Blessed Bivouac

I preached this sermon on 16 October 2011 at Bethel UMC in Weatherford, TX...

EXODUS 33:12-23

 Moses said to the LORD, “Look, you’ve been telling me, ‘Lead these people forward.’ But you haven’t told me whom you will send with me. Yet you’ve assured me, ‘I know you by name and think highly of you.’ Now if you do think highly of me, show me your ways so that I may know you and so that you may really approve of me. Remember too that this nation is your people.”

 The LORD replied, “I’ll go myself, and I’ll help you.” Moses replied, “If you won’t go yourself, don’t make us leave here. Because how will anyone know that we have your special approval, both I and your people, unless you go with us? Only that distinguishes us, me and your people, from every other people on the earth.”   The LORD said to Moses, “I’ll do exactly what you’ve asked because you have my special approval, and I know you by name.” Moses said, “Please show me your glorious presence.”  The LORD said, “I’ll make all my goodness pass in front of you, and I’ll proclaim before you the name, ‘The LORD.’ I will be kind to whomever I wish to be kind, and I will have compassion to whomever I wish to be compassionate.  But,” the LORD said, “you can’t see my face because no one can see me and live.” The LORD said, “Here is a place near me where you will stand beside the rock. As my glorious presence passes by, I’ll set you in a gap in the rock, and I’ll cover you with my hand until I’ve passed by. Then I’ll take away my hand, and you will see my back, but my face won’t be visible.”

Anybody here this morning like to go camping (or are all the campers gone this weekend because of the great weather we’re having)?  What kind of “campers” are y’all?  I have learned that there are different degrees of ‘roughing it” from the hardcore survivalist who only takes a light pack with the bare necessities to those fancy camper people who basically drive or tow an RV that is really just a luxury apartment on wheels and everything in between.  The goal in camping is to commune with nature and each other in ways we cannot at home.  The Israelites in our text this morning were not on a weekend camping trip, they were traveling through the wilderness for 40 years on their way to the Promised Land.  They traveled from one campsite to the next as God lead them.  I don’t know about y’all, but I don’t want to spend 40 years “camping,” even if I had a top of the line RV!

My sermon this morning is titled “Blessed Bivouac.”  A bivouac is a temporary encampment.  As a verb it means to set up and use a temporary encampment.  As a soldier, I have spent a little time in a bivouac, but never more than a couple weeks.  During the past year of deployment in Iraq we had more permanent living arrangements called CHUs--containerized housing units.  At the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, however, our service members did bivouac until more permanent housing was made available.

In Exodus, the Israelites are bivouacking across the wilderness because of their lack of faith and discipline.  God through Moses delivered them from slavery in Egypt with many miraculous signs including the parting of the Red Sea.  God’s glorious presence, the shekinah, is with them as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.  They are provided with food on a daily basis: manna (God’s MRE) and quail.  God provided water from rock.  God is with them & yet they grumble, they complain, they don’t trust, they disobey and they disrespect.  Just prior to the event we read about a moment ago is the story of theGolden Calf.  While Moses is up on the mountain with God receiving instruction, the Israelites get impatient and convince Moses’ brother, Aaron, to make a “god” for them to worship.  So Aaron collects some gold jewelry from everyone and fashions it into a golden calf.  Total disregard and disrespect for the One true God is the setup for the episode in Exodus 33.  

God is upset, and rightfully so, one of God’s top 10 rules is “no idols!”  However, God is also merciful and completely faithful.  Centuries prior to this event God promised Abraham and his descendants he would make them a great nation and give them a land of abundance--the “Promised Land” that flows with milk and honey.  Therefore, in 33:1 “The Lord said to Moses, “Go up from here, you and the people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land I promised...”  God promises to send an angel ahead of them to drive out the pagan inhabitants, “But I will not go up among you, for you are a stiff-necked people, and I might destroy you on the way.  When the people heard this troubling word  they mourned.”  Moses sought assurance from God that God would support the people of Israel in spite of their sins of idolatry when they had worshiped the golden calf. God told Moses to tell the people to continue their journey toward the land that had been promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God promised that an angel would go with them and that obstacles would be removed from their path. However, God said to Moses: "I will not go among you because I might destroy  you on the way, for you are a rebellious people." God tells the people He can’t go because if He did His presence would be too much for them--they would be destroyed.  God is holy and sin cannot exist in the presence, in the shekinah glory, of God.  

