El- Shaddai: God Almighty

What’s in a Name?

Have you ever thought much about what is actually being said about someone when you say their name? Probably not often right? Because for us, names are typically just names. Sure there are some names that correspond to an actual english word, like Summer, Violet, and the like — mostly names that became popular when Millennial like myself were given the authority to not only create people but also to name them. But generally speaking, modern names are considered to be a separate class of words.

Now that doesn’t mean that we don’t care to know what a person’s name means… but we’ve got the handy dandy internet to help us discover such things. But chances are, you name your kids for reasons other than what their name means in ancient Gaelic or Swahili or wherever else it finds its origins. We name people from tradition, from our family heritage, from meaningful historical figures, maybe even from the Bible.

For Lexi and I, we just had a running list of names that we liked. Some from the Bible, but not necessarily because of the person that they represented. Mostly just because we liked the way the name sounded. So I could tell you that a lot of thought went into naming our son Ezra Alexander, but honestly the meaning of his name was a bonus. For those interested, Ezra means helper and Alexander means defender of men. But mostly we just thought the name sounded strong, Ezra was somewhat of a family name and so therefore we settled on it.

Our son who is cooking in the womb still is going to be named Harper Leslie. Now if you google Harper you’ll find out that it just means someone who plays the harp. Makes sense. But we didn’t name him because we want him to play the harp. We named him Harper because the name was on our list, and I might have landed on it the day that Philadelphia Phillies slugger Bryce Harper hit the homerun that won the National League Pennant.

And of course, Leslie, if you were listening last week, is the name of the best man we’ve ever known.

So all of that is to say that the way that we typically, in our culture, name people is based a whole lot more on factors such as family history, tradition, and fame than anything else.

But this is not so in the Bible. In the Bible, peoples names have real meaning based on real Hebrew and Greek words. Take for instance Adam. The first name in the Bible. Adam simply is the word for “human.” Eve means “life.” Or Abraham — its the words “father and nations” smashed together. Issac means “laughter.” The name Israel means “struggles with God.” Ezra as I’ve said already is the word for “helper.” We can learn a lot about the people in our Bibles just by understanding the meaning of the name given to them.

These names described a fundamental truth about these people. They are adjectives. And the same can be said about the many ways that God is named throughout the Scriptures. God reveals himself to people using a variety of different names, sometimes by names that are given to him by those who call on him.

Today marks the beginning of a new series called “My Name is… Hope.” We are also beginning the season of Advent, which is a season of expectant waiting for Hope to arrive. We mark and celebrate the coming of Hope into the world through the birth of the Christ Child, the ultimate source of both our individual and collective hope.

Now I’ve said this a million times already, and I’m never going to quit… but The Bible is a single story that leads to Jesus. And what that means is that I believe that every detail of our Bibles in someway or another informs us of the life, death, resurrection, and return of Christ as well as leads us to more fully understand the attributes of Jesus.

So as we move through Advent together, each week we will look at a name for God, and see how they lead us to an ultimate revelation of Hope for humanity and for us. If there’s anything that this world is short on lately it’s hope, and we are called to be people of hope, so let’s get this thing moving and see just how that hope is shown to us.

The Cosmic Mountain

You may remember a man by the name of Father Abraham. He’s mostly famous because of a song. You know the song? Father Abraham, had many sons, many sons had Father Abraham. Yeah you know the song. Well where we find ourselves today is when Father Abraham didn’t have many sons. In fact he had just one son. A boy named Ishmael, a child that he Fathered with a woman who was not his wife. More on that fiasco next week. This week we are going to look at what happens just after Ishmael is born. Abraham is now 99 years old, still holding on to the promise that God made to him that he and his wife Sarah would have children, and that their descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky.

Thats a promise that now seems well beyond the realm of reality. A basic knowledge of human biology and the aging process tells us that much. Both Abraham and his wife Sarah are well beyond their child bearing years. Abraham and Sarah both know this, so they try to circumvent God’s promise by taking matters into their own hands and end up making a mess of things. They don’t really believe that God can do what he has promised. Seeing this and knowing that this kind of doubt is living in their hearts, God comes to Abraham in Genesis 17:1-7

Genesis 17:1–7 NRSV

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.” Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

I want to focus in first right here on verse one. But first I have to ask: Are you guys ready to do some Bible nerd stuff? I’m ready to do some Bible nerd stuff. Alright, let’s do some Bible nerd stuff.

Remember the context is that Abraham and his wife have faltered in their faith a bit. They’ve stopped believing that God can give them a son together. So God announces himself by saying “I am God Almighty.” The Hebrew here are the words “El” and “Shaddai.” El is short for Elohim, which is the Hebrew word that means “spiritual being.” We just typically translate it as “god.”

Shaddai is a word that no one really knew how to translate until somewhat recently. Historically the translation is “Almighty” which came simply from context and a limited understanding of the word itself back in the times when the scriptures were being translated into Latin.

And it’s not a bad translation, that’s why we still use it in our english. But what scholarship based on newer archaeology and an understanding of Ancient Hebrew’s neighboring cognate languages has taught us is that Shaddai is best translated as “cosmic mountain.” Which I’m going to argue right now is an expression of God being Almighty or All Powerful.

