The Bible: What's in it FOR ME? Forgiveness, salvation, life (Exodus 24:1-11)

Rainforest Cafe

How many of you have had the chance to eat at a Rainforest Cafe? I ate at the original in Minneapolis. And I’ve eaten at the one in Nashville. Had a great conversation with a pastor there… while the elephants were blowing mist. When they first opened it was novel. You would eat your meal among all the sounds of the rainforest. It was noisy. The one in Minneapolis I visited had real animal and birds… over time those were removed and all you had was the animatronics. There are not that many left. I have not been to the one in San Antonio. And part of the reason is.. i’ve already done that. It was great once or twice. After that, the novelty wears off. Because it’s not a real rainforest. It’s not a real garden. It’s moving parts and recorded sounds. It’s fun. But the fun wears off.

We continue our series today on how to read our Bibles. What’s in it FOR ME? Today we’re in one of those odd stories of the Old Testament. In this story, we have altars, we have sacrifices, we have blood being splattered, we have a meal on a mountain. All of this seems strange to us. These days when we sign a contract, like when we buy a house, the most we may have in the ceremony is a special pen that we use. We might exchange keys. There’s a lot more going on here than a contract, but the idea is the same… one party is promising to do something and the other party is promising to do something and there is agreement.

Israel has come through the Red Sea. These Israelites are traveling to a new home. But they are not there yet. They have been living in Egypt a long time. In fact, as a people group, they have been living in Egypt for more than 400 years. God sends Moses to lead them out and take them back to the Promised Land. They go through the Red Sea in a miracle. They are a few months into the wilderness and they come to this mountain and it is covered in smoke and fire. They have been told not to go near the mountain, not to touch the mountain, not to go up the mountain. God is on the mountain and if they go up or even touch the mountain, they will die. The people were so terrified, they actually made boundaries around the mountain to keep people from getting too close.

Moses is allowed to go up the mountain and so he does. Moses goes up the mountain and God gives Moses the 10 commandments. And God then gives them what amounts to a national constitution, forming them into His people, His nation. He gives them a legal code. This is all part of the nation-building God is doing with Moses. But there’s more than nation-building. God is setting the boundaries for what it means to be in relationship with him.

You don’t just have a relationship with God. God must be the one pursuing relationship. Humanity is sinful. And has been since Adam and Eve. God is holy. He cannot be seen, unless he wants to be seen, and even then he is to be feared. He appears as the angel of the Lord to Moses in the burning bush. And Moses is terrified. A few years later, God is now on this mountain and he cannot be seen, but you do see the smoke, you do hear the loud rumbling, you see the fire, you are terrified.

God makes a covenant with Israel

Into this nation-building and into this building of boundaries in a relationship we have this chapter… chapter 24. It’s as if all is set, God is going to be their God, and Israel is going to be His people, and all that’s left is to sign on the dotted line. These kinds of covenants in which the parties were identified and came to agreement were ratified, or confirmed, in blood. An animal would be killed. Blood would be splattered signifying that the contract was binding to the point of death. Signers were saying “may my life be like the life of this animal if I do not carry out the terms of this contract”.

So the people gather around the mountain and the covenant between them and God is ratified in blood. Blood goes on the altar. Blood goes on the people. They say, with a single voice, Moses tells us,

Exodus 24:3 “We will do everything that the Lord has commanded.”

They agree to the terms of the covenant. “We will do everything”. All the 10 commandments. We’ll do it. All the stuff about the festivals and the rituals and the legal codes about property and honesty and all the warnings about not obeying… we hear it, we’ll do it. We will do everything.

More blood is splattered, and then the 70 leaders of the nation are invited to go partway up the mountain, where they eat a meal together. The nation is founded. God has established relationship with his people. He is their God. They are His people. Just as he had promised.

This is a great story. This is the founding of the nation of Israel. This is more than 400 years in the making. Finally, God is making good on the promise to Abraham to make a great nation and to Jacob to return them to the land of Israel. Out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, to this mountain, and for this ceremony and for this meal. All we need is for the bride and groom to kiss, and Phil Collins to start singing the title track and let’s make this a wrap, it all ends happily ever after.

Moses gives The Sacrament

Except for a detail that often goes missing here. There are times I wonder if even Israel missed this point. One of the details we’re given in the entire story just flies right by.

Exodus 24:5 Then he sent out young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord.

And? They’re making the sacrifices necessary for covenant right? It’s what they did then, right? This is just all part of the covenant ceremony that you would expect, right? Mostly. This is true. But it’s not everything. Moses tells us this: “They offered burnt offerings.” Burnt offerings were atonement offerings. Burnt offerings were for sin. To make atonement for sin. To make things right with God because of sin. And that detail right there puts a brand new light on just what all this blood means in this ceremony on that mountain.

Remember what the people said? What was it we heard them say, loud and clear, in front of God and many and many witnesses?

Exodus 24:3 “We will do everything that the Lord has commanded.”

In fact, they said it again:

Exodus 24:7 “We will do and obey all that the Lord has commanded.”

We will do everything and the reality is that isn’t true. It’s a nice sentiment. It’s a great promise. But that promise will be broken again and again and again. In fact, in just a little more than a month from this ceremony, Israel is going to break the mother of all commandments, “do no worship any other Gods.”

In the middle of all of this covenant making and contract signing is the burnt offering for atonement for sin. That means this blood being thrown on the altar and on the people isn’t just blood being thrown around to make covenant. It is that. But it’s more. That blood is providing forgiveness of sins. That blood is a covering for sin. That blood is splattered because this is a people who are sinners who will break the covenant again and again.

