Do you ever feel stretched beyond coping, caring for the complicated people God has put in your life? Spare a thought for the 70 elders of Moses’ day. Between them, they were responsible for probably about 2.4 million people, including Israelites and God-fearers from Egypt. They were called to manage traumatized travellers and were exhausted themselves.
Then God gave them a glimpse of glory.
“Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.” (Exodus 24:9-11 NIV)
This was no ordinary retreat. This was the day that God’s covenant with Abraham was confirmed with his descendants, now a nation. Just over three months before this day, the Israelites had left Egypt, stripping their neighbours of wealth and joined by others who also feared Israel’s God. In the three months since gaining freedom, they had endured a lifetime’s worth of highs and lows. Finally, at the foot of Mt Sinai, Moses called together the elders and explained to them the laws which God had given his people.
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Imagine yourself in the sandals of one of those elders. You relay the words of Moses to the people for whom you are responsible. They enthusiastically agree to live God’s way. Like there is a choice? Almighty God had led them by fire and cloud out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, he had drowned their pursuers, and had provided victory in battle, as well as food and water as they needed it. Of course they would live God’s way. Of course they would be a distinctive people of God.
Moses explains to you and your elder-colleagues how the people should prepare for the ceremony in which they would renew their allegiance to God. You make sure that those under your watch comply. Everything had to be washed – bodies and clothes – with water from the mountain stream. No sex was allowed during this time of preparation. Men were sent to put up markers to show that the mountain was off limits.
On day three, dark clouds descend on the mountain. Lightning, thunder, smoke and trumpet blasts make your skin crawl.
Shaking together as one body now, the people of Israel promise to obey God’s Laws. Moses and Aaron kill the animals set aside for sacrifice and splash the blood of the sacrificial beasts over the 12 pillars they had set up. Then Moses sprinkles blood over you. Your freshly washed clothes, hair and body are now sticky with blood. Blood, blood and more blood is sprinkled over the crowds. Moses beckons. You are being summoned … to the off-limits mountain. Your heart plummets.
Step after step, you and your elder-colleagues follow Moses. The air is electric, quite literally, with all that lightning. With each burst of thunder, your body jerks involuntarily. Moses points to a big flat rock, rather like a large table. Together, without need for words or instructions, you look up.
The ground above is brilliant blue – bluer than any sky you’ve ever seen. Through it, you can make out the shape of a man’s feet. Only it isn’t a man. It is Almighty God. You breathe deeply, inhaling what you expect to be your last breath. For you have seen God.
Yet you breathe again. And again. Food appears on the table of rock. Is it meat from the sacrifices? Wine appears too. You eat and drink, wishing that you could stay here forever.
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The modern woman interrupts at this point. In contrast to fine details in surrounding texts about how exactly the Israelites were to live, Moses summarizes this incredible glimpse of God’s glory and the covenant meal in just three short sentences. As readers, we are left wondering, wishing for more.
Unlike the elders, we have other records of people who also glimpsed God’s glory – Ezekiel and John. And we have rich descriptions of the life of Jesus, God incarnate. All those early elders glimpsed were the translucent tiles under God’s feet.
Poor elders. With a word of warning from Moses about likely disputes amongst the people, they were sent back down to the rabble. Moses stayed up on the mountain with his aide, Joshua. By the time he returned, 40 long days later, the people were worshipping a golden calf. In response to Moses’ call for holiness, over three thousand Israelites were slaughtered by the Levites. Plague ripped through the community. The golden calf was ground into dust, which Moses sprinkled into the same stream that had been used to cleanse the people, and from which the people were forced to drink.
Sometimes I feel like one of those elders. Life seems to spin out of control, and glimpses of glory seem long past. Yet in other important ways, we are not like the sandal-clad elders in their blood-stained clothes. The covenant meal that they enjoyed on the mountain side that day marked the Old Covenant, outlining how the people should meet God’s holy standards. They had to descend the mountain, returning to the terrified masses below who were unable to live up to God’s standards. We, however, can look to Jesus. Through him, we can gaze on God’s majesty at any time – now just a glimpse but one day clearly – even and especially in the midst of the complicated communities in which we live.
“You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them…. You have come to God, the Judge of all … to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant…. See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks…. … let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe for “our God is a consuming fire.”
(Selected verses from Hebrews 12:18-29, NIV)