Jesus Series

In the beginning … before there was anything … there was … Elohim … our strong creator God who created the heavens and the earth. Sending out His Spirit, He sang the universe into existence … the galaxies, the stars, the planets. With a word He filled this planet that He created with life … all kinds of life … everything that crawls, walks flies, or swims.

And then He took some mud and breathed His life and His spirit into it and created man and woman. He told us that we could eat freely of every tree in the garden except one ... and from that moment on there has existed a rift between us and God.

And yet, even in the desert… the wilderness … Jehovah Jireh provides for us. He makes a covenant with Abram: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3).

Abram and Sarai have a child … a son named Isaac. Isaac has two sons … Esau and Jacob. Jacob has twelve sons … one of whom … Joseph … is sold off into slavery by his own brothers. And yet, Jehovah Shammai is there in Egypt with Joseph. When Joseph is made second-in-command over all of Egypt, Jehovah Jireh again provides for His people and they not only survive a famine but prosper … to the point that the Pharaoh becomes concerned and begins to oppress the Hebrew people. After 400 years of seeming silence, God answers His peoples’ prayers by sending a deliverer … an 80-year-old fugitive herding sheep in the backside of nowhere. It is in the wilderness that God chooses to reveal His personal name to His people through Moses … YWHW … the unpronounceable name of God … a name that speaks of God as the Eternal, Ever-Changing, Self-Existent One … The Great I Am … “I Am that I Am” … “I Will Become What I Choose” … “I Will Become What I desire” … “He Who Causes to Exist.”

Remember how Rabbi David Cooper described the glorious name of “Yod He Waw He” as an “interactive verb.” “From this perspective,” He says, “creation should not be treated as a noun. Creation is an ‘interactive verb’ … creation is constantly ‘creation-ing.’ When we put all these ideas together,” says Rabbi Cooper, “the paradigm of relationship shifts. God is ‘God-ing’ … creation is ‘creation-ing. Every aspect of creation is a process like an infinite flower opening its petals” (Cooper, D.A. 1997. God is a Verb. New York: Riverhead Books; p. 93). God is an infinitely opening flower … each unfolding petal revealing some new, fresh insight into God and who He is.

In the desert, the people of God learn that God is Jehovah Jireh … “The God Who Provides.” He provides them with bread from the storehouses of Heaven. Quail falls at their feet. Water rushes out of the very rocks. In the desert, the people of God learn that God is Jehovah Rapha … “The God Who Heals.” Jehovah Rapha heals the Israelites of their bitterness as Mar’ah … the bitter pool of water … by turning the water sweet and their bitterness to hope.

As they travel towards the Promised Land, God gave His people many signs that He was Jehovah Shammai … “The God Who Is There” … traveling before them as a cloud during the day and a column of fire at night … later traveling and dwelling amongst them in the Tabernacle. Again, the manna and the quail provide the people with evidence that God was them. When they were being attacked by poisonous serpents, God had them raise a fiery serpent on a pole as a reminder that God was Jehovah Nissi … their “banner” … their “flag” … so that whosover was bitten could look to Jehovah Nissi and live.

Time and time again, Jehovah Sabaoth …. “The Lord of Hosts” … the Supreme Commander of Heaven … would deliver them from their enemies … sometimes sending His angels to watch over them or defeat their enemies.

El Shaddai … the Mighty Mountain who nourished and took care of His people … bringing them to the Holy Mountain … Mt. Zion … the site where El Shaddai spoke to Moses from a burning bush and revealed Himself to Moses as “Yod He Waw he” … YHWH.

Yahweh calls the people to come to the mountain to meet Jehovah Shammai … “The God Who is There.” He appears as a fire descending on the mountain that covers the whole mountain in smoke. The ground trembles and the whole mountain shakes when … El Elyon … “God Most High” … when “Adonai” … “The LORD of Lords” … when Jehovah Sabaoth … “The Supreme Commander of Heaven” speaks.