181223 Sermon on Deuteronomy 18:15-19 (Advent 4), December 23, 2018

181223 Sermon on Deuteronomy 18:15-19 (Advent 4), December 23, 2018

The Bible is a pretty big book, and so there are a lot of stories in it.  There are so many stories that most Sunday School curriculums operate on a three year cycle.  It takes three years to get through the stories of the Old and New Testament, and even with these three years there is quite a bit that gets left out.  Because there is so much material to absorb I think it is pretty common for people to get overwhelmed by it.  It’s like a great big box of stuff is plopped down in front of a person and all the stories are mixed up in it.  They all sound familiar, because the stories have been heard in Church and Sunday School, but the timelines are pretty shaky for who it all hangs together, and there’s little awareness of what is really significant about the different stories.  It’s a jumbled collection without rhyme or reason.

Today I’d like to speak about one of those Bible stories that is very important in the Bible with ongoing significance.  It’s the highpoint, you might say, of God’s dealing with his people in the Old Testament.  It’s when Israel was gathered together below Mt. Sinai, or Mt. Horeb as it is also called, after they have come out of Egypt.  The whole reason why Moses had gone to Pharaoh in the first place, when the Israelites were still slaves under him, was so that the Israelites could go into the wilderness to worship the Lord God.  This request was refused by Pharaoh and so God sent all those plagues upon him. 

Therefore, when the Israelites are gathered together below Mt. Sinai, this is the fulfillment of the request that Moses had made, but Pharaoh had refused.  The people were finally able to be together with their God.  But now they didn’t need to go back to Egypt, go back to slavery.  They had been made free by the blood of the Passover lambs and been baptized in the water of the Red Sea.  They were now God’s people instead of Pharaoh’s.  The peculiar thing about it, though, is that throughout the books of Moses you hear the Israelites constantly wanting to return to their slavery under Pharaoh instead of being God’s people.

There is also something new and amazing that happens with the Israelites at Sinai.  This is where God appears to them in cloud and majesty and awe, to quote our chief hymn this morning.  Prior to Sinai God holds back his glory when he appears to the patriarchs of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  He would come in the form of an angel or of a man—think, for example, of the way that Jacob wrestled with that strange man all night long until his hip was put out of joint.  That was God that he wrestled with.

But now at Sinai God reveals his glory in a majestic way.  When he speaks the Ten Commandments to the Israelites Moses says that there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain with a very loud trumpet blast that grew louder and louder.  The whole mountain was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended upon it with fire.  The smoke of it was like the smoke of a kiln and the whole mountain shook.  Prior to this God does not reveal himself in such an awesome way as he does here.  And indeed after this, too, he cloaks himself somewhat with the tabernacle and temple, in the most holy place, and the people do not see his glory in the same way.

And so the story of Mt. Sinai and the giving of the Law in cloud and majesty and awe is significant because it was a one-time-event.  God would not be together with his people in this same way again, at least, that is, while we are yet living in this old world.  As we’ve been talking for these past several weeks about the second advent of Christ at the end of this old world, I think you can hear in the prophesies something of this Mt. Sinai glory being revealed once again when Christ comes on the clouds.

But why is this a one-time-event?  It’s because the Israelites couldn’t stand it.  When God had finished speaking the Ten Commandments to them with this impressive display of his glory they begged God not to speak with them anymore.  It’s interesting that it was not just God’s overwhelming glory that was the breaking point for them, but it was when they heard him speak the Law—this was too much for them.  There was no doubt about God’s power with his display of glory, but before he spoke there was still a little bit of hope that they might be alright with this powerful God.  But then God condemned them for breaking his commandments and all their hope was taken away.  It wasn’t the cloud and majesty and awe that was too terrible to them, it was them hearing, “You are guilty,” that was killing them.  That’s why they said to God, “Stop speaking to us or we will die.  Speak to Moses and then Moses can speak to us, but please no more dealing with us directly.”  From this point forward, that is how God dealt with the Israelites.  He spoke the Ten Commandments to all the people when they were gathered below the mountain, but then the rest of the Law was given to Moses alone when he spent forty days and forty nights at the top of the mountain.  When he came down, he told the people what God had said.

This is all helpful for understanding our Old Testament reading this morning, which comes from the fifth book of Moses, Deuteronomy.  This is about forty years after Sinai and the people are ready to enter Canaan after their many years of punishment.  Moses is telling them the Law and what had happened to them so that they could remember it when they enter into the new land.  The portion of this retelling of the Law that we heard this morning is when Moses makes reference to the way that the Israelites had asked God to stop speaking with them directly when he gave the Ten Commandments and that God would speak through Moses instead.

Then Moses tells us something very significant that God said to him that is very important for us still today.  He says, “And the Lord said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken.  I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brothers.  And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.  And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.”

