Advent 4
Deut
18:15-19
12/22/13
During two out of the three years
that I was a doctoral student in New Testament studies, I attended the national
Society of Biblical Literature meeting.
The SBL as it is known is the most important professional organization
for those involved in scholarship related to biblical studies. Each year they have their national meeting at
the beginning of the week in which Thanksgiving falls.
This meeting is a huge event that
takes place in a large convention center complex. There are interesting papers
that are delivered. You get to see and
hear from scholars whose books and articles you have read. And in the exhibit hall they also have the
most amazing venue for buying books – all the publishers are present with their
latest offerings, and the prices are at reduced SBL conference rates.
At the SBL conference you have a
chance not just to see and hear world class scholars, but also to meet them and
actually talk with them. I had a chance to ask some questions of one of the
leading scholars in the world on Jewish apocalyptic literature, and it proved
helpful in writing a paper that has since gone on to provide the foundation for
an article that was published.
Of course when you are a nobody, and
you are dealing with someone who is that smart and accomplished, you want to
put your best foot forward and make a good impression. And so before I
approached a scholar, I would always have my question or comment carefully
thought through. I was mentally prepared
to engage this famous scholar in conversation.
That’s the way it normally
worked. But then there was the day when
I walked into a room at the Toronto convention center and took a seat as I was
waiting for a presentation to start. I
looked over, and there was man next to me in his sixties. In a perfunctory kind of way I greeted him
and he responded, “Hello, I am James Dunn.”
And at that point, my mouth almost hit the floor. You see, if you asked anyone who knows
anything about scholarship directed towards Paul’s letter to a make a list of
the top five scholars in the world – James Dunn would be on every one of
them. And he would probably be in the
upper portion of all those lists. He has
written major commentaries, book and articles that have had a large impact on
scholarship.
I was completely surprised. I had no
idea what Dunn looked like – to me he was just a name on a page. I was so shocked to find myself sitting next
to James Dunn, that I only I managed to stammer out my name and the fact I was
a doctoral student in Pauline studies at Southern Methodist University, where I
was working with Dr. Jouette Bassler. And that was it. I was sitting
next to one of the top scholars on Paul in the world, and I was so surprised that
my mind went completely blank. I couldn’t think of a single good question or
observation with which to engage Dunn in conversation because I was so shocked
that he was sitting there speaking to me.
In our Old Testament lesson, we hear
about Israel’s experience when they found themselves in the presence of Yahweh
at Mt. Sinai. It turned out to be an
unexpected experience, and far more than they could handle. They declared that it was so shocking that
they didn’t want the experience anymore.
Instead, they wanted God to speak to Moses.
The book of Deuteronomy recounts the
sermons that Moses gave to Israel as they were about to enter into the promised
land. The forty years of wandering were
completed, and only those who were children and youths at the time of the
Exodus had been alive to see what God had done.
The adults had all died during the wandering as punishment for their
refusal to enter the land. And so in Deuteronomy Moses reviews what God had
done for them, and how the Israelites were to live in the covenant God had made
with them as they now moved forward.
As he looks towards the future,
Moses tells Israel in our text, “The LORD your God will raise up for you a
prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall
listen.” Moses says that God is going to
raise up a prophet just like him, and then he recounts how he had come operate
in his present role. He says, “just as
you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you
said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great
fire any more, lest I die.’ And the LORD said to me, ‘They are right in what
they have spoken.”
The scene at Horeb – also called Mt.
Sinai – was unlike anything that anyone had seen before or since. There was thunder and lightning. The mountain
was wrapped in smoke because Yahweh descended upon it in fire, and the whole
mountain trembled. There was the sound
of a trumpet that got louder and louder, and finally, when God spoke it sounded
like thunder.
This was all too much for
Israel. They said, “Let me not hear
again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I
die.” And so Moses became the intermediary between Yahweh and Israel. He went into God’s presence, and then
delivered Yahweh’s word to the people.
The events at Mt. Sinai remind us
about how we have domesticated God. And
really, we are just reflecting the culture in which we live. An awesome, holy, righteous and fear inducing
God is not what people want. And
honestly, it’s really not what we want.
We want God to be our friend. We
want him to the buddy who just overlooks all of our faults. Because if that is the way things work, then
I really don’t have to worry about sin – I certainly don’t have to struggle
against it. I can just do what I want. I
can do whatever is most convenient for me and I don’t have to mess around with
taking a stand against sin. After all
you know what happens if you try doing that?
Take a look at that Phil Robertson guy this past week. He’s going to have a lot more time to work on
his duck calls.
However, God has not changed. And
the New Testament writers knew it. The
writer to the Hebrews warns, “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a
kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship,
with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.”
When the people of Israel were
overwhelmed and asked, “Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or
see this great fire any more, lest I die,” Yahweh didn’t get upset. Instead he said to Moses, “They are right in
what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among
their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to
them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he
shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.”
The last chapter of Deuteronomy
describes Moses’ death and how God buried Moses in an unknown site. And it
concludes by saying, “And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like
Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and the
wonders that the LORD sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to
all his servants and to all his land, and for all the mighty power and all the
great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.”
The book of Deuteronomy and the Old
Testament as a whole end with the knowledge that God had not yet sent the
prophet like Moses. Indeed, even after
the last books of the Old Testament were inspired and written, some four
hundred years passed and this prophet like Moses did not arrive.
On Christmas we will celebrate the
arrival of this long promised figure. We
will rejoice in the knowledge that God has kept his word and raised up a
prophet like Moses to speak God’s word to us. We will give thanks that in order
to allow us to interact with the God who is a consuming fire, God gives us … a
baby. A baby? Yes, a baby.
This One is the mediator between God
and man. And when we meet him for the
first time, he could hardly seem less threatening. He is lying as a baby in a manger. Now make no mistake, as true God and true man
he is the creator of the cosmos.
But he has not come to terrify. Instead he invites us. He will say later, “Come to me, all who labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Jesus grew up to fulfill the role of
the prophet like Moses. He came to deliver God’s words to us. And he did more than that. He came to reconcile us to God. He came to make a great exchange with
you. By his death on the cross in your
place he takes your sin to himself, and he gives you his righteousness. Because of this you are justified – you are
declared “not guilty” now – the same verdict that will happen on the
last day when you appear before the judgment seat of Christ who rose from the
dead. And so Paul tells us: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Because of the prophet like Moses
born at Christmas you stand forgiven; you have peace. And so now, as the baptized child of God you
forgive others. You seek to live in
peace with those around you. As Jesus
has served as mediator between God and man in order to bring you peace, so you
seek to mediate between others so that there can be forgiveness and
reconciliation.
In our text today, God promises to
send a prophet like Moses. At Christmas
we will rejoice in the fact that he did just that this. We listen to him as he speaks God’s word to
us. And we praise him for the peace he has provided to us.
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