Communion

by Michiana Covenant | Jul 25, 2018 | Women's Ministry

A poem by Elizabeth Sunshine

Warm hands. Kind eyes.

We speak our word of peace

Then walk the center aisle to where the Word of peace waits.

He who walked the long, dusty paths of earth

To save those made from dust.

Broken in pieces that we might be one,

He offers us the pieces of His peace,

And so I come.

“The body of Christ broken for you.”

I touch, tear, take a piece of paradise.

“The blood of Christ shed for you.”

A sweet reminder of a bitter cup

That He once drank for me

That I might drink the wine that brings true joy.

So I rejoice, my God,

In these great gifts of grace you give to me.

We celebrate our God

Who carries us from death to life,

From “I” to “we”

From time to eternity.

Son of God

by Michiana Covenant | Jul 19, 2018 | Women's Ministry

Our sermon this past Sunday focused on the baptism of Jesus. Our pastor pointed out that in Mark, at Christ’s baptism the heavens are said to be “torn,” not just opened, and that Mark uses this word only twice: here and when the Temple curtain is torn at Jesus’ death. Indeed, there are many similarities between Christ’s baptism and his death, which is why Paul can say that “all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death” (Romans 6:3). This poem is my attempt to highlight the parallels.

Son of God

“Behold the Lamb of God,” the Baptist cries
The Christ repents of evil not his own
He steps down to the chilling stream that once
Gave way before another Joshua,
That those he led might reach the promised land
Now he descends into the surging deep
The waters rush above his head, and then
He rises, breathing deeply once again
The cloudy curtain of the heavens tears
A dove descends, like that which Noah saw
And marks completion of the judgment’s flood
A Voice proclaims him God’s beloved Son
The Lamb up to the slaughterhouse is led
To bear the weight of evil not his own
Guilt pulls him down toward death as mockers shout
At him to save himself, but he will not
That those he leads might reach the promised land
Thus He descends into the damp, dark grave and waits
To rise. But now He yields His dying breath
The sacred curtain of the temple tears
As rough wood carries sinners like an ark
Above the flood of judgment God has sent
A man declares, “This was the Son of God.”

Elizabeth Sunshine
July 16, 2018

The Tabernacle: God in our Midst

by Michiana Covenant | Jul 11, 2018 | Women's Ministry

The first few times I tried reading the Bible through from start to finish, the place where I ran into trouble was the section on the Tabernacle. I could get through the genealogies in Genesis, which only lasted a chapter or so at most, but the tabernacle account contains six chapters (Exod. 25-31) of building instructions and lists of materials, dimensions, parts of pieces of furniture, and so on. These chapters are followed by the story of the Golden Calf, which lasts about three chapters, and then five more chapters (Exod. 35-40) of descriptions of the building instructions being carried out. This raises the question of why the text places so much emphasis on how the Tabernacle was constructed.

Exodus 40:16-33 contains a summary of the chapters about the building of the tabernacle. As you read through this, the climax of the narrative look for the phrase “as the Lord had commanded Moses” and count how many times it appears.

^“16 This Moses did; according to all that the Lord commanded him, so he did. ¹⁷ In the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, the tabernacle was erected. ¹⁸ Moses erected the tabernacle. He laid its bases, and set up its frames, and put in its poles, and raised up its pillars. ¹⁹ And he spread the tent over the tabernacle and put the covering of the tent over it, as the Lord had commanded Moses. ²⁰ He took the testimony and put it into the ark, and put the poles on the ark and set the mercy seat above on the ark. ²¹ And he brought the ark into the tabernacle and set up the veil of the screen, and screened the ark of the testimony, as the Lord had commanded Moses. ²² He put the table in the tent of meeting, on the north side of the tabernacle, outside the veil,²³ and arranged the bread on it before the Lord, as the Lord had commanded Moses. ²⁴ He put the lampstand in the tent of meeting, opposite the table on the south side of the tabernacle, ²⁵ and set up the lamps before the Lord, as the Lord had commanded Moses. ²⁶ He put the golden altar in the tent of meeting before the veil, ²⁷ and burned fragrant incense on it, as the Lord had commanded Moses. ²⁸ He put in place the screen for the door of the tabernacle. ²⁹ And he set the altar of burnt offering at the entrance of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting, and offered on it the burnt offering and the grain offering, as the Lord had commanded Moses. ³⁰ He set the basin between the tent of meeting and the altar, and put water in it for washing, ³¹ with which Moses and Aaron and his sons washed their hands and their feet. ³² When they went into the tent of meeting, and when they approached the altar, they washed, as the Lord had commanded Moses. ³³ And he erected the court around the tabernacle and the altar, and set up the screen of the gate of the court. So Moses finished the work.”

