Midnight Quills

There’s a lot in this chapter.

On the one hand, there’s a whole heap of points and little tidbits of information, advice and rules to follow. On the other, though, there’s the one overriding theme about how God is going to communicate with the people of Israel now and in the future.

I do find it interesting that there are two layers here. The priests and the prophet both have the ‘direct line’ – so to speak – to God; but their roles are not the same. The priests are to minister to the people, they are to be in relationship with the people. This is the partnership between God and the people. I don’t recall (and if I’m wrong, please correct me in a comment below) anywhere so far, reading that God actually communicated with the people through the priests. Even the high priest, who once a year gets to enter the Holy of Holies and enter the presence of God, doesn’t seem to have the role of bringing messages from God to the people.

That’s the role of the prophet. While the priests are to minister, they’re to bring the offerings from the people to God – they are the ones who are to stand in the gap; the prophet is the one who brings God’s message to the people.

The people of Israel didn’t communicate directly with God – nor was he going to communicate directly with them. This was, though, partly their own choice.

For this is what you asked of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the LORD our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.” ~ Deuteronomy 18:16

So it wasn’t just God keeping his distance from them, but it was also the Israelites keeping their distance from him. Instead, therefore, they needed to communicate with God through the priesthood, the Levites; and now also the introduction that there will be other prophets, like Moses, who will also communicate directly with God.

I find that this is sometimes something that we do, too. We keep our own distance from God – which is not necessarily a bad thing, don’t get me wrong. We’re talking about the Almighty God, and the creator of heaven and earth. We’re talking about the God above all gods, the King of kings. He should be revered and feared, respected and honoured.

At the same time, though, he is also our father.

I think sometimes, though, we find ourselves standing at the foot of Mt Sinai, or Horeb, or wherever this was and looking up at the fire, hearing the thunder and feeling the ground shake, and we react like the Israelites. We decide just to stay here, where we think it’s safe because what’s up there just looks too intimidating.

Spoiler Alert – Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Just for anyone who hasn’t seen it.

Remember the end of this movie? They were all standing on the beach, and Reepicheep (That’s the mouse) was about to make his way to Aslan’s land. In front of him, though, was this great big wall of water. He was told that beyond there was a better place for him to go, and in his heart he knew that this was the case, so he jumped in his little boat and off he went.

How easy, though, would it have been to take one look at that giant wave and think that it’s probably just easier to stay here, on this side. Even if in your heart of hearts you know that there’s something better through there, it’s still an intimidating thing to do, to walk into this wall of water – or take a boat as the mouse did.

This is, I think, part of what the Israelites did – and part of what we sometimes do today, too. We understand that there’s something better there, that God’s got his arms open to us; but something keeps us from taking that extra step. We don’t want to walk into the wall of water – or we don’t want to climb the mountain, and enter God’s presence.

So why is this? What in your life keeps you from taking that next step? What keeps you from climbing the mountain?