Be prepared! (Exod 19:10-15)
Exod 19:10-15
For the past few weeks in NZ, we have heard the repeated warning to prepare for another COVID outbreak, yet many have remained complacent and impatient of such advice. As the threat has now become reality, we realise the importance of being ready for it. Christians can likewise be impatient about rules relating to meeting God, convinced that we no longer need the kind of elaborate preparation that Israel did. A closer look, however, will show us that the difference in practices has less to do with our different standing in Christ and more with the cultural distance between our world and theirs. In other words, we still need preparation to meet our God even though our actions to do so may not be the same as ancient Israel’s.
The key rules for Israel were the washing of garments (Exod 19:10, 14) and sexual abstinence (expressed euphemistically in Exod 19:15) and these need some ‘translation’. First, it should be noted that in the ancient world, physical (ritual) action often mirrors more intangible spiritual realities. Thus, ritual washings of body and clothing indicate cleansing and point to the need for spiritual cleansing. Sexual abstinence is a common prerequisite for approaching God in a number of ancient Near Eastern cultures,[1] and it does not mean that such physical intimacy is wrong, dirty or disapproved of by God, since He Himself designed humanity for such intimacy in marriage between a man and a woman (Gen 2:24). Rather, it is similar to fasting as a way of focusing one’s attention away from the mundane, physical reality in preparation to encounter the spiritual.
While the practices above may not be automatically transferable, the principles are. First, spiritual cleansing is important because sin gets in the way of hearing from the Lord. If we have offended or quarrelled with a friend, we first need to ‘clear the air’ before we can enjoy the friendship again. Likewise, if we live in deliberate disobedience to what we know is right, we grieve God’s Holy Spirit, so confession and turning away from known sin is necessary for the relationship to be restored. Secondly, putting the distractions, even the pleasures of our daily lives to one side is essential to hear from God. So often, we open our Bibles or pray but the tasks of the day, the challenges we fear or the joys we anticipate, the emails, the texts, the Facebook messages or the news may interfere with our concentration, so that we lend God only half an ear and end up hearing nothing but the chatter of our own minds.
About ten years ago the BBC presented a fascinating documentary series (‘The Big Silence’) in which a Benedictine monk showed five volunteers with everyday, busy lives (several of them entirely non-religious), the benefit of silence. The film depicts the experiences of these people, how silence affects them and how out of it emerges a clearer vision of themselves and an encounter with God. In the film, Abbot Christopher Jamison says,
The parallel would be if a doctor diagnosed that you had an illness that required you to build 20 minutes of therapy into your day, every day without fail or you’re going to die, I think most of us would manage it. Well, the question is, can we believe that about the life of the soul? That, actually, our souls are going to die if we don’t give them some breathing space every day?’
What are our practices to meet with God? Our daily devotional time may not require such elaborate preparations that Israel went through – after all, they were getting the blueprint and framework for how to live their lives with God. However, when we face big decisions and seek God on some larger issues in our lives, setting aside time and space ‘for our souls to breathe’ and being prepared to hear from the Lord may mean a world of difference in the quality and depth of our meeting with Him.
[1] Herodotus attributes this to Egyptians, Babylonians and ‘Arabs’ (Syro-Palestinians and desert nomads) and modern scholarship can confirm this particularly about Egyptian worshippers and priests; the latter had to abstain temporarily through the entire time of their service in a temple. William H.C. Propp, Exodus 19-40, AB 2A (New York: Doubleday, 2006), 163.
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