The Gospel According to Exodus:
Sagarmatha or Chomolungma?

Exodus 19.3-8, 10-13, 16-23; 20.1-3

Rev. Toby Woodard, 01.07.07

I hope you noticed the weird sermon title. I’ll give $5 to anybody who can tell me what it means. What does the whole thing mean? Grant Beachy, you're excluded because I already told you.

Sagarmartha or Chomylugma are the two names of Mount Everest, depending on what country you come from. If you come from Nepal, it's Sagarmartha. If you’re in Tibet, it's Chomylugma. Same mountain, two different approaches, two different names. Now, in the passage before us this morning, there is one mountain, but there are different approaches to meeting God on that mountain. One leads to a place of safety. One leads to death. The approaches to meeting God really are two different religions. Same mountain, different religions.

What you have before you, as we come to this incident in Exodus, is another one of those big pictures in Exodus. The Israelites have been wandering in the desert for a couple of months. They've come out of Egypt; they've done the whole Red Sea thing, and the manna from heaven thing, and the rock that brings water thing, and the complaining thing . . . and they come right here. You need to imagine 2 million people marching through the desert, then looming up above them is one of these desert mountains. They’re going to camp there for the rest of Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and most of Deuteronomy as well. And God's going to meet them. What do they find when they go there?

Exodus 19. We're going to begin in verse 3:

"3 Then Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain and said, 'This is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: 4 'You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, 6 you [a] will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.'

7 So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all the words the LORD had commanded him to speak. 8 The people all responded together, 'We will do everything the LORD has said.' So Moses brought their answer back to the LORD.

[...]

10 And the LORD said to Moses, 'Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes 11 and be ready by the third day, because on that day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. 12 Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, 'Be careful that you do not go up the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. 13 He shall surely be stoned or shot with arrows; not a hand is to be laid on him. Whether man or animal, he shall not be permitted to live.' Only when the ram's horn sounds a long blast may they go up to the mountain.'

[...]

16 On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. 17 Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. 18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently, and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.

20 The LORD descended to the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up 21 and the LORD said to him, 'Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to see the LORD and many of them perish. 22 Even the priests, who approach the LORD, must consecrate themselves, or the LORD will break out against them.'

23 Moses said to the LORD, 'The people cannot come up Mount Sinai, because you yourself warned us, 'Put limits around the mountain and set it apart as holy.' '

[...]

Exodus 20

1 And God spoke all these words:
2 'I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
3 'You shall have no other gods before [a] me."

This is God's life-giving, inerrant, and holy word to us. Thanks be to God.

Same mountain, two approaches, two outcomes. It is the mountain where God gives his law; the mountain where God reveals himself to his people; the mountain where we hear for the first time the ten commandments. There's a way to approach this mountain and the ten commandments that will kill you; and there's a way to approach this mountain whereby God meets with his people, and makes it a place of refuge. That's the first thing we notice, that this is a place of refuge for God's people.

We looked at this a couple of weeks ago. Look with me at verse 4. "You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself." You see what I did to Egypt? I brought you to myself, I carried you on eagles' wings, you're here now because I brought you here. That kind of brings up a couple of rhetorical questions that we need to think about as we think about God rescuing his people.

Here are a couple questions that we need to ask ourselves this week: did you rescue yourself? See, everybody who came to the foot of that mountain knew one thing, "I'm here only because God plucked me out of the mud pits of Egypt, where I would have been slogging around for my whole life, where I would have been feeling the whips on my back, and where my wife and my daughters would have been abused if God hadn't brought me out. The only reason I'm here is because he rescued me."

I'd like to talk to our children right now. Did you give birth to yourself? Nooo, I didn't give birth to myself (it's not a trick question). If you are Jesus', you did not give birth to yourself, you did not rescue yourself. Listen. Picture being on eagles' wings. What do you think of? If you're a Lord of the Rings geek that I am (we're going to have not one but two illustrations this morning from LOTR). This passage is the one Tolkien had in mind when Sam and Frodo are there at end of all things -- they think. They're laying on the side of Mount Doom, it is about to fall down upon them, and they are about to draw their last, raspy breaths. Then there, through the fog and the smoke, come the great eagles to pick them up and take them to safety. That ought to be the picture in your mind when he says, "I carried you on eagles' wings. You are here, not because of you."

