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The Old Testament lesson is a warning from our past. The children of Israel — sinners like us — even while able to see the visible presence of God in the cloud on the top of Mount Sinai, could not wait one little hour more for Moses, could not wait for God to lead them forward to the Promised Land. Just three months before (Exodus 19:1), they had passed through the Red Sea on dry land. God had moved the waters apart. God had fended off the Egyptians with a pillar of fire. God had drowned the Egyptians in the depths of the sea.
After the giving of the ten commandments and the sealing of God's covenant with His people, Aaron went up onto Sinai with Moses and seventy elders, and they all “saw the God of Israel” standing on a pavement of sapphire stone, and they ate and drank with God Himself (Exodus 24:9–10).
Moses goes up further into the cloud to receive more of the Lord's instructions with Joshua for forty days and forty nights. God institutes the whole system by which He wishes to be worshipped — the ark of the covenant, the tabernacle, sacrifices that point forward to Jesus' sacrifice, priests, incense, observing the Sabbath, everything.
How ironic then, that Satan attacks at the very place where God wishes to give His gifts of forgiveness to His people. The people have seen and heard and experienced such seemingly unforgettable events. The incredible thing is, they've already forgotten. They tell Aaron, “Up, make us Gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him” (Exodus 32:1).
Moses brought them out of Egypt? Really? So much for the saving work of God almighty. Never mind the living God visible on the mountain, never mind His promised forgiveness, grace, undeserved mercy. Never mind the Promised Land He is taking us to. We'd rather worship a dead golden calf idol, thank you very much, so that we can party and eat and drink and play around and feel better about ourselves now. God's timing was not their timing. They wanted to do as they pleased, when they pleased.
For God's children that day, this was just another in a long line of “abominations of desolations in the Holy Place”.
It's been that way from the beginning. Every time God approaches unto us, gives us to share in His holiness and righteousness, we have committed an abomination in His Holy Place. Adam and Eve committed the first abomination. They listened to Satan's voice in the holy and pristine garden: “God's timing is not good. God's timing is not your timing. You should be more like God — now. You should eat that fruit — now. Don't wait for God to give you His gifts. He is slow. Take what you want — now.
Ever since then, God's time has not been our time.
The children of Israel continued to sin against God and commit horrible atrocities in the holy place. They persecuted and killed the prophets, by prison, sword, sawing them in two. They never learned from the golden calf incident. They worshipped false god after false god and set up idol after idol, even in the Temple itself. They eventually murdered the very Son of God who was the Holy Place in the flesh. They rejected God's Word and promises. Their faith was in themselves and in their timing. They wanted to save themselves. They wanted to do what they wanted, when they wanted, how they wanted.
But you know, it's easy to pick on people in history with twenty-twenty hindsight. To be honest, you know that God's timing is not your timing either. You know, deep down, that in your sinful flesh you bow down and make merry to your own golden calves just as easily as they did. You know, good and well, that despite your being brought safely though the forgiving waters of Baptism, despite being washed free of the chains of sin and Satan by the Blood of Christ, despite a lifetime of God's Gospel comfort and assurance in your ear, you just as easily forget your own salvation history and the promise of the eternal future with God as those terrible people did at Sinai all those years ago, as Adam and Eve did in the Garden at the beginning of time. Your sins were punished on that cross. You crucified the Lord of Life. You committed every abomination of desolation.
God's timing is not your timing even to this day. There is no urgency to repent. No one compels us pastors to hear your confession privately so that you might unburden your conscience and be granted Christ's absolution. How many are not here today and fail to listen to God's Word, despise His preaching and teaching, neglect teaching it to their children? How many fail to invite friends, family, colleagues, and neighbors to hear the Word preached and attend our Divine Services, as if ashamed of it all, or as if we want to keep it to ourselves? How many fail to give sacrificially and joyfully to support the mission work of spreading the Gospel that we have decided together to accomplish here in this congregation?
It is as if Jesus may not ever come down off that mountain, from that cloud that He and the angels have promised He will return down out of. It is as if this miserable sinful life will go on forever, and there will be second chances for all eternity to make up for our sinfulness.
But it is not so! God's timing is not your timing. The Lord will come as fast as the lightning flashes from the east to the west. He will come again with the trumpet sound and the cry of the archangel — and it could happen at any time. The Kingdom of God is that close to you. Do not be a faithless one who must flee in terror at the coming of the Lord. For the faithful in Christ, His return will be the best moment of joy we could have.
Are you ready for His return? Repent and turn back to God's timing. Repent and wait for the Lord to act with patience. But at the same time, live each day as if today is the last one. How? Remember your baptism in Him. Remember how He washed you and made you His own child. Remember how He gave you His Name and made you an heir and brother. Remember how He has constantly told you of His mercy, love, and no–strings–attached forgiveness. Remember how He has constantly fed you with His Holy Body and Blood to assure you of your forgiveness. Flee to His mercy, love, and forgiveness. Today. Now. Give up your timing. Give up the soiled desires of this world. And by grace, through faith, for Christ's sake on account of His blood shed for you, rest in His timing for you.
God acted decisively for you and He does even today and He will again. In His own time, when the time was right, God came into the world, not to condemn the world, but to redeem it and reconcile it unto Himself. When God's time was right, the eternal Father sent His only–begotten Son into this world, taking into His divinity our human flesh. This God–Man was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and buried in real time, at a real moment in history. He submitted perfectly to God's timing. And on the third day, at the best time, He rose again. Today, He absolves You. Today, He feeds You His Body and Blood. In God's good timing, we will rise with Him, even though we may have fallen asleep. We will meet the Lord in the air and enter into a new heaven and a new earth, the eternal home of God's elect.
This week, I was privileged to attend a little heaven on earth — the Good Shepherd Institute for Church Music and Pastoral Theology at our Fort Wayne Seminary. The focus was on the preaching and teaching of our most well known and influential Lutheran church musician, Johann Sebastian Bach. You might say, “How can a musician preach and teach?” Even today, Bach's music is converting heathen around the world — in Asia, Europe, America — because people listen carefully to his notes and read and hear the Words of Scripture he is having sung with those notes. And the Gospel of Jesus Christ brings faith in Jesus and is converting Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, and Chinese by the thousands and is reconverting many who had forgotten the faith in Europe.
One of Bach's cantatas was performed beautifully in a Vespers service at the Seminary. The words of the libretto made an impression on me. I wrote this sermon with it in mind. Listen to Bach's words for the Festival of All Saints, written some 270 years ago:
Gottes Zeit is die allerbeste Zeit.
God's time is the very best time.
“In Him, we live, move, and have our being,” as long as He wills.
In Him we die at the right time, when He wills.
Ah, Lord, “teach us to consider that we must die, so that we become wise.”
“Set your house in order, for you shall die and not remain living!”
“It is the old law:” man, “you must die!”
Then, a lonely soprano voice answers over the top of this talk of our death with the voice of faith: “Yes, come, Lord Jesus! Into Your hands I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, Lord, Thou faithful God.”
And our Lord replies: “Today, you will be with me in Paradise.”
Amen! Come Lord Jesus! Come and bring Your redeemed and faithful people home. May Your time always be our time, for Your time is the very best time. God the Father grant our prayer, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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