God tells Moses that there will be someone somewhat like himself.  Just as God spoke to Moses in a more immediate and direct way—even face to face—over and above every other prophet, so he will raise up a Prophet who will speak the words of God directly.  They will come from his own mouth.  This prophesy given to Moses was fulfilled in Jesus.  He was raised up from amidst the brethren of Israel, from the tribe of Judah.  He is a mediator between God and sinners, just as Moses was, but to an even greater degree.  Just as Moses spoke the word that God gave him to speak, so also Jesus spoke God’s Word.  However, Jesus did not speak a Word of God that came from the outside and was not his own possession—as it was with Moses.  Jesus spoke the Word as his own, because he is the Word, he is God.

The first chapter of St. John’s Gospel, which is the Gospel reading for Christmas Day, is relevant for the fulfillment of the prophecy given to Moses.  It says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through him.”  Here Jesus, the Son of God, is spoken of in a way that isn’t overly familiar to us.  He is called the Word.  There has never been a time when the Word, the Son, has not existed.  This is true also of the Father and the Holy Spirit.  There has never been a time when these persons of the one true God have never existed either.  In the fullness of time the eternal Word took on the human nature that he received in the womb of the Virgin Mary. 

St. John speaks of it this way: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory—glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  The Word becoming flesh, dwelling among men, and speaking, is the same thing as what the Lord told Moses and what we heard in our Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy.  Jesus is the Prophet who is a mediator like Moses, raised up from the people of Israel, and who speaks God’s own Word.

There is a difference, though, between Moses and Jesus, and St. John speaks to this as well in this same place.  He says, “And from Jesus’s fullness we have all received grace upon grace.  For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”  The ministry of Moses, the ministry of the Law that was given from Mt. Sinai and what happened afterwards, is actually a rather sad story.  The Israelites were rebellious and disobedient even though you would think that they would be too scared to do the wicked things that they did.  You know the story of how the Israelites together with Aaron made a golden calf to worship as their god while Moses was on Mt. Sinai’s summit together with God.  This is right after God had given the Ten Commandments with such great glory in cloud and majesty and awe. 

This goes to show that the Law can never make anybody truly better.  It cannot heal.  It cannot work true love.  Only the Holy Spirit can do that through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ.  It is as St. John says, “That the Law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”  The Law threatens and punishes ever so severely.  It works death and hell.  It is so glorious that we cannot stand to really think about it or hear about it—most especially if we are being honest about ourselves and the miserable lives that we have led.  Human reason thinks that we should be scared straight by all this.  If anybody should have been scared straight, shouldn’t it have been the Israelites who just experienced the glory of God as he gave the Ten Commandments?  And yet, look what they do so soon afterwards.

True healing and true reconciliation with God cannot be worked by trying harder, by getting back up after having fallen down, even though this seems as though it might work.  But maybe it’s just that we can’t think of anything better to do.  When we have fallen into sin, there is no more natural thought for us to think than to say, “Well, I’ll try harder.  I won’t let this happen again.”  It doesn’t enter into our heads very easily to say to God, “Have mercy on me O Lord, a poor miserable sinner, for Jesus’s sake.” 

But our reconciliation with God can only happen for Jesus’s sake.  Nails, spear, must pierce him through, the cross be borne for me, for you.  Hail, Hail, the Word made flesh, the Babe, the Son of Mary.  Jesus reconciles us by being punished for your sin—the punishment that the Law cries out for as being just and right.  Jesus trembled in fear and anguish—the fear and anguish that the Israelites had before Mt. Sinai upon hearing the Ten Commandments, but much more (even to an infinite degree).  He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world by becoming sin and taking upon himself the curse that really belongs to you and to me, because we are the ones who have sinned—not Jesus.  “The Law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” 

Jesus is the Prophet spoken of in our Old Testament reading today, and we do well to heed God’s warning concerning him.  He says that whoever will not listen to the words of this prophet will have to answer to God for it.  Immediately, upon hearing those words, we think of obeying.  But perhaps the importance of this command is that we silence our reason which is always thinking about pleasing God with our good behavior.  Really listen to what Jesus says, and what does he say?

God loved the world in this way, that he sent his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Do you hear what he says?  Believe in Jesus, and you will not perish but have eternal life.  If you don’t listen to Jesus when he says this, then you are defying the Word that God has placed into the mouth of his Prophet.

Or again Jesus says,

I came not to be served, but to serve, and give my life as a ransom for many.

Jesus has given his life as your ransom that sets you free from sin and the devil and makes you God’s own.  Who are you to say otherwise?

Or again Jesus says,

Take eat, this is my body given for you.  Take, drink, this cup is my blood, that is shed for you for the forgiveness of all your sins.

It is necessary for us to say to ourselves, “Shut up, and listen to Jesus” particularly when we are weighed down with sins, because this is when our stupid reason tells us that the only thing that really works is to fix ourselves in order to be acceptable in God’s sight.  That is a very ingenious and persuasive lie that comes from the father of lies.  Listen instead to the gracious words of the Prophet.  He says that he is your Savior.  Believe him.