Moses gives The Word

But blood is not the only detail here that we’re supposed to see in this ceremony establishing a relationship between God and His people. There’s also this. Notice the activity of Moses throughout this story:

Moses told (all the commands)

Moses wrote (all the words)

Moses read aloud (the covenant)

Moses, the mediator between God and His people is giving people the Word. There are two firsts here. This is the first instance in which we find someone in the Bible writing down God’s Word. And it’s also the first instance in which the Scriptures are read aloud in the presence of the people. The Word is mentioned or alluded to five times in these verses. It is through God’s Word and through shed blood this covenant is being established. It is through God’s Word and through shed blood that forgiveness is provided. It’s not just the blood. It’s the blood and the Word operating together. God’s Word and the shed blood in this passage are providing forgiveness, life, and salvation to the people. In fact, it is God’s Word and the shed blood that the people are compelled to respond to what God has said and what God has done.

It’s not an accident that Word and blood become intertwined in this story. In the New Testament, when St. Paul articulates what it is that he wants the community of faith in Corinth to understand and know about his preaching and teaching, it’s very simple:

1 Corinthians 1:23 “We preach Christ crucified.”

What’s in the Bible that Paul wants this body of believers to know and understand more than anything else? The cross. Christ crucified. The blood of Jesus splattered for the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation. It is through the Word that we hear and receive and believe that Jesus died for us because He loves us. Always. It is through the Word that Jesus gives us His grace and mercy and forgiveness and life and salvation.

Word + blood = forgiveness

All that is going down that day on that mountain. Word and blood, Word and Sacrament, working together to give a sinful people what they desperately need. And what is it that they need? Why do they need forgiveness?

Word and blood together provide the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation we need in order to be right with God.

The Word and blood are not the end of this story here. Long, long before Israel leaves Egypt through the Red Sea and headed to what they call the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey, our first parents were kicked out of their Promised Land… the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden was a place where God made his dwelling with humans. That was a place to talk with God. To eat and drink with God. It was no Rainforest Cafe. It was the real deal. But then Adam and Eve decided that they wanted to run the show and they didn’t need God. So they were kicked out. No more conversation with God, no more direct connection with God, no more communion with God. It was fractured and broken because of their rebellion. But God promises to give them a Savior eventually.

Word + blood = A Meal with God

Humanity, without the shedding of blood, knows God to be a terror. He is the God to be feared on the smoking mountain breathing fire and thunder at Mt. Sinai. You can’t come near him, you can’t get on the mountain. Otherwise, you die. But for those elders, Moses reads the Word from God and Moses sprinkles the blood on them and the next thing you know, this is what is happening… one of the most unbelievable things in all of the Old Testament:

Exodus 24:10–11 “Moses and the elders saw the God of Israel. Beneath his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as clear as the sky itself. God did not harm the Israelite nobles; they saw him, and they ate and drank.”

Moses and Israel’s leaders saw God. They saw. They ate. They drank. That doesn’t happen without the Word and blood. That’s not normal. This is the only time in the Old Testament where humanity is invited into the throne room of heaven itself to share a meal with God himself. They ascend into the cloud, they ascend into the fire and the thunder and the lightning. They ascend into the terrible and horrible… and they don’t die.

Note what this verse says:

God did not harm.

Covered in blood, they ascend to find a God who wants, wants to eat with them and commune with them and share himself with them. Are you kidding me?

That’s grace. That’s love. That’s kindness. This is the God who gives himself to humanity in Word and blood, Word and sacrament.

God did not harm.

They saw God.

They ate.

They drank.

They saw. They ate. They drank. They were humans being humans in the presence of their Creator. Just like it had been way back in the Garden of Eden. And God didn’t harm them. God had a meal with them. This is the second person of the Godhead, the Son of God, eating and drinking with his people like he’s always wanted. And He does this through His Word and through His blood, His Sacrament.

Anticipating THE MEAL

You know where this is going right? On the night that Jesus was betrayed, on the night that this very same God is eating and drinking with sinful humans whom he absolutely loves, he quotes from this very story.

When Moses sprinkled the blood on the people at the mountain that day, Moses said this:

Exodus 24:8 “Moses took the blood, splattered it on the people, and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you concerning all these words.”

The blood that secures the covenant is for the people. The blood that Moses splatters that day is anticipating another time, another day, when God himself would do the same thing once and for all. And the time that Moses is anticipating finally comes. That night, that last night with his disciples, Jesus says this:

Matthew 26:28 “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

God again is eating and drinking with His people and He does so because He provides His people with forgiveness of sins through the blood of the covenant. Word and blood, in One Person, providing forgiveness, life, and salvation for all who receive Him and His Word in faith. Because he absolutely loves us. What’s in the Bible FOR YOU? Forgiveness. Life. And Salvation. Just like it was for Moses and Israel on the mountain that day. Forgiveness, life, and salvation through the Word. Through Sacrament. All of the time. Not like the Rainforest Cafe where the thrill is gone. No… here the thrill, the love, the grace, the forgiveness is always here, giving us everything we’ve ever wanted in the Person of Jesus himself.

Let’s Pray.

The Table

They saw. They ate. They drank. And God did not harm them. That’s us. That’s sinful us. We do this every time we gather around this Table. We see God. We eat with God. We drink with God. And God does harm us. Quite the opposite: God forgives us. God gives us life. God saves us. In His presence. This is the throne room of heaven. We don’t deserve this. We don’t deserve to be here with Jesus. But here He is. Present with us. Among us. In Word and Sacrament.

The Benediction

Numbers 6:24–26 “May the Lord bless you and protect you;

may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;

may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.”