The greatest miracle I have ever personally experienced is the very fact that I'm here. The very fact that I'm not where I would have been because Jesus plucked me out of myself, plucked me out of the road I was on, plucked me out of the doom that was falling down upon me. And if you've ever read the Bible with any sort of sensitivity and if you've ever wrestled with your own heart, you know that this is you! Wow. I am Sam. I am Frodo. And I would be dead if God hadn't plucked me.

Listen. There is great comforter. If you're a follower of Christ, but you're in some tough circumstances, or maybe even some sin that you have committed, and you are in a bad place this morning -- it took all you could do to get here -- here's great comfort: you did not begin your story, and you will not end it. That's great comfort. When we sing, "Oh, love that will not let me go!" we mean it. The beautiful thing is that, even if you doubt that it is a love that will not let you go, what makes it wonderful is that it doesn't matter if you doubt it or not. It still won't let you go! And that ought to be great comfort to you; it also ought to be great humility.

We talked about this last week. When we come to the Communion table in a few minutes, come with empty hands, just like everybody else. We ought to come and say to each other, "You know, you smell like smoke. Have you been plucked out of the fire? You have? Me too. Wow." We never look down on each other. What do you have that lets you look down on each other? You're only standing here, if you are his, because he rescued you. That's the first rhetorical question.

Here's the second one: would you go back to Egypt? Why would you go back to Egypt? The answer is implied in verse 5, "Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, 6 you [a] will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." Here's what he's saying: "keep my covenant, you'll be mine. Don't go back to Egypt." We stumble on those words "keep my covenant," a) because we don't use words like covenant, and b) we hear that and think, "Keep my covenant. Ugh! That means I've got to keep all the rules -- like all the 10 commandments -- and then God won't trash me."

But. The covenant came from God way back in Genesis, 430 years before the 10 commandments, so the covenant means something else. Here's what the covenant means: I will be your God, you will be my people. Keep that. In other words, don't have any other gods before me. In other words, don't go back to Egypt. In other words, keep sleeping with me. Keep my covenant.

What we tend to do is to romanticize Egypt. "Oh, it was so good being in Egypt. Remember how much fun we had? How free we were?" But here's what God is saying -- I'm going to use a visual illustration for you this morning. I'm feeling a little thirsty this morning, I think I'm going to have some milk (he pours green, foul, chunky milk into a glass, then holds it up to be seen by all). Egypt. This is the sin that you want to run back to. Our hearts say things like, "It was milk once. Maybe it will be milk again. If I just give it a little more time, it will taste better." Why would you go back to that? You know what Egypt was like.

Some of you in this room have lived kind of outwardly moral lives and you haven't been in scandalous places like I have, like some of the rest of us have. I can tell you, as one who's been to the scandalous places, there's nothing there. But there are other Egypts besides the scandalous places. We'll talk about them in a second, but let’s go back to God and his covenant. He says to us, "Don't have any other gods before me," but we tend to say to him, "Well, I don't have any other gods. I've never bowed down to an idol, I don't have any shrines in my house. So, I'm good to go -- I don't have any other gods before God." Really? Where do you go when you're bored? What does your heart do -- what is it drawn to -- whenever you're sad? What do you do when you have time on your hands? Maybe you're lonely. Maybe life isn't working out the way you want it to. Where do you go when you're tired? That's your god. Plural.

The reality is that there's not an atheist in this room, and the most hard core atheist by this definition isn't an atheist. By this use of “atheist,”’ it simply means: wherever your heart goes, wherever your heart runs -- that's your god. That’s the clabbered milk, that's what God is saying we should not go back to. One of the good things we have in our culture is that we actually use the language of addiction. Addiction is having other gods.