I like Moses because he had the habit of speaking very frankly with God. He didn't worry about being charged with insubordination or about suffering retaliation from God. Furthermore, he had some questions he wanted God to answer.

Moses indicated to God that he understood God's instructions. Moses knew that he was to lead the people to the Promised Land. He wanted to know whom God would send if God did not plan to accompany him. God assured Moses that God’s presence, the shekinah glory, would definitely be with him. Moses did not hear God clearly, so he questioned God again: "If you don’t go with us, we aren’t movin’!" Moses was having difficulty understanding God's purpose. He was wondering whether God was planning to forsake the people of Israel.

Moses insisted that he needed assurances of God's intent. He wanted God's presence, God's protection, and God's continued leadership of the people of Israel. God responded to Moses' concern very favorably, saying: "The very thing that I have spoken to you I will do; do not worry. You and the people of Israel have again found favor with me."

Moses was delighted with God's reassurance. Then Moses said that he wanted to see the character of God revealed in its fullness. Moses wanted full disclosure from God. God was very patient with Moses and granted his request. God decided to let Moses see God's goodness as an additional way of reassuring him. God had forgiven Israel because of Moses' intercession, and God decided to affirm this through self-revelation. This self-revelation was given as a sign of God's grace and mercy. God wanted to confirm to Moses and the people of Israel that God was merciful as well as righteous.

However, God warned Moses, "My presence is too much for you to see. No one can see God's face and live." 

Does anyone remember the movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark?”  The archeologist/adventurer, Indiana Jones, goes on an expedition to find the Ark of the Covenant first described in Exodus.  He is in a race with Nazis who believe that this ancient artifact will give them ultimate power.  At the end of the movie, the Nazi’s have taken the Ark from Indie and one of them opens it.  Of course Hollywood took a lot of liberties with the Truth, but that scene helps illustrate what God is talking about in Exodus 33.  When the Ark is opened there is a glorious presence released.  Unfortunately for the Nazis this presence destroys evil.  As the presence sweeps through the valley all the bad guys are reduced to dust.  Without the loving grace of God, this is what can happen to sinful people who find themselves in God’s glorious presence.  God is awesome.  Encountering God’s manifest presence, God’s shekinah glory, is overwhelming.  

This is what Moses asks to experience when he says, “Show me your glory.”  God’s reply is loving and merciful.  God agrees to give Moses a peek, but only after the glory has passed by.  Moses knew that despite the danger, in God’s presence is the place to be.  Yes God is Holy and awesome, but God is also loving and merciful.  Moses knew that entering into the presence of God properly brings transformation, not destruction.  Entering into the shekinah of God rightly brings healing, wholeness, peace and joy.  

In our text this morning God has assured Moses that He knows him by name, which means God knows Moses on a deep, personal level.  The people have listened to the reproach for their idolatry and have repented.  They even took off the rest of their jewelry.  Moses intercedes on their behalf and pleads with God to stay with them as they continue their journey.  Moses argues that it is God’s choosing to encamp with them wherever they go that makes them distinctive among the nations.  God’s blessed bivouac is what gives them the confidence to continue. Moses says, “If you won’t go yourself, don’t make us leave here. Because how will anyone know that we have your special approval, both I and your people, unless you go with us? Only that distinguishes us, me and your people, from every other people on the earth” (Exodus 33:16).  As you read on you will discover that God does indeed go on with his people.  As a matter of fact, the point of God’s story is that God desires to commune with His people always.

Not only does God bivouac with them, God gave Moses the design for a blessed bivouac called the Tabernacle, and God gifted people with the skills and with the Holy Spirit’s inspiration in order to make the design a reality.  The Tabernacle is a huge and elaborate blessed bivouac that God’s chosen people took with them and in which God’s shekinah glory was revealed for a very long time.  