The number you should have gotten is seven. Seven is often described as the Biblical number of perfection, and the reason for this comes from Genesis 1. In this famous passage, everything that exists is created in six days, and God rests on the seventh. So seven is associated with the completion of creation.

The number seven is actually all over Genesis 1 if you count how many times certain key words and phrases are used. For example, the phrase “And God saw that it was good” appears six times. A final statement, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good,” brings the total to seven. Maybe you’re thinking, “Well, the phrase appears once each day. What’s so special about that?” The thing is … it doesn’t. Day 2 doesn’t have the phrase “And God saw that it was good,” but Day 3 has it twice to bring the total back up to 7. So when the Tabernacle narrative contains a formula of commendation seven times, it’s a deliberate echo of Genesis 1

If you’re not convinced that the reference is deliberate, note the last verse I read: “So Moses finished the work.” Compare that to Gen. 2:2 “And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.”

If that’s still not enough to convince you, let’s go back a little ways from the Exodus passage I read to Exod. 39:43. “And Moses saw all the work, and behold, they had done it; as the Lord had commanded, so had they done it. Then Moses blessed them.” Here we have the themes of work being done and of blessing after the work, just as God blesses his creatures with fruitfulness after creating them.

In other words, the Tabernacle, God’s presence with His people, is the final part of the creation story. Humanity’s communion with God was the goal of creation. It’s also the goal of the Exodus; God says to Pharaoh, “Let My people go that they may serve Me,” and like their service to the Pharaoh in Egypt, this service takes the form of a building project – but it’s for God, not for Pharaoh.

But the Tabernacle is also dangerous. There are all sorts of warnings in the later instructions on how to move it. The Kohathites, the Levites who are assigned to carry the Ark and other holy objects, are told that they can’t touch or even look at the objects, or they’ll die. The objects are carried on poles that are put through golden rings on the sides of them, and they’re covered with special coverings by the priests so the Kohathites stay safe.

But in spite of this danger of holiness, God still provides a way for His people to approach Him through the system of sacrifices and the ministry of the priests. The High Priest has the names of the tribes of Israel engraved on his breastplate so that when he comes before God once a year on the Day of Atonement, he essentially brings the whole people with him. Now that Jesus has ascended to the throne of God, he acts as that priest interceding for us, bringing us before God, too.

So why does the Bible spend so much time describing the Tabernacle? Well, it’s the goal of everything that has happened so far, but it’s also pointing to a greater goal. As the Golden Calf incident shows, the Tabernacle is not made by sinless people. The Israelites are still not worthy to approach God, except through the High Priest once a year.

When John 1:14 says that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, the Greek word there is the word for “tabernacle.” Jesus and what He won for us is the ultimate fulfillment of what God promises us through the detailed account of the Tabernacle – that God is with us even as we wander through this broken world, and even when that wandering is our own fault, He provides the perfect offering for sin.

And this is the other reason why the Bible spends so long on the Tabernacle. We have a God who revels in details. God doesn’t relate to humanity in the abstract; he wants to come and have relationships with specific humans. Of course, this is most obvious in the Incarnation, where God became a specific man who lived in a particular time and place. It’s also true in the particular history of Israel, where God was present in an actual, physical location for this one group of people at a particular point in time. And because of that, we know that He also cares about the particulars of our lives.

I’d like to conclude with the rest of Exodus 40, which is the end of the book of Exodus, because it summarizes my main point: That God is with us in our wanderings.

^“34 Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. ³⁵ And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. ³⁶ Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out. ³⁷ But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out till the day that it was taken up. ³⁸ For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys.”