Fearful Joy

Exodus 4:27-31

We worship with fearful joy (joyous fear).

Introduction

They just had a big earthquake out in California. Several of my facebook friends out there were bragging “didn’t even feel it”. You always compare it back, see, to the “Big Ones” you were in before.

My “Big One” was in 1994. We had our cousins over and some friends from camp, including a brother and sister visiting from Brazil. His name was Fabio, as I recall. We are all chatting and suddenly… we felt the ground start shaking. We are well trained Californians and earthquakes aren’t all that rare, so we jump and go stand under the doorway.

The shaking gets more and more violent. Our friend from Brazil starts chanting over and over “I never been! I never been! I never been!” We decide: “you know what? This doorway seems insufficient all of a sudden.” So we run down the hall to where we had this huge solid oak dining table and we all dove under there. Accompanied all the way by “I never been! I never been!”

That earthquake was a 6.7 on the Richter scale. They felt it out in Las Vegas. It was one of the costliest disasters in US history. But once we were under the table, we all started laughing. We were all smiling. A good part of that was the continuing “I never been” from Fabio.

But it was also this: we were faced with something huge and dangerous. Transcendent, bigger than us. But we were safe. We were saved. But the size of that… it makes you feel small… you don’t forget that.

I expect you have had those moments. The stars on a clear night. Driving West and seeing those mountains. Standing atop a mountain, visiting a huge canyon or a huge waterfall. Moments that make you feel small because you see something so big.

We all experience those moments: fear in the face of something huge and probably dangerous. We call that transcendence: the realization that there is something fundamentally greater than us. We do something automatically in response to the transcendent… it is almost an animal reaction… a creature reaction.

We see it in our text today, continuing in Exodus 4, picking up in verses 27-31

Exodus 4:27-31

27 The Lord said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” So he met Moses at the mountain of God and kissed him. 28 Then Moses told Aaron everything the Lord had sent him to say, and also about all the signs he had commanded him to perform.

29 Moses and Aaron brought together all the elders of the Israelites, 30 and Aaron told them everything the Lord had said to Moses. He also performed the signs before the people, 31 and they believed. And when they heard that the LORD was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.

This little text is tucked in at the end of chapter 4. Moses just had this moment of crisis being called back into covenant obedience with God (the golden cord/zip-line from last week). I honestly considered skipping over these verses so we could finally get to the part where Moses tells Pharaoh those famous words “Let my people go!”

I am glad I didn’t, there is something profound and momentous here. It is just a very few words, but this is a landmark for the people of God.

This is a short story of some wonderful reunions. First, Moses is reunited with his big brother: Aaron.

God has called Aaron into the story. Remember a few weeks ago, Aaron was already on his, already part of the plan, before all of Moses’ complaints about not being able to speak or not being up to the task. “God please send someone else!” God wouldn’t send someone else, but Aaron was already on his way… because God’s grace goes before. Preceding grace.

God has also apparently prepared Aaron. Aaron believes everything Moses tells him. Moses and Aaron are able to return to Egypt and gather the elders together. Probably Aaron was an elder. That would explain why he was able to take a little vacation to visit Moses. Recall that he is still a slave. So Aaron brings some credibility with the elders to the table.

In this way, Moses is reunited with his people. Through Aaron, Moses is brought back together with the elders and people of Israel.

And then the people of God are reunited with God.

The people believed

Aaron speaks to them the words he heard from Moses who heard them from God at the burning bush.

What were those words?

From Exodus 3:

14. I AM (Yahweh) has sent me to you

16. The God of your fathers – Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – I have seen what has been done to you in Egypt.

17. I have promised to bring you out of misery in Egypt to the Promised Land… a land flowing with milk and honey.

And the people believed. Moses and/or Aaron showed them the miracles God had given them. The staff to snake and back to staff. The hand that became leprous, then was healed.

And the people believed.

Now, I am not a Hebrew scholar. I am a bit better in the Greek; but every now and then, there is something in the original language that just doesn’t come across in English. I was so excited when I saw this.

I read Hebrew like a Kindergartner... "t he... the.." Here I sounded out A...man? Aman? Amen? Like amen, amen?

The word here for “believed” is Aman… or what you usually say at the end of a prayer “Amen”. You didn’t know you spoke Hebrew?

Aman has its root in a pillar, and it means trustworthy, truthful, it affirms something as true and faithful. So the people "Aman"ed. They believed, they confirmed, they "faithed", they took it as true. They believed and trusted in "they Amen-ed".

They believed in God’s plan for their salvation. As in all these years, at least 80 years of slavery... and there is a plan now in action for their freedom. FREEDOM! And Moses and Aaron have the words from God and the miracles to prove it!

They believed, they AMENED!

What must they be feeling? Joy. Unspeakable joy. WOOOOOHOOOOOO! Yes! Amen!

The people worshipped

Then, it follows that up, they believed and...

31b. And when they heard that the LORD was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.

