Hillsborough Reformed Church at Millstone
April 29, 2007 Easter IV
Exodus 24:15-18, 25:8,9, Rev 7:9-17. John 1:14-18
“God in a Tent”
The Book of Revelation is a vision of the future, but a vision of the future with a purpose. The Book of Revelation was written to Christians suffering severe persecution at the hands of the Roman Empire early on in Christian history. All the fantastic apocalyptic visions and symbolism have to do with the Empire. They are code that ancient Christians and Jews would easily have understood. Though they are mysterious to us today, this kind of literature was widespread in the centuries just before Jesus and immediately following the time of Jesus.
The purpose of the Book of Revelation is to give strength to people who might well have to pay for their membership in the church with their lives. Revelation says, even if it costs you your life to be a follower of Jesus, persevere, for God will reward you in heaven.
Today we have as our reading one of the most important parts of this vision…the multitude of people from all nations – people who loved Jesus and died for him, praising God. And they say this about God: 15 For this reason they are before the throne of God,
and worship him day and night within his temple,
and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.
16 They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;
the sun will not strike them,
nor any scorching heat;
God will shelter them. A note at the bottom of the page of my Bible said this about that part of the verse, that God will shelter them, “literally, God will spread his tabernacle over them.” (Ske – NO – say)
I was amazed.
What is the tabernacle doing in the last book of the Bible? We first read of the tabernacle during the wilderness wanderings of God’s people after God has Moses lead them out of slavery in Egypt. God instructs them to put up this place of worship – it is a tent – a large tent. God presence is in the tent. So it is also called the tent of meeting.
What the tabernacle boils down to is a portable church.
When the people of Israel move on, they take down the tent, and carry it with them to the next encampment then put it up again.
That makes sense, perhaps, for people wandering forty years in the desert. But at the end of history, when God establishes God’s kingdom in its fullness, God still has a tent?
And tell me, what kind of God lives in a tent anyway?
Do you remember staying in a tent as a kid, maybe in scouts?
Remember someone telling you – “Don’t touch the material of the tent or it will lose its rain-proofing?” Do you remember putting up a tent? Do you remember taking it down, rolling it up and carefully brushing the twigs and leaves and dirt off as you rolled it? The tent has to be clean when stored, or it would deteriorate. My kids always wanted a tent. We’d put the tent up in the backyard. We even got one of those neat little tents for toddlers that you put up in the family room.
Tents are temporary. So, what kind of a God lives in a tent?
You know, other god’s want to be worshiped in Temples. Temples of the finest marble…vast Temples that wow you and make you stare up in awe. Gilded Temples, Temples with jewels. Temples that say, this God is great!
But no, the God of the Jews wants to live in a tent. And at the end of time, it will be a tent again – “God will spread God’s tabernacle over you.”
Not only that, but God has even TURNED DOWN Temples! When David was king, he fought many wars to establish Israel’s kingdom. When he finally had the land powerful and secure, he said to himself, “Here I am living in a fine palace of cedar. But God is living in a tent! I will build a Temple for God out of the finest cedar!” But God has other ideas. God sends the prophet Nathan to Jesus…says this to David, Nathan, “Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle.(2 Sam. 7:5b,6)
In other words, God says to David, “Who asked you to build me a house?”
Then God goes on to tell David, GOD will build DAVID a house- that is, God will establish David’s dynasty – a descendant of David will always rule. And you knew that Jesus is a descendant of David.
So it isn’t that God is not powerful…God can establish dynasties….it’s just that this God doesn’t mind living in a tent.
When do you use a tent? To go camping. When you are going somewhere – your tent is like a mini-home – like a portable home. You go somewhere, pitch your tent, and live there for a while….a day or two maybe, then you move on and take up your tent and move it with you.
You wouldn’t want to live in a tent all the time. It is temporary, when you are on the go.
Some of our church members have those pop-up trailers, that are really tents with a frame. You tow them behind your car. You wouldn’t want to live in one permanently, but they are handy when you travel.
The Bedouins (nomads) in the Middle Eastern desert still live in tents, but the more affluent nomads have satellite TV, gas powered generators , even air conditioning. They want their tents to be like permanent homes.
I can imagine how ridiculous the Hebrews must have looked in their wilderness wanderings. They could have easily gone directly to the Promised Land, but God wouldn’t let them until forty years had elapsed. And so they move from here to there in the desert, moving their silly tent around form place to place. Imagine what that looked like to the Egyptians with their great gods and their magnificent, elaborate, ornate Temples
You know what God needs? One of those reality shows! The ultimate make-over show! Come on God, get with it! Let’s see a Temple! Lets see some marble! Let’s see some carved stone – ditch the canvas, will you? It’s getting thread bare from all this setting up and taking down!
So what is this all about?
Well, the tabernacle theme is not just at the beginning and end of the Bible. It appears also in the gospels!
In John’s gospel we read, 14And the Word became flesh and lived among us. . .(John 1:14a). The “Word,” of course, is Jesus.
The Greek word for “lived among us, comes from the Greek root, skay – nay)– or tent, or tabernacled (es - KAY – no - sen) so this passage literally reads, And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.
Jesus tabernacled among us. Jesus brought us into the tent.
And Jesus taught that the center of worship is not in this shrine or in that shrine, but “. . .the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem…But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.(Jn. 4:21,23)”
The amazing thing about this God, don’t you know, this “tent God,” this God of the tabernacle, is that this God is out among his people!
God lived in a tabernacle with the Hebrews so he could go with them!
And the promise of God is that God will come to his broken people, persecuted and spread his tent over them.
When Jesus came to us, Jesus was Emanuel – God with us!
This God cares nothing for marble, carved stone and gold – this God cares for what? His people! His people. Jesus said it clearly in the parable of the lost sheep – if one goes astray, he leaves the 99 in the wilderness and goes looking for the lost sheep – for how long? UNTIL HE FINDS IT(Lk 15:4)!
This God is the God of intimacy – the God of love – the God who yearns for his people – the God who will stop at nothing until he reclaims his own – this God who is like a frantic mother who has lost her child and panics and will not be consoled until her dear child is found. Losing a child is a parent’s worst nightmare. That’s how this God feels about you.
This God you see, does not want adherence to a set of laws. This God does not want to place onerous burdens on your shoulders. What does this God want? You know. We say it every week – every single week. Why must we say it every single week, because we forget it – always we forget it and we portray God as cosmic policeman waiting for us to step out of line, or as a cruel taskmaster who will never be satisfied until he squeezes out the last drop from us.
What does this God want? Love. Love just like God gives you, God’s precious child – “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength – This is the GREAT – and FIRST commandment.” God says, “Just love me.”
Our God doesn’t care what others think of him. He lives among his people, whom he loves. He sends his Son to be with us – God in the flesh. God goes out with you – out of church, out into the world, there is nowhere he is not with you.
And the promise is to make you strong. The Bible says, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.(Phil 4:13)”
God will never desert you. And when it is all over and done with, you will find that God has enclosed you in his tabernacle, to be with him in glory forever, in the best place in the whole universe, with the God who created you, redeems you, sustains you and loves you today and forevermore.
Fred D. Mueller
