It’s Not Home Without You.
As I prepare to preach from Exodus 33 on Sunday, I am reflecting on the interaction between God and Moses in the Tent of Meeting as God commands Moses to leave Sinai and lead the people to the long-awaited Promised Land.
The Hebrew people had been led out of bondage and slavery in Egypt into the desert wilderness for 40 years, on the promise that God was leading them to a land promised to Abraham— a land flowing with milk and honey.
And after 40 grueling, faith-testing years, God has finally told Moses, “It’s time for you leave this place and go to the land I have promised."
But it was in the wilderness that God parted the Red Sea and led his people to safety.
It was in the wilderness that God made bitter water sweet, that he rained bread from heaven to feed the hungry, that he drew water from a rock for the thirsty.
It was in the wilderness that God communed with Moses on Mt. Sinai, giving him the good commandments, and showing glimpses of his glory.
It was in the wilderness that “the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” (Exodus 33:11)
And now God was telling Moses it is time to go into the Promised Land— but that He would not be coming with them.
And Moses answers, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?” (Exodus 33:15-16)
After 40 years in the desert wilderness communing with God, Moses had learned something that many of us would benefit to learn today. The Promised Land is no home at all if God isn’t there with us. Moses would have preferred to remain in a tent in the desert with God than to enter the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey without God. Can we say the same?
In Jesus, we have Immanuel, which means “God with us.” Never again will the people of God need to dwell apart from him, because where we failed to climb our way to Him, in giving His only Son, God has come to us.
Praise be to God.
