Seder 64 Sermon: Exodus 25, Isaiah 66, John 1---God With Us

 When Moses ascended Mount Sinai for forty days to receive additional teaching from God (Ex 24:18), one of the things he received was a set of instructions for the tabernacle, a portable worship structure that the Israelites would build.  God states  the purpose of this structure in Exodus 25:8:  "And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst."

In a sermon at Church of the Messiah on April 5, 2025, Kyle Kettering reflected on God's desire to be with his people.  It is an awesome thing, he pointed out, that the Creator of the Universe would be present with the Israelites in this way.  God has no need of a house, as he declares in Isaiah 66:1:  

"Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest?"  But God goes on to say that he likes to spend time with the person "who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word."  

In coming to Israel's tabernacle, Kyle said, God both lowered himself and raised the Israelites. Kyle related a midrash on Exodus 25:8 from Midrash Tanchuma saying that Moses "backed away" when he heard the instruction to build a tabernacle because he was so surprised and amazed.  

Even more surprising is the fact that God came to earth as a man in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, as John 1:1-18 relates.  "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," this famous prologue to John's Gospel begins.  "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us," verse 14 adds.

Kyle described some of the background of John's prologue that appeared in Second Temple Jewish literature.  

• Wisdom 9:1 pictures Solomon praying, "O God of my ancestors and Lord of mercy, who have made all things by your word..."  
• In the works of the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, a contemporary of Jesus, the word (Greek logos, as in John 1) is an intermediate supernatural reality between God and the universe. 
• In the Aramaic Targums, the Memra (the "word" in Aramaic) plays a similar role.  In Genesis 1 in Targum Neophyti, it is the Memra who says, "Let there be light."

In the future God will be with his creatures on a renewed earth (Rev 21:3-4).

Seder 64: Exodus 26---Walls of the Tabernacle

On July 17, 2021, Rob Wilson gave a sermon on Exodus 26.  He started with a look at the big picture of Exodus 19-40, which can viewed as a chiasm.  In the middle of this chiasm are 

F.  Covenant broken -----Exodus 32

F.'  Covenant renewed-----Exodus 33-34   

Then he focused on the details of Exodus 26.  Exodus 26 describes the design of Israel's tabernacle in the wilderness, both the fabrics that made up the walls and ceiling and the frames to which these fabrics were attached.  

The tent had four layers, with a layer of fine linen on the inside, covered by a layer of goats' hair, covered by a layer of rams' skins, with an outer layer of dolphn or sea cow skins. 

Verses 1-6  describe the inner linen layer of the fabric for the tent, consisting of 10 long strips of cloth.  We read in verse 6, 

"And you shall make fifty clasps of gold, and couple the curtains one to the other with the clasps, so that the tabernacle may be a single whole."

Rob observed that the Hebrew word used for the coupling together of the strips of linen connoted that the linen strips were joined together as "friends."  There is some symbolism here of God bringing disparate groups of people together in a unified whole.

Seder 64: Psalm 69---Lament of a Righteous Sufferer

 Psalm 69 is traditionally associated with David and is attributed to him by Paul in Romans 11:9.  

David comes to God in an unidentified desperate situation, likening himself to a drowning man.  He has calling out to God to no avail.  He has been enduring false accusation and suffering for God's sake, and he worries about the effect his situation will have on other followers of God (vv 1-6).  While he has been at the temple, praying and fasting, others make fun of him (vv 9-12).  David asks God to deal justly with his tormentors (vv 22-28).  He looks forward to the time when he has been delivered and publicly thanks and praises God, giving encouragement to others who suffer (vv 30-36).  

Christians from the beginning have seen David's experience here as a type of the experience of Jesus, the ultimate righteous sufferer.  In the New Testament six different passages from Psalm 69 are referenced:

• John 2:17 quotes Ps 69:9a (``zeal for your house has consumed me'') in connection with Jesus' first temple cleansing incident.
• In John 15:25 Jesus seems to be referring to Ps 69:4 (or perhaps Ps 35:7) in discussing the fact that his disciples could expect to be persecuted because he was.  The fact that David was hated without a cause indicates that the Messiah would be also.
•  In John 19:28-30 reference is made to Ps 69:3, 21 when Jesus is given sour wine on the cross.  Similarly, Matt 27:34 refers to Ps 69:21.
• In Acts 1:20 Peter applies the imprecation in Ps 69:25 to Judas, Jesus' betrayer.
• In Romans 11:9-10, Paul applies Ps 69:22-23 to describe the temporary stumbling of those in Israel who did not recognize Jesus as Messiah.
• In Romans 15:3 Paul applies Ps 69:9b ("the reproaches of those who reproached you have fallen on me") to Jesus in holding up Jesus' endurance of suffering without a cause as a moral example for his followers.

Not all of the material in Psalm 69 seems to apply to Jesus.  For example, David's admission of his sins in verse 5 is not something Jesus would have said.  Jesus on the cross did not level imprecations at his persecutors---in fact, just the opposite (Luke 23:34).  The New Testament writers applied Psalm 69 selectively, as Ben Witherington points out in his book Psalms Old and New.