God says to Abraham — I am the God of the Cosmic Mountain. And to us that sounds ridiculous, but it’s an incredibly powerful statement to a person who lived in the Middle East like 4000 years ago. And that’s because almost every single religion believed that their most powerful deity dwelt on top of a Cosmic Mountain. Babylon’s Marduk, Egypt’s Ra, Canaan’s Baal — they all were believed to be the God who “dwelt on the Cosmic Mountain.” This continued on into Greek and Roman mythology as well… you’ve heard of Mount Olympus haven’t you? So this idea is big, and it’s deep.

Abraham is a man who was originally from Babylon, a man who lived in and travelled though Egypt and Canaan. He was a man who was well versed in the religions that surrounded him. The religion of Israel was not yet well established. Abraham was simply following the voice of this God who came and spoke to him directly at this point. So I can only imagine that he was measuring who this God was in relation to all of the other stories that he heard and was subjected to.

So when God comes and says “I am the God of the Cosmic Mountain” what he is proclaiming to Abraham is I am the top dog here. He’s not saying “I’m Marduk or I’m Ra, or I’m Baal.” What he’s saying is you’ve heard people talk about and worship these other God’s, but I’m the true God who Reigns in all power and might. I’m the all powerful one.

And if you thought this rabbit hole was already getting deep, we’ve got to take this thing a step further. Because to the ancients, particularly ancient Israelites who found their origin story where we find ours… in the Garden of Eden, what this language signals is that this God who is talking to Abraham is the God of creation, the God who dwelled in Eden.

Eden was considered to be a Cosmic Mountain type of place. Because anywhere God lived was a Cosmic Mountain. So… That’s the logic here. This God that Abraham is dealing with IS the God of creation, and the God of creation is capable of making everything out of nothing, capable of ordering time and space, capable of making humanity out of the dust of the ground. Certainly this God can give an old man and an old woman a child.

Maybe I haven’t fully convinced you… but look at another time that God announces himself this way.... Genesis 35:11 says

Genesis 35:11 NRSV

God said to him, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall spring from you.

Here God is talking to Abraham’s grandson Jacob. These are the same words used to command Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. This is important stuff.

Anyway: Have I lost you? If I lost you come on back. Because this all has a point.

The name El Shaddai: God Almighty or God of the Cosmic Mountain is good news for Abraham. It means that he’s devoted his life to following the Creator God of the cosmos. The most powerful being a human mind could understand. A God capable of making him a father of many. And not only is this God willing to fulfil the promise of Children, but is making a promise to him that his descendents will be God’s people for all of eternity.

Jesus and the Cosmic Mountain

It was to this family that God Almighty, the God of the Cosmic Mountain came to dwell among humans. Jesus, born a descendant of Abraham came to live on this earth and declared himself to be the almighty one to anyone who would recognize it, as the fulfillment of these words from the prophet Isaiah:

Isaiah 9:6 NRSV

For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Most notably Jesus ascended mountains to preach his Good News to the people, to bring a new hope to this world. The sermon on the mount, as well as the time spent on the mount of Transfiguration are all clues that point us to the fact that Jesus, this carpenter’s son from the lowly town of Nazareth was El-Shaddai, God Almighty, The God of the Cosmic Mountain that guided their ancestor Abraham, the same God who created the world out of nothing.

And this is the God that we worship in this place every Sunday. This is the God that we wait expectantly for in the season of Advent. Jesus, the God who is mighty not only to save but mighty to rearrange our world in the most subtle yet powerful way. Because when Jesus came to dwell on this earth, this place became the cosmic mountain of God. It became a place where God and people meet, a place where we can expect the extraordinary power of God Almighty to fulfill the promise made to us that we will see and taste the kingdom of God in its fullness. And the very act of accepting Jesus fills you with the Holy Spirit. It transforms your earthly body into God’s Cosmic dwelling place. That’s wild to think about right? That the God of the Universe has created a little heavenly outpost — right inside of you.

But we are quick to forget that God Almighty is truly that. We are quick to take the way of Abraham. To say, I’m not sure if God can, so I think I’ll take this into my own hands. I think I’ll be the one to fix that which is broken. And so we place our hope in ourselves. Or we place it in broken human systems, in political parties and movements, in denominations and corporations and broken nations. And then we wonder “where is the Kingdom that was promised? Let’s double down on our efforts at fighting God’s fight for him.”

All the while we miss the point of living here on “God’s Cosmic Mountain.” We lose hope because no matter what we can’t seem to fix our eyes on both the Kingdom and the King. We call Jesus God Almighty, but we can’t seem to get out of the way long enough to let him do all of the fighting.

So the question we have to ask ourselves is why am I carrying this burden that isn’t mine? Why am I denying God the glory of doing what God does best? How will I, this advent season let God be, God Almighty in my life? I know that we all carry a burden or two. This season in particular seems to highlight the brokenness in our relationships to those who are meant to be closest to us. How can you turn that pain over to the God of Hope - the one who is God Almighty, capable of healing at least your heart, if not the relationship that is causing you pain.

Or maybe it’s just that the holidays in general tend to highlight that which you don’t have. Financial security, family, friends, community, these are all things that are put on display in front of us. If you find yourself in that place, confronted by that which you do not have, I challenge you to remember and hold on to the reality that you are enough, wherever you are and however you are. God Almighty, the one who is Hope walks with, holds, and dwells within you. And that my my friends is the very very good news of Advent. The very good news of Christmas. Hope.