Fire on the Mountain

Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence -- as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil -- to make your name known to your adversaries, and that the nations might tremble at your presence!

When you did awesome things that we did not look for, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. -- Isaiah 64:1-3

This is a variation on a post I did a year and a half ago.  

We expect an answer when we pray, or we should.  Even if our prayer is simply to understand, we may be shocked when our eyes are opened.  We are apt to find that the world is not nearly as neat and predictable as we thought.  And that is not true only for those who suddenly become enlightened from materialism.  The religious are often just as surprised to find that the hermeneutic track they have been following so carefully leads them to a place where the bridge is out.  

In fact, I think it is possible that the journey does not really begin until the well-trod path ends.  We need to follow the signs and markers left by those who have gone before us.  We need a path to follow, but it will take us only to the jumping-off place.  At that point we will find that most of our maps are of limited value.  What we need is a guide, someone who knows the unknown country.  Jesus pointed out to Nicodemus, “No one has ascended into heaven except He who has descended from heaven.”  Only the Spirit of Christ is able to take us where we need to go.  There are saints we will meet along the way, teachers, some still in this world, some already in the next, who will instruct us and, perhaps, point us in this direction or that, but there are no paths in that country, for each individual must reach the destination by his or her own course.

I am not sure how to express this, but I will start.  It seems to me that as it is usually presented, Christianity is lacking in wildness.  I almost want to say manliness, but that’s too limiting.  It is just too tame, too civilized.  The reality of Christ is raw and primitive in blood and pain and joy.  I can hardly bring myself to write the word “surrender” in relation to our obedience because what God is looking for is more of a wild, ecstatic abandon.  Compared to the simpering model of modern Christianity, the real saints are spiritual berserkers.  I can think of a few Christians in the last hundred years who might fit the model – Bonhoeffer, John Paul II, and Solzhenitsyn immediately come to mind, perhaps Chuck Colson.  Alas, we have too much of the church following in the footsteps of nice guys, like Joel Osteen – not to mention the idiots, con-men, and charlatans. 

I am not suggesting clubbing people over the head with Gospel, being annoying or obnoxious.  I just think when God comes into our lives it is much more like “the mountains quaked” than “isn’t that special”.  The presence of God is mode-shattering.  You cannot continue to look at things the same way when everything around you that you thought was solid is melting like wax.  The reason God is not doing “awesome things that we did not look for” is that because, as soon as He starts, we start worrying about whether the neighbors think we are crazy or if they will kick us out of the PTA. 

I would never have been teaching Sunday School or doing Wednesday night Bible studies back in the old days if I had been off in the unknown country.  First, I had to reach the end of the road, and as long as we are on the road, we have to follow the rules of the road.  Nothing wrong with that.  But once you are off in the bush, the only rule is listening to the Guide, especially when the bushes are all burning.     

The Mediator is the Message

Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” – Exodus 20:18-19

This is the “Jesus willies” on steroids. Not only is the presence and reality of God undeniable in this situation, it is frightening. I am sympathetic to these people because they were seeing their reality invaded; their very conception of what was real was called into question. It is hard to imagine that such an experience would not leave a person shaken, even terrified.

We are going to talk about responses to hearing the word of God – in a series, if I don’t get distracted by something shiny, and Exodus seems a good place to start. When I was younger and talked about it, I almost mocked these Israelites. How could they not want to experience God in such a powerful way? I have learned better. To request a mediator is actually a good and reasonable response. God “raw” and direct is too much. It shatters the necessary separation with such psychic and spiritual violence that the container of material existence is ripped apart. We might liken it to trying to catch Niagara Falls in a paper bag. We need a go-between, someone or something that can mitigate the violence of the ultimately Real, that will allow us to draw the truth through a straw rather than the proverbial fire hose.

Moses was transformed by his nearness to God such that, “… the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him” (Exodus 34:30). But even Moses, in his communion with God could not endure the direct light of Divine glory but only what we might call the after-glow (Exodus 33:17-23). We may not be certain what that means, exactly, but we know how it is described by Paul when he speaks of the Old Covenant being “put in place through angels by an intermediary” (Galatians 3:19). In other words Moses dealt primarily with the Angel of the Lord, a Theophany, or some kind of angelic manifestation which modulated the Divine Presence enough for a man to survive the encounter.

