Sometimes it helps to check the map.
The people of the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum lived at the bottom of a mountain. They loved the mountain, because they believed it was a place where gods dwelt. The land was fertile, and the harbor was good, so the city prospered and grew. Then in 62 and 63 AD, earthquakes started to become more frequent. In 63 AD, a strong earthquake nearly leveled the nearby city of Pompeii. But the land was good, the harbor was good, so the people rebuilt. Then in 79 earthquakes set in again. The mountain itself seemed to be shaking. Finally, the mountain, Mount Vesuvius, erupted, and Herculaneum and Pompeii were destroyed.
Now, I suppose we can excuse these folks. They must not have known that they were living at the bottom of a volcano. What amazes me, though, is that they didn’t learn their lesson. The land is so good and the harbor is so good that they rebuilt again. Today, Naples sits there in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. 2 million people live in Naples. Vesuvius is still an active volcano. It has erupted time after time over the past 2,000 years. It has never been as spectacular as it was in 79 AD, but people have died. Right now, 500,000 people live in the “red zone.” That’s the area that would be destroyed before people could evacuate if there were an eruption like in 79 A.D.
If I were living at the bottom of a volcano, I’d want someone to let me know. Imagine coming to Naples for a job interview and looking for a house. So you pull into the driveway of a beautiful three bedroom villa. You love it. It’s got a courtyard with a nice fountain, and it’s in your price range. But then you look out the back window and see a beautiful mountain, so you pull out a map to see which mountain it is. It says, “Mount Vesuvius” on the map. You’ve got a volcano in your back yard! So what do you do? “Oh, look honey. This house comes with its very own volcano.” No! You get in the car and you keep looking. Probably not in Naples! Sometimes it helps to check the map to see where you are.
Hebrews 12:18-29 checks the map and tells us where we are.
Is our world unraveling?
There’s a mountain in front of us right now. The mountain is the economic crisis our country is facing. It’s big and national. You hear about it on the news every night. Just this week we heard about record budgets, bailing out banks, car companies having a tough time and the stock market continuing to fall. This mountain is also intensely personal. It affects our bottom line and makes us nervous. So as we look at the mountain in front of us, it looks menacing. It’s shaking and rumbling, and we’ve got to decide what it is.
If you’re Israel, having Mount Sinai behind you can be a great thing. Hebrews was just describing what the nation of Israel found at Mount Sinai out in the wilderness after God rescued them from slavery in Egypt. They camped at the foot of Mount Sinai in the desert on the Sinai Peninsula. God was planning to meet with the people and speak to them, so he told them to get ready. He said, “Don’t come onto the mountain. Don’t even touch it.”
Hebrews is very graphic about what this was like. When God descended onto the mountain there was fire and darkness and clouds and lightning and peals of thunder that were so loud it sounded as if the top of the mountain were going to blow. God’s voice was a rumble so loud and so deep that the people begged Moses, their leader, to ask God not to speak to them directly like that again. It sounded like a volcano! That’s terrifying in a way, but what happened at Mount Sinai was amazing. God promised to be their God and claimed Israel as his people. God gave the Israelites the law to live by, but it wasn’t this problem for them. The law told them how to live and to be happy and how to get along with their new God. The people of Israel who had been runaway slaves when they went to Mount Sinai came away God’s chosen people, a nation, unique among all the nations on earth. Remembering Mount Sinai was a good memory for them, because it was in the past.
Having Mount Sinai in front of you, though, can be terrifying. When it’s behind you, Mount Sinai tells you who and what you are. When that mountain is in front of you, it is holding you accountable. Have you lived according to God’s law and the agreement he made with Israel? There is judgment coming, and all of a sudden, that is terrifying. It’s like having a final exam in front of you. The only problem is that you know the questions you’re going to be asked, and you know you’re going to fail. Imagine the sense of dread that would create. All of a sudden, the thunder and smoke and fire aren’t symbols of God’s holy presence and of your God’s amazing power. Now they are symbols of your own destruction.
Check the map: Are we at the place of unraveling and undoing? We’ve come to a mountain. It’s the mountain of this moment in our economy and in our lives. We need to check the map and figure out which mountain this is. Is it a mountain of terror and fear? Have we bought a house with Mount Vesuvius in our back yard?
We’re not at the point of unraveling.
Hebrews says that actually we are at Mount Zion. Take it in for a second! Mount Zion is the mountain Jerusalem is located on. It’s the Temple Mount. But this isn’t just Jerusalem. This is the city of God. There are thousands and thousands of angels there. There are Christians who have lived and died before us. God the Father is there. Jesus is there. It’s a place on incredible joy.