Here's what God is saying in these verses -- let's just lay it all out. You don't have to do that. You don't have to go back to Egypt. Chapter 2, verse 2. It's not a wish; it's a truth. "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of slavery." God is saying, "you do not have to go back to whatever it is you go back to." But, here's the thing; here's what we do with that statement - this isn't a wishful statement, this is a statement of reality. Hopefully some of us are breathing a sigh of relief and you know, I know some of your stories. In this room are people who are coming out of horrible addictions to chemicals, out of all sorts of chemicals, and all sorts of sexual perversions, and cheaters. In this room are people who are being freed from their past, from guilt, from their families, and from the occult -- yes, right here in this room. Some of you have been addicted to sex, and some of you have been addicted to gambling. Some of you have been addicted to money, and some of you have even been enslaved to religion. You have been in bondage to it. God is saying, "you can learn to live as a free person," and some of you are -- thank God.

You're not in Egypt anymore but our hearts want to go back there sometimes. We tend to think that what I call the technicolor sins -- the ones I just mentioned, cocaine, drinking too much -- but how about this one? How do you feel when you expect to get an A in a class and you get a B? Do you tank? Yes. Why do you tank? Because your god let you down. You didn't get that job after school that you hoped to get. People ask, "You're doing what?" and you feel great shame. Why? Your god is letting you down; your god of success and reputation is letting you down. Your kids aren't what you want them to be. Your marriage isn't what you want it to be, and you're ashamed. Maybe that’s because our gods are letting us down. So we tend to go to things. We have golden calves all over the place. They're just everywhere. The amazing thing is that these people -- the ones God is talking to Moses about -- said, "Oh, yeah, God. We'll do everything you say," just about two weeks before they make the golden calf.

Now, some of you are thinking, "That doesn't have anything to do with me. I don't know what you're talking about having other gods. I don't believe in any of this stuff." And I'm glad you're here this morning, but I want to politely ask you to consider something -- and I mean that very sincerely. I'm not being condescending. I want you to politely consider the emptiness that is in your soul the day after the big party. The day after -- whatever it is that you chased after -- let you down. Why do you feel so empty? And why do you keep doing it? Let me just ask you to consider the possibility that you feel empty because you've been bowing to other gods; you've been drinking (points to green, clabbered milk) that with predictable results.

One of the things we've said in this series is, "Until God rules you, you'll never be free." And so there's freedom for those who come to the Lord with empty hands looking for grace, but there is doom here as well, and I hope you saw it. I hope you understand that I'm using that word advisedly, but I'm using it very intentionally. There is doom here if we understand the mountain. You also have to understand the mediator, but look at the mountain of doom. What's going on here? All of these feel-good verses at the beginning -- "I will carry you up on eagles' wings, " "I carried you," "You're my treasured possession." There's a lovefest in verses 4 and 5.

Then what happens next? They say, "God, we're going to do everything you tell us to do." Does that sounds familiar? "God I promise, I resolve, right here and now, I'm gonna . . . It's the straight and narrow from here on out." Right? Look at their words! Look at how naive they were. Look at verse 8. "The people all responded together, 'we will do everything the Lord has said.'" Listen. Immediately after that is one of the most terrifying portrayals of God in the entire Bible. And it is terrifying. It is intended to chill us. It is intended to cause us to fear. Why? God is saying this to those people (who danced around the golden calf), but he may be saying it to us as well. "You don't get me. You sing 'holy, holy, holy' and you're bored." I can tell you one thing they weren't and that is “bored.” He's saying, "You don't get me. And you don't get you. And I am going to terrify you, and chill you as a means to an end." Ok? Don't stop there. What's he doing?

Some of you, who may occasionally listen to bad country music like I do, have heard the song by Josh Turner, "Me and God." It has a little truth in it -- just enough to be dangerous. Let me read you a few lines from "Me and God," so you can hear what kind of view it has of God. "Early in the mornin' talkin' it over, me and God. Late in the evenin' talking it over, me and God. You could say we're like two peas in a pod, me and God. We're a team, me and God." Alright? Now talking it over with the Lord in the morning and at night is a good thing. There are some other things in the song that are good. Ok? But we are not two peas in a pod.

