Now, even though you may know that, part of what I wanted to impress on all of you is how small the offense was that got Moses banned forever from the promised land. What was it that was so severe that Moses did to get him barred, and barred justly from the land that God had promised to his people?
He struck the rock with a stick. No really, that's what he did. Numbers 20 tells us exactly how that proceeded, where Moses is commanded by God to speak over the rock, but instead, Moses chooses to strike the rock with his staff, and water gushes forth from it, and all the people drink. God told Moses to do something very specific, and Moses chose to do something else. Almost as though Moses believed that he knew better than God the whole time.
For those of you paying attention, this is an absolutely common theme throughout the scriptures. It begins with our first parents, Adam and Eve, who are absolutely real people, and who were given real instructions by the Lord their God to avoid eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. True to form as a human being, Eve, upon being tempted by the serpent, said to him, "God said we aren't even allowed to touch it," which absolutely wasn't true. But she added more steps, as we as humans are wont to do.
We do this because we want to rationalize our decisions, and we are the only creatures that can do this. We can rationalize our behavior by adding more steps, and dropping out earlier ones. We can make new agreements that supersede old covenants. We can fool ourselves into thinking that what God really wants is for us to do what we want to do, for God is a dottering old man who only wants you to be happy. He doesn't care about good or evil, right or wrong, all he wants is for you, yes you, to be happy.
But that's not true. None of it is true. That's not how any of this works. When God commanded to Moses to speak over the rock but not to strike it, he was going out of his way to show his power and dominion to the Israelites, who, as discussed above, are a stiff-necked people, and who rebelled against Moses constantly. God wanted Moses to show and demonstrate that it was God himself who was in charge of all of this, not Moses and his magical trickery. But Moses assumed that he knew better that God himself, and decided to rap the rock twice instead of just speaking over it. And he was barred from the promised land for it. Moses, the great prophet, whom nobody had seen anyone like before or since in Israel, was barred from the promised land for striking a rock.
Does it seem harsh? Maybe, I suppose. But here's the thing - disobedience to God is enough to get you barred from the promised land, barred from paradise, barred from the whole Scheer. We constantly think about how good people go to heaven, bad people go to hell, right? We keep thinking about how Hitler is in hell forever, and that the rest of us are basically okay, without realizing that disobedience to God's word is sufficient, it is enough, it is plenty to cast Adam and Eve out of paradise, Moses out of the promised land, and you out of heaven. And if God's command to speak over a rock is disobeyed by Moses striking it, what on earth do you expect God is going to do with a people who change his laws and commands far far more than that.
The modern church, as you know, is as corrupt as you please. I'm sure this isn't news to you, but think about it for a second. God's word is clear, it is not hard to figure out or to work through. It's not as though God's laws are needlessly complex, but we do like to rationalize them away. We do like to look at God's laws as though they were complex, and needed our big brains to sort them out. We like to look at God's laws about human sexuality, life and death, theft, robbery, obedience, and to say that these things are holdovers from a time in which people weren't so smart, and needed to be protected from themselves. Now that we're here, and we're so smart, and we don't need God to tell us what to do anymore. And I ask you, with God as your witness, who is more likely to be giving you that advice? God, who said his word wouldn't change, and who said he would be the same yesterday, today and forever, or someone else?
Moses changed God's rules in a very tiny way, and that was enough to keep him from the promised land. What do you think there is waiting for us when we change God's laws in a big way? What is waiting for us when we take God's very clear words, and change them in a quite monstrous way? What is waiting for us when we disregard, dismiss, or otherwise discard the clear commandments of God in favor of what we feel like doing, and assume that God will back those decisions up? Could God justly bar us from paradise? Absolutely.
But this last Sunday was the Sunday of the transfiguration. And with it being the Sunday of the transfiguration, it's easy to miss a lot of details when you see Christ transfigured to be bright like the sun, dazzling white like lightning. It's easy to miss all the other details when your savior is revealed in his glory. But a detail that I don't want you to miss is that in that moment, Moses is standing there, with Jesus and Elijah, in the promised land. He finally made it. After being justly barred from the promised land, he is finally there. His story didn't end with his death, after his skin had been destroyed, yet with his eyes, he beheld Christ, and stood in the promised land. What a redemption story! Justly barred from the promised land, after having led Israel through the wilderness for 40 years, Moses finally stands in the promised land, and stands there with Christ. The law bringing stands in that space with the law keeper. I want you to think about the people from the scriptures who want to find their way back to paradise, to regain it, if you will. People whose sin and disobedience has kept them away, far away, from paradise. Think about why they are kept from paradise, and how much effort they expend into trying to make their decisions good and God pleasing, when in reality they are neither. And think about how we behave, you and I. Think about what we do, how we conduct ourselves, and how desperate we are to convince ourselves that we are doing the right thing, and that our actions in the real world are just a slight, minor deviation from what God has commanded. And then think about Moses, who stood on the mount of transfiguration alongside Jesus.
Standing there alongside Jesus is the most important part. What was it that Jesus said to the oft-misunderstood thief on the cross? 'I tell you the truth, today you will be with Me in paradise.' Emphasis mine, but hopefully you'll get the picture here, that you will be with Christ. Where he is. For only Christ is able to break death, only Christ is able to ascend into heaven, only Christ is able to be an heir of the permanent promised land, and Moses's presence with him at the mount of transfiguration is a wonderful testimony to the forgiveness of sins and righteousness that Christ provides. This isn't a theoretical or an abstract for you to muse over, rather it is a practical moment. Practical feet on the practical ground. A few sets of them, too. Elijah, who was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind, Jesus who is the son of God, and Moses, barred from the promised land now standing in it. Because of Jesus. That's what forgiveness and justification look like, you know. It looks like people who had sinned, who had added to or subtracted from God's command, people who are justly barred from the promised land standing in it.
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And that's one of the best things to be revealed at the mount of Transfiguration.
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