Bible Passage: Exodus 24:9-18
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: February 11, 2023

Bulletin February 19, 2023

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

Exodus 24 is an extremely significant chapter of our Bible.  Here is the context:  Israel has come out of Egypt a free nation and has arrived at Mt. Sinai.  The LORD God has just spoken to the people from Mt. Sinai.  His address began with a reminder of his love and grace:  I am the LORD, your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. (Exodus 20:2).  After that Gospel introduction, he spoke out loud in their hearing the Ten Commandments.  The voice of God scared the people.  They said to Moses, Speak to us yourself and we will listen.  But do not have God speak to us or we will die. (Exodus 20:19)  So Moses approached the LORD..

Moses returned to the people and told them all the Lord had said.  Everything the LORD has said we will do, the people promised. (Exodus 24:3)  Moses then wrote down all the Lord’s words.  The next day, Moses woke early and built an altar at the foot of Mt. Sinai.  He also set up 12 stone pillars representing the 12 tribes of Israel.  Bulls were sacrificed as burnt offerings and fellowship offerings.  As they were sacrificed, Moses collected the blood.  Half of the collected blood he splashed on the altar.  The other half would be used in a moment.  He unrolled the scroll he had written the previous day and he re-read all the Lord’s words to the people.  Again they respond, We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey! (Exodus 24:7)  Moses then took his bowls of blood and began to sprinkle it on the gathered people.  As he did, he said, This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words. (Exodus 24:8)  It was official; Israel was the covenant people of God!

THIS now is where our text begins.  It is at this point that the LORD invites Moses and Aaron and Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, and the 70 elders of Israel to come near for something very special!  They went up onto the mountain and saw the God of Israel (v. 10)!  The LORD God appeared to them in the form of a man.  We know that because they see feet.  Under his feet they saw what looked like a pavement of sapphire as clear as the sky. (v. 10)  So there they see the LORD God standing on this bright blue pavement!  And the most remarkable detail of all:  The LORD did not lay his hand on the dignitaries of the people of Israel. (v. 11)  The Lord God did not grab them by the lapels.  He did not command, “Cover your eyes!  Turn your heads!  How dare you look at me!”  He wanted to be seen.  And he wanted to fellowship with these men.  They gazed at God, and they ate and drank. (v. 11)  Can you imagine?  They ate the fellowship offering with God!  Like a potluck dinner in the church basement, except with God!  As they ate their roast beef dinner, they looked at God.  Indeed, who could take their eyes off of God!

After lunch, the LORD has more for Moses to do.  He summons Moses to come to the top of the mountain.  There the LORD will give Moses stone tablets with the laws chiseled into them by the finger of God.  Moses goes up the mountain.  And the bright, visible manifestation of the presence of the LORD, sometimes called the “glory of the LORD,” settles on top of the mountain.  The LORD calls to Moses from this glory-cloud.  And Moses walks into the middle of it!  At the bottom of the mountain, the people are looking up to see what is going on.  To them it looks like the top of the mountain is engulfed in flames.

What is going on here?  What are we to make of all this?  What we see is a wonder of grace!  Here is God inviting humanity to come close to him, to come into his presence, to gaze upon him, to fellowship with him, to dine with him, to enjoy him!  It took a lot to make this happen.  It took death and blood!  Many bulls had been sacrificed.  The people stood at the bottom of the mountain gazing at God’s glory, spattered and splattered with bull’s blood.  But they were the spattered, splattered covenant people of God!

This was the first time Moses got to get a glimpse of the glory of God.  There was another day and another mountain.  1500 years later.  Jesus invites Peter, James, and John up onto a hillside.  And while he prays, Jesus is transfigured in glory.  And who else should be there?  Elijah, and, yes, Moses!  And Peter, James, and John, and Moses and Elijah…all gaze upon a sliver, a fraction of the glory of God’s Son!   They gazed at God.

There is but one more mountain we need to visit today to put all the pieces together.  Let’s go up Mount Calvary.  We won’t find any shiny blue pavement.  Just three crosses jutting out of the dirt.  But now, fix your gaze on the man nailed to the middle cross.  You are gazing at God.  The same God who appeared at Sinai. You are gazing at God in flesh.  “But where’s the glory?” you say.  The glory that was seen on Mt. Sinai, the glory that was seen on the mount of transfiguration is now hidden away from sight.  But if we look hard enough, we will see the glory.

This is the glory of which Jesus spoke when he said, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. (John 12:23)  As the hours until his crucifixion got close to single digits, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified. (John 13:31)  Do you see how Jesus talks about the cross?  This is glory!  This is God’s wonderful, redeeming, saving glory.  Here God does not raise a hand against sinners, but he stretches them out for us all!  Here on the cross is where the real blood of the covenant is shed.  This is no bull’s blood,  This is Lamb’s blood.  It spatters and splatters us so that we are the new covenant people of God.  People who see God now with the eyes of faith.  Covenant people who know, as did Job:  I know that my Redeemer lives!  And that in the end he will stand upon the earth.  And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God;  I myself will see him with my own eyes – I, and not another.  (Job 19:25-27)

Moses spent 40 days in that glory-cloud.  On Wednesday, Lent begins.  It lasts 40 days.  During our 40 days, let us gaze at God’s Son.  As the blood-spattered covenant people of God, let us enter the glory-cloud of grateful contemplation on the glory that is Christ crucified.

Amen.