Week 10 … Going up to Jerusalem via Sinai

Sometimes we simply need to wait on things. Gradually pieces fall into place. We can't rush the process. I like to think God has a hand in this process. So our Bible lessons would tell us over and over. This past weekend, reworking the "Desert" portion of our trip, I made a change to the itinerary and now we will visit the Sinai wilderness. From there, we will "go up to Jerusalem".

The importance of time spent in the wilderness is not so we can walk in the footsteps of Moses or the Israelites. We will not see THE mountain where God came down in smoke and fire! You might be amused to know that there are about a half dozen places that claim to be the "real" Mount Sinai! This is not the important thing about time spent in the desert. It is of importance because here we take time to ponder the desert lessons that even now have much to teach us. Here we consider the God of the desert experience and the God of deliverance and the provident God who seems so near and who provides food and water and direction, here we look closely at the God who enters into Covenant with the people, who is "merciful and gracious, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity" (Ex. 34:5).

The traditions associated with the Sinai begin with an experience Moses has of God as fire. For primitive people, fire was mysterious. It was a fitting image to express the presence of God who is also mystery and light and heat, threatening and purifying. God's name is part of this experience. When Moses asks God his name, God replies simply "I AM". God is a verb of being! God is life! In effect it is as if God is saying "My name is very long and you have to watch what I do if you want to know who and what I am". As the story of Exodus as found in the Bible unfolds, Israel (and we the attentive reader) learn all that God is. It is the only way we can grasp what is altogether too much for us to take in at one sitting.

Another of the traditions of Sinai is that of God who hears the cries of his people and who sets out to deliver them from the oppressive regime of Egypt. God delivers them into freedom and demonstrates how he directs them: with daily sustenance, traveling in their midst as fire and cloud. This is insight into the familiar phrase "the kingdom of God". If we read carefully, we understand what this kind of kingdom should resemble. There is trust required and an openness to learn and be formed in the ways of God. It is a simple existence that recognizes God with us. And God is free to be God, not what government or other authority makes God to be for us.

Also at the heart of the Sinai traditions is a belief that God has chosen his own people and entered into a covenant with them. God, according to the tradition, binds himself to the people and they to him. (See Deut 26:16-19). The giving of rules safeguard this relationship and point the way for Israel to be certain about how to maintain their covenant relationship with this God. Key among the laws is the command to love God above all else and to exercise compassion toward the poor and vulnerable in the community. In other words: Love the God who has shown you by his own example how to love one another!

The God who IS, the God who is full of compassion and the God of the covenant are three of the most important traditions associated with the Sinai experience. These weave their way throughout the later story of Israel. It has its beginning here; it is echoed in Genesis and played out sometimes in brilliant, major chords and at other times in tragic, minor tones throughout the story of Israel's relationship with God. Sinai established the basic footprint of the Bible! With the passage of time, all these traditions live and grow. Gradually, the experience of a very few who plodded through the wilderness and who experienced something worth remembering became the story of the whole people. When the oral tradition was finally put into a written shape hundreds of years later, the writer's own experience was retrojected back into the telling of the ancient stories. The image of fire and smoke and trumpets was the writer's experience of worshipping in the temple where clouds of incense concealed as they revealed the living God who mysteriously dwelt in the Temple of Jerusalem.

Sinai and Zion (Jerusalem) traditions become closely associated with the passage of time. Israelites were never commanded to journey to Sinai to renew the covenant or to seek God. God had journeyed to Jerusalem and so had the traditions. There is curious blending of these 2 sets of traditions in many pieces of writing. See Psalm 68 for example, especially vs. 7-9 (Sinai) and vs. 25-30 (Jerusalem). Or look at Exodus 15, the "Song at the Sea". Vs 1-12 speaks clearly of Exodus, but beginning with vs. 13, the reference shifts to Zion. What this tells us who attend carefully to the words is that when these texts were written, there already was a blending of traditions. Eventually these are brought together. Jerusalem became the repository of the Sinai traditions. These were not lost or abandoned, but preserved and renewed for a new time. Here is where we find an invaluable lesson: the old does not need to be discarded but renewed so they remain alive and speak to future generations. They do not remain unchanged!

The traditions associated with Zion revolve around a different covenant promise that God makes with the house of David. It includes two aspects: that of God's presence in Zion and the promise to the house of David of an everlasting dynasty. This seems a later tradition than the Sinai tradition, at least as it comes to us in the Bible. When the United Kingdom of David and Solomon is divided in 922, the Zion traditions become identified with the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The Sinai traditions come to be associated more with the Northern Kingdom of Israel. When the Kingdom of Israel is defeated by Assyria in 721, the Northern traditions are preserved and brought south, perhaps by those fleeing to Judah for safety. In texts like 1 Kings 8:14-21 we find the mention of both traditions: Zion and Sinai. Although the context of these verses is the dedication of the temple by Solomon, it is likely a later writer (the Deuteronomistic Historian) who has lived through the upheaval of the destruction of the North at a time much later than Solomon who is responsible for this passage.

Perhaps this is a lot of information and too little insight into what awaits us in Jerusalem. But, understanding this has everything to do with the importance of Jerusalem. Again, as God's name is very long and unfolds over the centuries, so too Jerusalem has a long history! Here, as we have said, the significance of the early traditions is gathered together and joined with the Davidic traditions. As time goes on, Jerusalem becomes the locus of hope for exiles as the place of restoration and return. Centuries later, after being rebuilt and rededicated, we are familiar with a journey to Jerusalem taken by a couple and their infant son, fulfilling the law, presenting their child to God in the temple, a child who later, as a youth, will engage the elders in discussion over the Law. As an adult, he will return and, like the prophets of old, weeps over the impending doom of that same city because it has failed to recognize the time of God's visitation. All this weighs on the mind and heart and memory of one who stands in the midst of Jerusalem. "And now we have set foot within your gates, O Jerusalem!", some of us in spirit, others of us in body.