You don't believe me? Those of you who aren't freaked out by your imagination, I'd like you to close your eyes in a minute -- I'll tell you when -- And I'm going to read verse 16 to 20. Those of you who think I'm trying to pull some New Age trick on you, you can keep your eyes open if you want. Ok? I'm just reading the Bible, but here's what I want you to do: engage your imagination, pretend you're there, feel the ground shake, smell the smoke in your nostrils, hear the horn. Ok? Those of you who are brave, you can close your eyes.

"On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently, and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. The LORD descended to the top of Mount Sinai."

God is saying a couple of things in this passage. "You are my treasured possession, but you may not approach me on your terms. I am a holy God and to come flippantly to my presence will actually kill you." He warns them graciously, kindly. "You cannot touch the mountain. You cannot handle holiness." It's not that he's waiting to zap them, they will be zapped because that's the nature of things. You cannot touch holiness by yourself. God is addressing the default state of everyone in this room.

The problem is that we tend to think this, "I can approach God on my terms. Either He is small enough that I can approach him on my terms, or I am good enough, that I can approach him on my terms." And God is saying, "If you come on your own terms, you bring doom upon yourself." And we have to see that. If you don't understand that, you don't understand why Jesus came, because Jesus didn't die for nothing. He took doom upon himself. And so we see in this passage not just the mountain.

You don't stop there. Those of you who've tuned out, and are saying, "Ok, I knew it! This is all about fire and brimstone! I knew it! Finally, came back to church, New Year's resolution, and all he's talking about is fire and brimstone.“ Listen. I'm not finished. Ok? You have to see the mountain, but you also have to see the mediator on the mountain. Where do we see him? We see him, Moses, going back and forth -- he goes and talks to God, then he goes and talks to the people, he goes and talks to God, and then he goes and talks to the people. I bet he was in pretty good shape by the end because he's going back and forth bringing the people to God and bringing God to the people.

What's going on here? God is saying to Moses and to us that you cannot see him face to face on your own. You can see him face to face, but you can't see him face to face on your own. If you're going to have friendship and fatherhood with God, you have to understand the things you've heard me talk about many times. You don't get it simply because you were born an American, or you were born in the South, or your parents were believers, or you say grace before your meal, or you say "Yes, ma'am" and "No, ma'am." I can tell you that isn’t enough. There is a need for a mediator.

And so you see, I hope, where Jesus begins to fit in. Do you know why we read that passage earlier -- the one Grant read from Luke 9 (Luke 9.28-36). Did you notice it? Jesus goes up on a mountain to pray. And who does he meet there? He meets Elijah and Moses, the great prophet of the Old Testament, the great priest of the Old Testament. Jesus and Moses have a conversation, and here's what Moses asks. "Jesus, what about your departure that you are bringing to fulfillment?" That word “departure” in the Greek is the word “exodus.” Moses says to Jesus, "Tell me about the exodus that you are finally bringing to fulfillment."

We finally begin to understand the point I've been making since the beginning of Exodus. This is our story. This is the story of the Bible. And this is Jesus' story -- not small "m" mediator, but large "M" Mediator. The one who would, a few months after Luke 9, go up on a mountain carrying a cross, another mountain, so that you could come to this one. That's the only way you can come to this one. That's the only way you can come to this mountain. Hebrews 4 says, "Therefore, since we have a great high priest that is Jesus, let us approach the throne of Grace."

Here's what that means. Let’s say you don't know him, okay? But even if you don't know who this Jesus is, you know a lot about him. Maybe you've gone to church all your life. I don't know why you're here today. Maybe it’s a New Year's resolution -- it' s a good one. But if you don't know him, that means you can't see the face of God. He's the one who takes you there, he's the one who allows unholy people to come into holiness and not be doomed by it. But here's what else it means: many of you do know him. Either way, when we come to this table in a minute, you need to empty your hands. Some of you’ve been thinking that it's all about how you're doing spiritually, thinking about your spiritual performance. You think that when you're spiritually performing well, he smiles upon you, and when you're spiritually performing poorly, he frowns upon you. But what these verses say is, "It's about Christ. period."