Mount Zion is shorthand for the Kingdom of God in the future. In the terms that the book of Revelation uses, this is the New Heaven and New Earth coming together in the New Creation that God is doing as he remakes the world. This is the world as it is becoming the world that God intends for it to be. Hebrews says that you have come to the future for followers of Jesus. This is the place of Resurrection and eternal life. This is the place of incredible joy. The whole creation is going to be healed, and you will rule God’s agents forever, reflecting God’s glory like a mirror reflecting the sun.
It’s hiding in our midst waiting to be revealed. Have you ever mown a dry lawn? There’s dust everywhere. The dust flies up as you mow. If you’ve got a bag on the mower, it just makes it worse. The dirt and dust get shot into the bag, but the bag has holes in it so the dust just flies out of the bag and covers you from head to toe. Now picture yourself covered. You’re just absolutely dirty and sweaty and nasty. Then you get into a shower, and the dirt and grime just start to wash off. When you get done, there you are clean again. Creation in a sense is like that right now. God’s new creation is all over the place, but it’s covered with dirt and grime. It’s actually more than dirt and grime. It’s caked with sin and evil and corruption. It’s more like being caked in stone. The good and true thing is right there, and you can’t even recognize it because it’s buried so deeply. But it’s there nevertheless hiding and groaning under the grime and waiting to be revealed for what it truly is.
Let’s check the map again. There is a mountain before us, but it isn’t Mount Vesuvius. Hebrews is our map, and it says that we who follow Jesus are camped out at Mount Zion, the mountain of God’s goodness and future, not at Mount Vesuvius, or Mount Sinai or even Mount Doom.
Just identifying this mountain helps us to understand Jesus better.
We get to recognize his voice speaking instead of a volcano rumbling. This economic downturn can look like Mount Doom booming and thundering and about to spew lava all over the place destroying everything it touches. Let’s listen to the rumbling for just a second. The rumbling we hear from this mountain sounds threatening, like destruction. But for followers of Jesus, we have the chance to recognize that it’s Jesus’ voice speaking to us. Jesus is saying to us, “I’m doing something here. I love you. Trust me.” Wow! That isn’t easy! It takes practice and faith and trust to hear that voice, because otherwise all you hear is rumbling and you immediately think that you’ve got a volcano in your backyard.
So what is all this rumbling, thundering and shaking? Hebrews says that one day God is going to shake the world, and all that grime of sin and death and evil is going to fall right off to reveal the new creation just waiting to burst forth like a flower in spring. God is going to shake the world in a mighty way in the future. It will be once and for all. But even now, God is gently shaking. Picture our loving God chiseling and tapping away at the grime and stuff that’s covering you and me and the entire world. That’s what’s going on in this economic crisis. The rumbling we hear and fear is just God working in the world to reveal his new creation. The world is being reshaped and so are we.
That rumbling and shaking and chiseling is painful, but there is opportunity as well. We have the opportunity to serve people like we’ve never had before and to listen to them and to care and to show God’s love. We have opportunities to call people to God instead of to the relentless pursuit of filling the void inside of them with money and things and entertainment. We have opportunities to call people to come and see just how good God can be and join us in the new creation.
Have courage.
Hebrews erupts in the next chapter with a call to live Christian lives. “Give thanks! Worship God. Stand in awe of God.” “Love each other. Take care of strangers and prisoners. Build strong marriages. Avoid the love of money and power.” The force of this message is to say, “Live Christian lives, and do it well.”
There is a litany waiting to be done on how to live a wise and Christian life in this downturn. Be wise. Cleanse your heart from the love of money and power. Pay your bills, work hard, avoid debt and save wisely. Take care of people who don’t have jobs. Rebuild this broken economy, and figure out how we can prosper without abusing the poor and creation. We could go on and on exploring how to live like Christians in the middle of a downturn.
We can live like Christians, because the Bible says, “Here’s the courage you need!” We know we aren’t at the edge of the world watching it unravel. We are on the edge of God’s new creation. His goodness is breaking in all around, shaping us and shaping the world, reshaping us and reshaping the world. We are in the care of God Almighty who made the world and everything in it. We are in the care of Jesus who is coming again to remake the world and everything in it. So there we have it. We do not need to be afraid. We can face a downturn with courage and with faith and with hope. We can engage this downturn as a chance to show the world how Christians handle tough times.
