Approaching Mount Zion

Your joy at completing your long journey through the wilderness is short lived, though, because it is replaced by absolute terror. You have witnessed the plagues that brought a proud Pharaoh to his knees; you have seen an entire army drowned in the sea. But you have never seen anything as terrible and frightening and awesome as this. The mountain that rises up before you is covered by a thick cloud, but the darkness is repeatedly pierced by the flashing of lightning. The silence is shattered by the rumbling of thunder. The blasting of a trumpet announces what you already know – that God is on this mountain. You have to struggle to keep your balance because a great earthquake is rumbling, and your knees are just a bit shaky anyway. Moses disappears into the cloud and then he returns to warn you not to approach the mountain or else you will die. He doesn’t really need to tell you that, because you’re not about to take a chance and go near that terrible and holy place.

And then the most terrible and awesome thing yet takes place. Through the cracking of the thunder and the rumbling of the earthquake, a voice is heard by all the people, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me..." God Himself speaks from the mountain giving you the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. The experience is so terrifying that you plead with Moses to go and speak to God for you, before you’re convinced that if you hear God speak again that you will die.

Let me raise a question to you this morning: Do you think that if you really witnessed the scene I’ve just described to you that you might have a different view of worship than you have right now? If you had been there at the foot of Mt. Sinai, would you have wondered why it was important to worship God? The greatness and the glory and the grandeur of God would naturally drive you to worship. It was only natural that the Israelites went to their knees before God.

That’s what the Hebrew writer is describing here in chapter 12. Just think, if we were in a situation like that, we could appreciate worship so much more. If every time we prayed, the lights flickered and the floor trembled, we could know that our worship is meaningful.

But the Hebrew writer says that’s not at all what our worship is like. He says, “you have not come to the mountain that may be touched.” And compared to what those Israelites experienced, our worship is quite boring. But the Hebrew writer wants us to know that there is tremendous significance to what we do. "But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem." (Hebrews 12:22a). Christians, even those who meet in small congregations that may seem plain and unimpressive, have come to Mount Zion. And it is one of the great blessings of the Christian faith that we have been invited to "draw near" to God in worship.

Christians are on "holy ground" in the weekly worship assembly. The bricks and mortar, pulpit and pews are not sacred. But wherever God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son are present, we need to respond to that presence by figuratively taking off our shoes in reverent, worshipful praise.