Faith that Grounds

The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
August 21-22, 2010
Hebrews 12:18-29

“By Faith: Faith that Grounds”

So, the sabbatical is over and I’m back in the saddle once again. It’s good to come home and be with our family of faith here at St. John’s. Thanks to all of you for the welcome back wishes since I returned – people who stopped by, sent emails, or called me. I’ve been playing catch-up this past week and am getting up to speed with all that’s happened during my absence. There have been births and deaths, marriages and Baptisms, people who have been received into membership and people who have moved away. While I’ve been gone, our congregation sent a servant team to Haiti for the second year in a row, sponsored a very successful Vacation Bible School, sent kids and adult leaders to the National Youth Gathering, continued forward with Hispanic outreach ministry, and hosted a youth soccer camp. That’s a lot! I have to say that things really didn’t pile up as they might have, due in large part to Pastor Campbell’s diligence in ministry, and Susan in the church office ensuring that only the really necessary stuff made its way to my desk. Pastor Campbell really did the job of two people for these past four months, and he’s now taking a well-deserved vacation this weekend and in the week ahead. The new carpeting here in the chancel of our sanctuary looks great, and the new sound system is wonderful. I’m thinking if good stuff like this happens when I’m gone, maybe I need to leave more often! I’ll be talking more about the sabbatical next Sunday, August 29, during the Education Hour at 9:30 a.m., and I invite you to come and be part of this.

While I’ve been away, you’ve been focusing on the Epistle (or second) reading in worship week by week, and today that reading is from Hebrews 12, which is a tale of two mountains. One of those mountains is Mt. Sinai in the Sinai peninsula, where God gave his Law to his people through Moses after they had come out of slavery in Egypt. The other mountain is Mt. Zion in Jerusalem, where the temple of the Lord was found. We’ll look briefly at both of these mountains, what they symbolized, and what that means for us today under the theme, “By Faith: Faith that Grounds.” May the Lord’s rich blessing rest upon the preaching, the hearing, and the living of God’s Word, for Jesus’ sake.

During my sabbatical, my family and I traveled to Maine and went to Acadia National Park – a beautiful place. We went to the top of Cadillac Mountain where you can see for many miles all around. The weather was great when we were there, but if you’ve ever been caught in bad weather while hiking a mountain, you know how dangerous that really is. Today’s Epistle lesson reminds us how God’s ancient people, brought out from slavery in Egypt by God’s mighty power – remember the ten plagues and the first Passover? – were standing before Mt. Sinai there i the wilderness. God commanded the people not to come near the mountain (see Exodus 19); not to touch it – not even their animals, or they would die. Thunder and lightning, together with thick clouds all around that forbidding peak, made the people scared out of their wits. They were afraid they’d die if they heard God’s voice, so they begged Moses to speak for God. Here at Mt. Sinai, God’s people were instructed how to be in relationship with the Lord God and with one another. This frightening and awesome experience shaped the people’s understanding and experience of God’s majestic and powerful identity.

Now we travel to another mountain, Mt. Zion. It also has an ancient history. Hundreds of years before David conquered Jerusalem and Solomon built his temple there, Abraham and his son, Isaac, came to a mountain then known as Mt. Moriah (see Genesis 22). There, God commanded Abraham to do the unthinkable and sacrifice his only son. Just as Abraham raised the knife to kill Isaac, the angel of the Lord stopped Abraham. In place of Isaac, God provided a ram as the sacrifice. On this mountain, Solomon built a temple for the Lord (see 1 Kings 16), and it was here that sacrifice for sin was made, as directed by the Lord. And this place came to be called Mt. Zion, a place where joyful pilgrimages were made as people came to worship and sacrifice in obedience to the Lord. It was here, in the temple on Mt. Zion in Jerusalem, that Jesus was first brought as an infant (Luke 2:22-38), and later as an adolescent (Luke 2:41-50). In the chambers of this same mountain-top temple, Jesus was condemned to die by the ruling Council (Luke 22:66-71). Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:36). He was condemned to die in our place. On the cross on another peak, Mt. Calvary, Jesus cried out before he died: “It is finished” (John 19:30). And it was finished. In Jesus, God provided the once-for-all sacrifice for all sin for all time. If we want to be solidly grounded in the faith, then we must go to Calvary and receive all that Jesus has done for us there.

From Mt. Sinai to Mt. Zion by way of Mt. Calvary – that’s the road we’re on. On this road, we can get weary and worn down, frustrated and fed up. God invites us to think about the heavenly Mt. Zion, as the writer to the Hebrews tells us: “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:22-24). And so we are strengthened for the journey ahead of us, just as we are told: “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:28-29). Hold on to that vision as we press forward to our heavenly home on Mt. Zion - by faith! Amen.