This brings us to Christ who is the one Mediator between God and man -- the Logos. What is unique about Jesus is not only is He the Mediator, He is the Message. According to Hebrews, the Father has “spoken to us by His Son” in a new kind of apocalypse, where the veil is removed and we can see what Moses longed to look upon, “the radiance of the glory of God” and, in the Man, “the exact imprint of His nature”.

It is not surprising then that as the Holy Spirit begins to reveal Christ to us, we get a little shaken up. We can understand Isaiah when he says: Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence— as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil— to make your name known to your adversaries, and that the nations might tremble at your presence! When you did awesome things that we did not look for, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. (Emphasis mine)

Whoa!

Perhaps it is just me, but I find in myself a sort of ambivalence. I am all ready for God to “rend the heavens and come down” as long as He doesn’t actually, you know, come down. I will light the fire, but I don’t really expect the pot to boil. Yet that is what is going to happen at some point. If we continue to allow His Spirit to work on us and draw us, a time will come when Christ will become real to us and the solid earth will be bubbling beneath our feet. After that, I do not believe there is any turning back. We cannot return to Egypt, though it is possible to die in the wilderness, and it is just that irrevocability, I think, that causes us to be hesitant, to draw back from full contact, to cry out, “Come, Lord Jesus”, and to mumble “just not today.”

The answer is not to back away but to seek the human face of Jesus, the Son of Man -- His own preferred title. Not that the Son of Man will not still shake up our worldview, but we know that He is one of us despite being fully God, that He understands us, is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Jesus knows what it means to live in a body formed from clay and filled with the animal cravings and weaknesses inherent in the meat nature. We need a mediator, and He is the best.

Unexpected Anticipation

Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at Your presence — as fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes water to boil —to make Your name known to Your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Your presence!

When You did awesome things which we did not expect, You came down, the mountains quaked at Your presence. — Isaiah 64:1-3

"You did awesome things which we did not expect". Isaiah realized that while God was not ripping open the material heavens and invading earth like a super-warrior, He was ripping open the "sky" of Isaiah's conscious mind and pouring Himself into the world through the prophet and his words.

The Incarnation is the ultimate manifestation of God's invasion for the rescue and redemption of humanity. It, too, was an unexpected and awesome thing. Certainly Christ's entrance into the world has made the mountains — often a metaphor for worldly powers — and the nations tremble and quake. The world has been in an upheaval since Christ came to bring — not peace, but a sword and a winnowing, purging fire. And that will continue until the Kingdom is all in all.

I was taught that the 'world' as such would get worse and worse — more sinful, more violent, more anti-God, and specifically more anti-Christ until, at some point, Christ would return in secret to snatch out His people. Subsequent to the removal of the Bride, God's wrath would consume the unrighteous in terror and judgment. Though I have my problems with Dispensational eschatology, there is truth in this view. There can be no doubt that a separation of the righteous and the unrighteous, of the Kingdom people from the worldly is not only necessary, but constantly taking place.

(Whether there will be an actual Rapture as believed by Hal Lindsay, my family, friends, and millions of others, I do not know. In keeping with what Jesus told us in Acts 1:7-8, it is not my problem. I trust Jesus now and do my best to obey Him. As best I can figure, if the Rapture does take place, I'm in a position to go up, same as Hal. Meanwhile, I'm still here.)

The Lord is, even at this moment, coming down and pouring into the world through us. When we as individuals accept this, both worldly powers and satanic principalities are shaken. We cannot expect the various antichrists and the Prince of the Power of the Air and his hierarchy to accept the casting down of their dominions without a fight. We should be prepared.

So if you have been raised with Messiah, seek what is above, where the Messiah is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on what is above, not on what is on the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with the Messiah in God — Colossians 3:1-3

Trouble ahead, trouble behind.
Don't you know that notion just crossed my mind