Now, what happens if we get it? Here are a couple of points of application. One. It will transform the way you worship. Let me read to you some of the songs we sang this morning. "We stand and lift up our hands. For the joy of the Lord is our strength. We bow down, and worship him now, how great, how awesome is he. And together we sing, holy is the Lord, God almighty, the earth is full of his glory." None of us had a clue what we were singing when we sang that. Do you have a better picture now? "The whole earth is full of his glory." Does that make you tremble when you come to worship, or does it make you flippant? Listen, we have got to be honest with ourselves: most of us came in those doors flippantly this morning, we took what was going on this morning fairly lightly. Certainly in light of what we've read, myself included.

What God wants from us is what I might call secure, or safe, trembling. My wife and I had an opportunity a couple of months ago to go on our tenth anniversary trip to the Canadian Rockies . . . which, are way better than the American Rockies -- sorry, they are. And we rode the gondola up to the top of one of the mountains, just these stark, amazing mountains. When you get up to the top, they have this little, bitty building built at the top, and you're 10 or 12,000 feet looking down at the ground, seeing miles and miles 360 degrees around you. You're in the safety of a building that -- they said -- can withstand 110mph winds. But despite the safety railings you're still . . . I was nervous for about an hour, you know? Even though I was safe. Why? Because of the glory and the majesty and the beauty that was before me. How much more should it be when we come to worship the one who made that?

Here's what I mean: we don’t come cowering in fear. Here's what one person said, "Fear and trembling are no longer because God is our enemy." God is not your enemy, Israel. 'I brought you out on eagles' wings. You're not my enemy.' But “because he has saved us, from his wrath through Jesus, we now stand on the brink of the grand canyon of his holiness, and justice, and wrath, and grace, and glory with unspeakable wonder, with knees wobbling and hands trembling because we are overcome with joyful worship at the depth of his mercy to us. Not with worry that we might fall in. We tremble before the face of his holy kindness." When was the last time you trembled in worship?

I hope that next Sunday is transformed a little bit. It also transforms us as we tell this story about Jesus. Because some of you grew up and were born into a "me and God" view of things, some of you have had that view. "Me and God, you know? He's my buddy, he's my pal." He is our friend, but he is not like us. And that's a good thing -- that he is not like us. It's a very, very good thing that he is holy. Some of you come from a background where God is always loving, he's always loving everybody. You are bored stiff by Christianity.

You are bored stiff because there is nothing more boring than indiscriminate good humor. You know, a guy who's just always kind of happy . . . You know, he's a little off because he's always manic, but he doesn't inspire you at all because he's not a holy God. To have a God of love without a God of holiness is to have a clown. To have a God of holiness, is to have one who descended from his holiness, took up my cross, and then was hung on it. Do you have that God? Do you see the juxtaposition of those things?

One last word on the horn. Did you notice the horn in verse 13? "Only when the ram's horn sounds a long blast may they go up to the mountain." What is this ram's horn? Legend has it that it was the same ram's horn that was caught in the thicket, the one way back when Isaac was going to be sacrificed on the altar, but God provides a ram, a lamb, so that Isaac doesn't have to die. Jewish legend says that this is that ram's horn -- we don't know that for sure. But here's what we do know. On the day of atonement, which is the day when God symbolically took away all of the peoples' sins, they blew the horn. They also blew the horn when the king came. Do you understand? When the king comes, the Savior comes. Do you understand? King. Savior. Savior King. Holy. Mercy. Kind. Justice. Wrath. Compassion.

Do you hear the horn? It's going to be sounded again at the end of time. Revelation 11.13 says this, "The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven which said, 'The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever, and ever.' Amen." Does that mean anything to you? If it doesn't, do not take this meal, because you don't get it. And you need to pray the prayers that are printed in the bulletin and get it, because it is your life.

One last trumpet. Makes me think of Helm's Deep. The people of Middle Earth are about to be overrun by the Orks and the Uruk-hai. Their destruction is upon them, their walls are about to be breached, darkness is about to sweep across the land. And there is Merry. They're fighting and they're waiting, and he hears a trumpet, the trumpet of the people who are coming to save them. Tolkien says in his book that for the rest of his life, whenever he heard a trumpet, he wept. This is a trumpet. Calling to your soul this morning. Let me ask you, this (holds up clabbered milk) or this (holds up goblet of wine for communion). This is an invitation.