This mobile worship center, this blessed bivouac, was a precursor to what God really desires.  Take a look at the Gospel of John chapter 1.    In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God...The Word became flesh and made his home among us.
We have seen his glory, glory like that of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (vss.1 & 14).  There it is in verse 14, the Word became flesh and made his home among us...the literal translation of the Greek word translated as “made his home among us” is tabernacled!”  Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Word of God made flesh is a continuation of God’s mission to be with us in blessed bivouac until we can be with God in eternity.  “Christ has appeared as the high priest of the good things that have happened. He passed through the greater and more perfect meeting tent, which isn’t made by human hands (that is, it’s not a part of this world). He entered the holy of holies once for all by his own blood, not by the blood of goats or calves, securing our deliverance for all time” (Hebrews 9:12).  Jesus marked the end of the season when God’s shekinah glory manifested in a building; first in the blessed bivouac known as the Tabernacle and then the more permanent Temple which was designed like the Tabernacle.  Now God is tabernacling with humanity in the person of Jesus.  No longer is there a huge structure, whether the tent or the Temple where God’s shekinah only manifested once in a great while.  For the 30+ years of Jesus’ earthly life the glory and presence of God was available 24/7/365 wherever Jesus chose to be.

And God doesn’t stop there!  As Jesus was preparing to end His ministry on earth, in John chapters 14-16 Jesus tells the disciples about the Cross, the Resurrection and Ascension and the promise of the indwelling Holy Spirit!  God in Christ in you, the Hope of Glory! (Colossians 1:27).  When we are baptized, immediately following the imposition of the the water, the pastor places her or his hands on the person’s head and says something like “The Holy Spirit work within you, that being born through water and the Spirit, you may be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ” signifying the giving of the Holy Spirit (United Methodist Hymnal. 37.).  God, in Jesus showed us how to be blessed bivouacs and then sent His Spirit to make it happen.  In 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Paul is calling on Christians to live holy and righteous lives when he says, “Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you? Don’t you know that you have the Holy Spirit from God, and you don’t belong to yourselves? You have been bought and paid for, so honor God with your body.”   Individually and corporately our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.  Now the shekinah glory, the full presence of God that used to manifest in the holy of holies in the Tabernacle and Temple and then in the person of Jesus the Christ is in each and every follower of Jesus 24/7/365 wherever we are and there are over a billion of us alive today!

The Devil thought he won on that Friday over 2000 years ago, but he was so wrong!  Jesus’ death on the cross paid the penalty for sin once and for all!  The sin that made it impossible for people to safely enter into the fullness of God’s presence, the sin that separated us from God, the sin that broke the Holy and intimate relationship with God and each other for which we created was wiped away, cleansed by the blood lamb of God, the Lion of Judah, Jesus Christ.  Not only did Jesus pay the price for us by His death, he gave us hope in His resurrection.  All that our enemy, the devil tried to do to keep humanity from experiencing the joy, peace and power found in God’s glory was made nothing in those great 3 days,Hallelujah!  We are reconciled.  We are blessed bivouacs, and as the Body of Christ, the Church, we are the Blessed Bivouac.  We can be assured of God’s presence,  we can catch glimpses of the shekinah glory today.  We can grab our pack and go on an adventure with God.  Yes, God is everywhere, but sometimes he is more present, or a better way to think of it is that we have times where we are more aware of our omnipresent God.  

“Think about your last Bible study, youth group, worship service, or staff meeting. Did you earnestly pray for God to show up or did you just take for granted that he’d be there? (“He’s God. He’s everywhere!”) Sometimes it takes determination to move beyond the idea of the omnipresence of God so we can experience his special presence [God’s blessed bivouac]. It’s the point where we go from casually inviting God to be with us to being desperate for him to show up” (Shane Raynor. http://www.ministrymatters.com/all/blog/entry/1880/degrees-of-gods-presence ).

Every day seek God’s glorious presence.  Strive to bivouac with God.  As we do so, we prepare ourselves for an even greater awakening to God’s glorious presence when we gather together with other blessed bivouackers, which will make our gatherings attractive to the lost wanderers among us. Amen.