Advent Midweek II:
“Symbols of Salvation: The LORD Sets Up His Tent Among Us”[1]
December 8, 2021
Text: Ex. 40:17-21, 34-38; John 1:14-18
At
risk of giving away the surprise ending of our Sunday morning Exodus Bible Study,
the erecting of the Tabernacle and God’s filling it with His Glory is the grand
finale of the whole book. This is the entire
goal of the exodus from Egypt, the plagues, the Passover, the crossing of the
Red Sea. “Let my people go, that they
may serve me” (Ex. 8:1; ESV). The
serving of the LORD is not, actually, doing things for Him. It is rather that He comes down to
make His Tabernacle among His people, to dwell with His people, right in their midst,
as Immanuel (God with us), in a physical structure covered with skin, so that He
may do things for them, for their redemption and for their salvation. “Let my people go,” release them from
bondage, “that they may serve me,” that is, that I may bring them into Divine
Service, where I commune with them, and pour out my gifts upon them, and lead
them to the Promised Land.
As
it turns out, Exodus 40 is a Christmas text, and the Tabernacle in the
wilderness is nothing less than an embodied prophecy of the Incarnation of the
Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Perhaps
a little tour of the Tabernacle and its furnishings will be edifying. It was on the one-year anniversary of the
Passover that Moses erected the skeletal structure of the Tabernacle, its bases
and frames, its poles and pillars. You
know how it is when you put up a tent.
This Tabernacle was to be ready for travel. For as the people journeyed through the wilderness
on their way to the Promised Land, the LORD Himself would go with them. In fact, He would lead them by His presence
in the fiery Pillar of Cloud, the Angel of the LORD. Whenever the Cloud was taken up from the
Tabernacle, the people arose and journeyed.
And whenever the Cloud was not taken up from the Tabernacle, the people
settled in to camp.
The
structure was covered ram skins and goat skins and curtains of goat hair. We learn that from Exodus 26. This may call to mind for us the coverings of
animal skins God made for Adam and Eve in the Garden after they had sinned, to
cover their nakedness (Gen. 3). Or
perhaps it may remind us of the ram caught in the thicket which God provided as
a sacrifice in place of Abraham’s son, Isaac (Gen. 22). Or perhaps we may think of the scapegoat over
which the sins of the people were confessed, which was then sent out into the
wilderness to Azaael, bearing the sins of the people (Lev. 16). Or any of the animal sacrifices instituted to
cover over sin and mediate God’s presence.
You see, the very skin of the tent preaches atonement.
In
the court of the Tabernacle was the altar for offering those animal sacrifices. And then there was the heart and center of
the whole thing, the Tent of Meeting, housing the Holy Place with the lampstand,
and the altar of incense, and the table for the Bread of the Presence. And the Most Holy Place (or Holy of Holies), separated
from the Holy Place by a curtain, wherein dwelt the Ark of the Covenant, the
throne of God.
The
Ark, a chest containing a jar of the holy manna, Aaron’s budding staff, and the
two tablets of the Testimony, the very Word of God written with His own finger,
the Ten Commandments. This calls to our
minds first of all the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who bore within her the
Word-incarnate, the Son of God, who would bear the staff of the cross, and give
Himself to His people as the Bread of Life.
And, of course, it calls to mind the mystery of the Incarnation itself,
as the eternal Word, the Testimony of God, took up residence in the flesh of a
man, Jesus of Nazareth… Jesus, who would perfectly fulfill the Commandments in
our place, and be the Sacrifice of Atonement for all our transgressions against
them.
And
on top of the Ark, the Mercy Seat, where God sits, attended by the golden Cherubim. This was, of course, the Atonement Cover, upon
which the priest sprinkled the blood of sacrifice to atone for the sins of the
people, to come between God and the Commandments they had broken. “Blessed is the one whose transgression is
forgiven, whose sin is covered” (Ps. 32:1)… covered with the Blood
of Sacrifice. That God may dwell with
His people, Immanuel, God with us.
When
Moses erects the Tabernacle, the Cloud descends upon it and covers it, and the
Glory of YHWH fills it. The Cloud, the
Glory… This is the Angel of the LORD, the Messenger of God, the Word… This is
the preincarnate Christ.
It
is this very text, this Christmas Gospel, Exodus 40, that St. John the
Evangelist preaches as fulfilled when “the Word became flesh and dwelt”…
literally tabernacled, set up His tent… “among us.” And “we have seen his glory, glory as of
the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
The
Cloud, the Glory of YHWH, the Angel of the LORD, the Word, came down and put on
skin. Human flesh and blood. A human body and soul. To demand of Satan, sin, of hell itself, and
of all that enslaves us: “Let my people go, that they may serve me.” Release them from their bondage, that I may
bring them into Divine Service, in my Holy Church, where I commune with them,
and pour out my gifts upon them, and lead them on their journey into the New
Creation, heaven, resurrection.
He
puts on skin, bears our flesh, that He may be Immanuel, God with us… God with
us all the way, down to flesh and bone.
And He puts on skin, bears our flesh, that He may bear our iniquities,
and be the Sacrifice of Atonement on the cross for all our transgressions. He is the Scapegoat. He is the Ram caught in the thicket. It is in this very skin that He is crucified,
dead and buried. His blood is the Atonement
Cover. And it is in this very skin that
He is risen from the dead, lives even now, and reigns eternally with the Father
and the Holy Spirit. It is in this very
skin that He sits now in heaven at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. And it is in this very skin that He will return,
and raise us up in our skin, to live with Him eternally.
And
even now, as we walk about in this skin, this flesh and blood, He has done
something that changes everything about this body of death. In taking it on Himself, He has redeemed
it. And He sanctifies it. So that even now, in spite of all
appearances, this body sitting in the pew, and the body sitting next to you…
the bodies all around you, and even this sad sack of bones in the pulpit… this
body is a Tabernacle of Christ and a Temple of His Holy Spirit. So He washes this body at the font, breathes
His Spirit into this body in His life-giving Word, and puts His crucified and
risen body into this body at the altar.
And
when this body of death dies, you do not die. You live with Christ, where His body is, in
the Tabernacle of heaven. And then, at
the Last, when Jesus comes again, bodily, He will raise up your body. As Job says, “I know that my Redeemer
lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall
behold, and not another” (Job 19:25-27).
In fact, on that Day, what was prefigured by the Tabernacle and the
Temple, and fulfilled in Jesus’ body, will be manifest to us in the New Heaven
and Earth, the Promised Land. St. John again
preaches to us, this time in Revelation: “I heard a loud voice from the
throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place’,” the Tabernacle, “‘of
God is with man. He will dwell’,” tabernacle,
set up His tent, “‘with them, and they will be his people, and God himself
will be with them as their God. He will
wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall
there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have
passed away” (Rev. 21:3-4). Immanuel. God with us.
Fully and forever.
As
it happens, not only is the Tabernacle the grand finale of the Book of
Exodus. It is the grand finale of the
whole Bible. And of your life in
Christ. It is the Christmas Gospel. God with you, covered in skin. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] The theme and a number of the
elements in this sermon are taken from Aaron A. Koch, Symbols of Salvation:
Foretelling Christ’s Birth (St. Louis: Concordia, 2021).
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