Home for the Holidays 12
Written on December 12, 2014.
Before todays’ entry, I’m begging forgiveness for the days where posts have been on the later end. I am still learning the technical side of our blog platform. A few times, I posted to the wrong account and discovered later that it hadn’t posted to the website. I believe I have now overcome!
Jesse Tree
Day 12 – December 12
LOVE LETTER
Our story continues today with the Israelites. Wrapped in miracles, fed and watered, they stand at a precipice. Hanging by an invitation, they frantically reach for tangible things to grab hold of, instead of the invisible hand outstretched and waiting for them to take hold.
God has invited them to ascend the mountain before them, instead of walking around it over and over. On the peak of His Presence, they will see His face. But without Awe, people turn to the imaginings of fear. They whisper and wail about what God might do to them when He isolates them upon the summit. Focused on their fearful hearts, they cannot see their faithful God. And so, they reject His invitation and remain at the base of the holy hill, trembling instead of cresting the glory with Moses and being shaken free of every hinderance that kept them from being as close to God as they could come.
Disappointment turns to delight as Moses enters the misty mountaintop. Memories of the burning bush may have flooded Moses, quickly to be washed away by the “nowness” of God.
Moses waits for God while completely surrounded by Him. And then the voice comes and reveals what is upon His heart. He asks Moses to go back to the people and prepare them. They are to wash their clothing and enter into worship, for that will be their door to knock upon now. And He says to tell them, that on the third day of their preparation He will come. The third day. The day of resurrection. For once more, a relentless God will seek to roll the stone away from entombed hearts. And the oil of resurrection would be that of unconditional love.
Breathless and expectant, Moses ascends the mount once more. God is there revealing what every sense was created for. For He is there in sound, fragrance, vision, affecting every molecule of the atmosphere with fierceness and fondness.
Now speechless, Moses receives God with every part of him as a love letter is written upon stone that will testify to the words upon it. Stones meant to cry out to a people afraid to love and yet unable to receive it.
Later, it will be said that God gave the law. But the misunderstanding and misalignment to come was not enough to thwart His mission. He released love fully on that day and it hovered as a cloud and lingered in words supernaturally written. Without the help of man but for the hope of man, He gave Himself to them. Vulnerable and tender, he opened His heart to those terrified to come in.
The love letters He wrote that day are often seen as a list of don’ts and requirements to be met instead of invitations to be responded to. Traced in every letter was the immensity of love for a people willing to open the note He sent instead of posting it as a memorial.
The prose of His poem read:
“Come to me for the truth and a lie will not be able to invade your heart and mind.
Wait with me as the intangible becomes tangible. The things you can make tangible for yourself will become idols you will struggle to let go of. Their glare will keep you from seeing clearly.
When you are pierced by me, you won’t wound others.
Stealing will keep you from being able to receive and prohibit you from giving freely.
If your eyes are on what another has, you won’t see my hand outstretched full of what I long to give you.
If you take the life of another, you will not be able receive the life I will give for you. If you shed blood, you will not be able to recognize the power of the blood I will shed.”
Full from his encounter, Moses began the descent to meet the people where they met with God, made supernatural by love and courageous by truth.
To be continued…