We aren’t on the six o’clock news. We don’t blow the trumpet so that
everyone can see our good works. We do our good works in secret, as Jesus tells
us we should do, and our God who sees what we do in secret will reward us
openly.
While the goodly part of the glory of Christ and of the New
Testament remains hidden to the naked eye now, it will not always be that way. Included
in the glory of the New Testament is Christ’s resurrection, and therefore also
our resurrection. One day we will see God in our flesh and behold him face to
face. Love will fill all things. God is love. Then we will much better
understand the truth of what Paul says in our Epistle reading today. The glory
of the New Testament is so much greater than the thunder and lightning of Mt.
Sinai that the glory of the Law no longer has any glory at all. The greater
glory of God’s reconciliation and dispensing of righteousness in Christ who was
crucified is so bright, that it completely eclipses everything else.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment