An unshakable kingdom (Hb. 12:18-29)
A great way to understand something more fully is to contrast it with something else. When you drive to Adelaide and have to navigate city traffic, you realise just how quiet and easy it is to drive around down here by comparison. When you fly up to Queensland at this time of the year and experience the warmth of the sun, you realise just how dark and gloomy it gets in winter time in the South East. When you come down with a sickness or some kind of injury, all you want is to feel like your old self again. And then, when you are healthy, you don’t think to even notice it.
Contrasts are very helpful for understanding things and being thankful for what we do have.
The writer of Hebrews loves to use contrast. Today, he contrasts Mount Sinai with Mount Zion, the old covenant and the new covenant, the fear and trembling of Moses and the confidence and joy of believers in Christ.
The text has four phases to it:
You haven’t come to Mount Sinai
You have come to Mount Zion
Listen to him
Worship him
Chat time: When you come to worship on a Sunday morning, what do you expect to find when you get there?
You haven’t come to Mount Sinai
For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” (Heb. 12:18–21)
As you sit here today, you have arrived somewhere. The writer of Hebrews starts off by telling us what you have not come to.
“What may be touched” refers to Mount Sinai, the holy Mountain of God. The blazing fire, the darkness, the gloom, the tempest, and the sound of a trumpet are all symbols of God’s presence in the Old Testament.
Sometimes, it would be great to see a bit of fire or trumpet blasts just to be sure that God is actually here. That would be a bit more obvious than a bunch of people sitting in a building, listening to a book being read and eating a bit of wafer and taking a sip of port. We have not come to a place where big, glaringly obvious signs of miraculous wonder are. At least, that’s not what meets the eye.
We also haven’t come to a place where we experience fear and literally shake in our boots with terror. The Israelites did come to a place like that and a God like that. We read in Exodus that the people begged Moses to be their priest and mediator so that God would stop speaking to them directly. They couldn’t handle his voice or his words. If you ever did beg the pastor to stop preaching, it probably wouldn’t be out of fear and trembling.
The God of Mount Sinai was terrifying. His holiness was way too much to bear, even for Moses. Is God still terrifying to you? Has God changed since then? The writer of Hebrews says elsewhere that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We believe that Jesus is God incarnate, so that means God cannot change.
What made God’s holiness so terrifying is the fact that whatever is not holy is blown to smithereens. God is a consuming fire, the last verse says. He destroys anything that is contrary to him. That’s terrifying because we know just how much of that stuff is in us. We can’t approach God with confidence to say, “Look, judge, I’m completely innocent. I’ve never set a foot wrong in my life.” If you think you can do that, have a read through the Ten Commandments and then we’ll talk.
It is not God himself who is terrifying—it’s the result of our sin that’s terrifying. Paul says that all sin deserves death. God is a righteous judge who never makes a wrong or unfair decision. The state that we come into God’s presence in is the worrying thing. That’s what causes the fear in us.
The people of Israel, lead by Moses, came to Mount Sinai. They experienced all of this. God gave them ways to atone for their sin—the whole sacrificial system was designed so that they could come into God’s presence having had their sin forgiven. When the right process wasn’t followed, bad things happened.
But we haven’t come to Mount Sinai.
You have come to Mount Zion
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Heb. 12:22–24)
When I asked you what you expected to come to when you came to worship today, I doubt your answer was “Mount Zion and the city of the living God.” But, even if you thought about simple things like a worship building, a community of believers, a place to hear God’s Word and/or his Sacrament, these are all a part of what the writer speaks into. But coming to worship is about so much more than what we can see. If that was all it was, I’d wonder whether it’s worth my time.
When we come to worship, we come into the very presence of God through his Word and the Sacrament. As a part of the Church of God, you participate in the perfect worship and adoration of the angels and all the saints who have gone before us in the faith. When we were adopted into the family of God by our baptism, we became one of the firstborns enrolled in heaven, receiving the inheritance that comes with it.
Ultimately, when we come to worship on a Sunday morning, we come to Jesus who is the mediator of a new covenant. By the blood that he spilled on the cross, he got rid of any need for animal sacrifices because he completed their whole purpose. His self-sacrifice was for the sin of the whole world, for all time.
Abel was the first man to die for his faith. He was the first martyr. His blood was the price he paid for his faith, and we commend him for it. The blood of Jesus Christ says so much more than that.
When we pray that prayer of confession, all we need to bring is a repentant heart. We should have to pay some kind of price for the forgiveness that God gives, but by the death of Christ, that price has been paid. Grace comes absolutely free to us, but it came at a great cost to God.
We can come into God’s presence without fear and without trembling. Now, because of the new covenant made in Christ’s blood, we can enter his presence with complete confidence. God is still a consuming fire, destroying anything unholy in us, but we have already been made holy. The Holy Spirit sanctifies us, makes us holy, by living in us and working through us. There is no reason to be fearful of God’s presence once our sins have been forgiven and we have received the Holy Spirit.
Listen to him
See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. (Heb. 12:25–27)
There is no escaping God’s wrath and anger when it is deserved. But, thankfully, we are constantly warned and corrected when he speaks through his Word. God’s Word always contains both comfort and warning. We need both of these equally.
When God gave the Ten Commandments to the Israelites, there was an earthquake. When Jesus died on the cross, there was an earthquake. God has shaken this world to distinguish the temporary from the eternal.
The world we live in, this creation, is temporary. It’s not something we can trust in because it won’t last. It constantly changes—just think about the last couple of years. People who sold a house two years ago trusted in market projections and financial predictions, not knowing what was to come. People who moved to New Zealand two years ago did so with the plan to fly back and see family in Australia a few times a year, not knowing that borders would be closed for months and months.
Even something like the weather, despite the technology we have to read the signs and predict what’s to come, is unpredictable. It still rains when we don’t expect, and the sun shines when the app says it’s overcast.
This world is shakable, and we see it all the time. At the end of all things, God will shake the world to the extent that only the things of his kingdom will remain. Listen to him—he warns us about placing too much trust in temporary things like money and possessions, but also even creation itself.
Worship him
Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. (Heb. 12:28,29)
Our worship, then, comes out of gratefulness for the kingdom that cannot be shaken. He has given us something we can rely on in a world where everything changes. His Word never changes, but the world around us does. His Sacrament never changes, but the people who receive it do. We are a part of the created world, and as a part of it, we grow and change like it does, but we need our anchor: the grace, mercy, and love of God.
“Acceptable” worship, then, is our response to the great gifts we receive from God. Proper worship is only possible through Christ, it is only directed towards the Triune God, and it is only conducted with appropriate wonder and respect. Worship is something that is precious, and so we treat it with seriousness. If we believe God is truly present through his Word and the Sacrament, we should respect him and take worship seriously.
But, worship is not without joy, either. In fact, because of the grace of God, we have the fullest and deepest joy in the world. Joy does not have to show itself in singing, dancing, and laughing (although it certainly can), but it is often hidden within us and fills us up. We can have joy in the presence of God, who is a consuming fire, knowing that we are safe as the forgiven people of God.