They heard that the LORD had been present. Remember that when we see LORD in all caps, that is standing in the place of God's name: Yahweh. His very name that they just have now learned for the first time. The I AM God, the God of presence, the God who is right hear right now.

They hear that... and they hear that he has been with them, has seen their misery and has concern for them. The Yahweh God is here now and paying attention.

They people bow down and worship.

I don't normally point out the original words, but I am on a roll today. The word for worship here is Shachah... and I point it out because the famous Biblical scholar, Jim Carrey, did some excellent commentary on this word.

"Ace Venture: When Nature Calls," Jim Carrey's character says a word over and over "Shikaka!" and every time he does, the tribal people hit the ground. They bow and worship. Instantly. That is exactly what happens here.

The people realize that they have the attention of God and SHICHAH!

This word shows up throughout the Old Testament, it is what people do in the face of something transcendent: kings, gods of all kinds, angels and God himself. It is what they do in the face of something fearsome.

We can see an almost animal reaction in it. Get low to the ground, protect the throat, don't meet the eyes of the predator... it really is a fear response.

God is here! Shacha! Everybody down

Fearful Worship

The presence of the I AM God drives them – and us – to reverent worship (Shachah). God is no less holy, no less terrifying in that way. He is no less transcendent. The creature that we are cowers in the face of the Creator.

Belief in His salvation transforms that to joy (Amen).

The people of Israel... down on there knees, heads bowed, Shachah in the presence of a fearsome and holy God. A God of ancestors and of miracles... but also, now they know, a God of salvation. A God of promise.

Mixed with the fear response, is this underlying joy. They already believed, they AMENed the plan of salvation. And that terrifying divine presence is the same that sees and notices, not so much their unworthiness, but their misery - their need.

We put those things together, and we get a unique thrill, that joy in the midst of transcendence, the fear even while we are safe and secure…

Fearful joy

Joyous fear

That is Christian worship: Worship in fearful joy.

I thought perhaps this was original so I looked it up. I discovered, it is the best kind of unoriginal. The whole first page of Google results were from the very best tool for Bible interpretation:

Psalm 2:11 "Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling."

In Message "Worship God in adoring embrace, Celebrate in trembling awe. Kiss Messiah!"

Our Worship

We worship with fearful joy

This is the beautiful tension of the Christian worshiper. Reverence before Almighty God. Intimacy with the rescuing Father. Bowing before transcendent Holiness. Hugging the one who Saved our life from death in every sense to life in every sense: abundant and eternal.

So we bow our heads... and we lift our hands.

The terror of the earthquake is transformed to thrill... because we are safe, we are Saved.

This is why you should worship. This is how we should worship. This is why we this strange singing together, this putting money in a plate as an “offering,” what are we doing here? There are all sorts of aspects to worship: sacrifice and thanksgiving, adoration and love… I don’t want to oversimplify…

But if I had to boil it all down, Christian worship sits on this intersection: fearful joy – joyful fear. This is the character of our worship: You are holy and awesome… you saved and rescued me from death into eternal and abundant life.

Worship isn't, then, about creating emotion within us; but our emotions do respond to these gigantic truths that thread through all of our music and form the foundation of our lives. There is a thrill in knowing you stand before something dangerous and might and fearsome... but you are safe.

Perhaps it helps to have someone with you experiencing it all for the first time: "I never been! I never been!"

The bowing is the natural response of the created in the presence of the Creator. The joy is the response of the Saved to the Savior.

The Name

I will leave you on a final piece of imagination. The text here is brief, we don’t know what they would have said in their worship. But we already learned a little Hebrew today, let’s learn a little more.

The Israelites did not yet have Psalms, no temple, no tabernacle, no Mount Sinai, no Ark of the Covenant, no priests or priesthood... how did they worship?

Just a touch, just a hint of the transcendent. Just the knowledge that salvation is possible... and that Yahweh is present. They are hearing this name for the first time. And I have to think they just worshipped with their words, impromptu prayers, maybe impromptu songs.

Perhaps they said “Hallelujah” which means praise Yahweh (that’s the Yah at the end). I love singing that, thinking that people have been for more than 3 millennia.

Perhaps they said “Emmanuel” which means God with us. They just realized that this “Yahweh” this God was among them and knew their suffering. That sent them to their knees, and at least captures the “fear” aspect of their worship. “God is with Us.”

But maybe, just maybe, they put this idea that they Yahweh God, the I AM God, is the very one with their salvation in hand. They may have said something like “Yahweh Saves.” The holy Yahweh… saves us. In Hebrew that is “Yehoshua”… which is shortened into “Yeshua”… and you will never guess how that comes through into the Greek more than a thousand years later. Jesus.

That is a piece of imagination, but it is entirely possible that putting together the holiness of God, his name: Yahweh, and their belief in this plan for their salvation, that they worshipped saying:

Hallelujah… Emmanuel… Jesus

By no other name are we saved today.