“On the third day, when morning came, there was thunder and lightning, a thick cloud on the mountain, and a very loud blast from the ram’s horn, so that all the people in the camp shuddered. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was completely enveloped in smoke because the Lord came down on it in fire. Its smoke went up like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain shook violently. As the sound of the ram’s horn grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and God answered him in the thunder. The Lord came down on Mount Sinai at the top of the mountain. Then the Lord summoned Moses to the top of the mountain, and he went up. The Lord directed Moses, ‘Go down and warn the people not to break through to see the Lord; otherwise many of them will die. Even the priests who come near the Lord must consecrate themselves, or the Lord will break out in anger against them.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

What is it like to be in the presence of God? We often like to imagine that such an experience is one of great peace and tranquility. Or perhaps we imagine it to be something that is gentle and encouraging. Yet while those ideas may have some truth to them in a certain set of circumstances, whenever we see God show up in power in the Scriptures, the experience is quite a bit different from that. Let’s talk about the wild scene we see unfolding here and why we should be so grateful for Jesus.

Every now and then I’ll hear a story about someone who had a near-death experience (or an “NDE” as researchers into the matter prefer to call them). Generally speaking, they imagine a place that is peaceful and serene. If they happen to encounter Jesus, He is smiling and friendly. They have a gentle conversation with Him, and then He sends them back until the time comes for them to see Him again. The whole experience always sounds a bit like the person walked into a Thomas Kincaid painting. I always find it interesting that NDE’s always sound about like that when we don’t see a single example in the Scriptures of someone having an encounter with God that is quite so…calm.

For three days the people of Israel had been getting ready for God to show up and make the covenant with them Moses had been telling them about. Then, on the morning of the third day (and, like we talked about last time, don’t miss the significance of that timing), God showed up in power. I wonder if the skies had been clear the night before. I wonder if they were clear before God’s cloud descended on the mountain. Could they see it coming from a distance, or did it fairly well drop in on them from out of nowhere? However it arrived, as the people were up and finishing breakfast (or did God make them have this incredible experience on an empty stomach?), a storm cloud descended on the mountain.

Moses describes the scene in several different ways here. You get the sense that none of these descriptions really captured what they were seeing, but Moses was doing his best to give later generations at least a sense of what was happening before them. There was thunder and lightning and apparently fire as well. The cloud was sitting on the mountain, but nowhere else except where it trailed upwards into the sky “like the smoke of a furnace.” And the sound. There was the sound of a ram’s horn that grew louder and louder over time until the whole mountain shook.

Let’s just call this what it was: terrifying. Standing at the foot of this mountain when all this was going on would have been absolutely terrifying. The people were quickly coming to the conclusion that while they didn’t want to cross this God, they also didn’t want to get anywhere near them, because they were not going to survive the experience. God called Moses up to the top of the mountain only to give Him another message to take back down to the people. The people weren’t to get anywhere close to His presence lest they be killed by it. I don’t suspect this was really a message the people needed to receive. There’s no way they were going near whatever it was that was happening on that mountain. God’s powerful presence was like a nightmare come to life. They were all about to take on the role of the Cowardly Lion who ran out of the Wizard’s throne room and jumped out of a window in order to get away from him.

Why would God do this? Why show up like this and put the fear of…well…God into them in such a frightening way? Because they needed to see His power. They needed to understand who it was they were entering into a covenant with. They thought they had seen His power before, but this was a whole other level. He wasn’t just a God who did some helpful things for them. He was powerful beyond description and terrifying in His holiness. Approaching Him in an unworthy manner would not go well. Rejecting His commands and going their own way would not lead to a good outcome for them. But the thing is, as memorable as this experience should have been, just forty days later the people were actively ready to give up on Moses and this God and constructed for themselves a pair of little calf idols to worship as the real gods who brought them out of Egypt and would lead them on to the Promised Land. Imagine how quickly they might have turned on God had He not come down with such a show as He did here!

As much as we wonder about why God put on such a show as this, I can’t help but reflect gratefully on the fact that we don’t live under that old covenant any longer. My heart is filled with gratitude for Jesus. While Jesus is undoubtedly great and powerful – He did stop a storm with a command after all – and when He returns He is going to be pretty terrifying if John’s visions are anything in the neighborhood of accurate, the image we have of Him in the Gospels is entirely more invitational than how God felt the need to present Himself to the Israelites here. In fact, let your mind hold onto that thought for just a second longer. When God presented Himself to the Israelites just before giving them the contours of the covenant He was making with them, He showed up as a wild and terrifying storm. When Jesus and the disciples were crossing the Sea of Galilee and a wild and terrifying storm suddenly descended on them, He told the storm to stop and brought peace and calm back to the sea.

The access to God we have through Jesus is something entirely different than what Israel ever knew or experienced. He’s still the same God and His standards are just as high now as they were then, but with Jesus serving as our means of access, our experience of getting into His presence is just not the same. Because of Jesus, while we should certainly fear the Lord, we don’t have to be afraid of Him. We should never forget that He is the same God who descended on Mount Sinai with a cloud and storm and fire and earthquake and blast of the ram’s horn. He created all we see and don’t with a word and could un-create it just as quickly. His righteousness and holiness are just as severe now as they were then. Sin will still be burned away in His presence. But Jesus comes and covers us with His sinless righteousness, making us fit to stand before Him with humble confidence. He is making us able to see Him and will one day bring us into the shape that we can experience Him face to face.

If you want to be able to get to God, the path goes through Jesus. His love and gentleness, His compassion and grace will absolutely be extended to you when you are ready to receive Him. He won’t force Himself, and will welcome you with open arms when you start moving in His direction. In Jesus, we are able to experience the love of God in ways the Israelites sometimes struggled to comprehend. In Christ He is the father running to meet us when He sees us turn from our prodigal ways to walk once again along the path of His righteousness. If you know Jesus as your Lord, rejoice today with a grateful heart at the access you have in Him to the power and presence of God. If you don’t, I encourage you to consider it. Your life will never be the same again. It won’t necessarily be easy because the world still hates Him and will hate you as His representative, but it will be good. Always good. Because He is good. May you receive Him and find the life that is truly life today.