How to Meet God

1 Then the LORD said to Moses:

2 “Set up the tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting, on the first day of the first month.

 Exodus 40:1a-2

● How to Get From Seoul to Busan through city buses

I hope God’s grace and peace will fill our hearts today through the message God’s given us.

There are many ways to get from Seoul to Busan. But, one day a young man made a very interesting challenge called “Going to Busan from Seoul with only city buses”. In the morning, this young man took his first bus at the ‘Shin-non-hyun Station bus stop’ early in the morning.

Now, before we go any further, do you think this young man’s challenge was successful?

At the next stop, there was no no bus on the move, so he ran on to the following bus stop. After getting on the bus there, he was so tired that he fell asleep on the bus and got off at the wrong next bus stop. Eventually, although he endured several such crises, fortunately his challenge ended successfully. He finally arrived at Busan Jong-hap Bus Terminal even though the process he had taken was never simple.

The total number of city buses used to go from Seoul to Busan was nineteen. And the total time was twenty-three hours.

So, after such a long struggle, why did this young man not give up on his challenge?

It was because he had set his mind firmly on his purpose to go to Busan.

Likely, in today’s text, Moses and the Israelites had set their hearts firmly on their purpose to meet God. Actually, at that time, the process of meeting God was almost as complicated as ‘going to Busan from Seoul with only city buses’ because the Israelites needed the “tabernacle” to meet God. But it was not simple or easy to set up this tabernacle and to sacrifice there.

● How to Meet God through the Tabernacle

Exodus 40:1-2

1 Then the LORD said to Moses:

2 “Set up the tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting, on the first day of the first month.

God had taught Moses how to set up the tabernacle because that was the designated location for the Israelites to meet him. The tabernacle was also called the Tent of Meeting, and it was “A moving worship place”. At that time, Israel had escaped from Egypt with the help of God and was actively moving to the promised land. But the Israelites had to worship during their movement because they had not yet arrived in the land where they were to settle. So they needed “a moving worship place” which was the tabernacle, a large tent for meeting God.

In modern terms, the tabernacle can be understood as a church building where we worship. But imagine that as a church we needed to move to another place over a course of many months or years. We also would probably bring a tent, or a tarp to a campground, in which to worship God.

What is interesting is that God ordered the tabernacle to be set up on the first day of the first month. In fact, the Israelites had fled from Egypt on the fourteenth day of the first month the previous year. They arrived at Mt. Sinai in the third month, and Moses’ two trips up the mountain took a few months each. It is generally accepted that the Israelites began work on the tabernacle in the sixth month of their exodus, and it took almost six months to complete. So, the first day of the first month, which is New Year’s Day was fast approaching, and just as all things are “new” in the New Year, so the tabernacle was to symbolize Israel’s “being made new.”

God wanted Israelites to remember that God was the one who saved them by making them set up the tabernacle on the first day of the month. And God wanted the Israelites to worship Him with a new identity of God’s people, not slaves of Egypt, slaves of sin.

In this regard, we can imagine the worship service on the first morning of each month. Just as the Israelites set up the tabernacle on the first day of each month and worshiped God, we also worship God in the church at the earliest time of the first day of each week. But in Korea, we also have a special worship time at the earliest time of the first day of each month called “월삭기도회.”

All early morning worship services are precious, but the first worship service every month has an even more special meaning. This is because when we start a new month, we can remember that God is the one who saved us from sin. It also makes us realize that sinners though we are, we are also now new children in God’s family. I hope we will be Christians who rely on God for a new beginning at the beginning of each month by attending the first early morning worship service of the month.

Now, in order for the Israelites to worship God on the first day of the month, God had to teach Moses how to lead the people in setting up the tabernacle. But the process of setting up this tabernacle was not simple.

For starters, the tabernacle was divided into the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. In the Most Holy Place, the Ark of the Covenant which contained the two stone tablets with the 10 commandments that God had given to Moses was placed. There was a veil between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place, so that they were physically separated from each other.

In the Holy Place, there was a table of the bread of the Presence of God on the north side, a lampstand and lamps on the south side, a golden altar for incense on the west side, and the door of the tabernacle made of another veil on the east side.

Outside the tabernacle was the main court where a basin and the altar for burnt offerings was placed. These were in the center of the court of the tabernacle before the main entrance.

When I was reading the Bible, I was particularly interested in the veils of the tabernacle. A veil is ‘a curtain used to cover something’. Interestingly, three veils were used in the tabernacle design. One veil was used to distinguish between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place, another was used as a material to make the gates of the tabernacle, and a final veil was used to represent the boundary of the court of the tabernacle.

That means there were three veils between the Israelites and the ark of the Covenant. Why?

These veils signified that God is holy, and that the Israelites, who are unholy sinners, can not meet the holy God directly.

Therefore, God appointed a priest to take charge of the tabernacle rituals, on behalf of all human beings as sinners. Exodus 40:9-16 shows us how God made the priest and the tabernacle holy so that the priest could perform his duty for the people:

9 “Take the anointing oil and anoint the tabernacle and everything in it; consecrate it and all its furnishings, and it will be holy.10 Then anoint the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils; consecrate the altar, and it will be most holy.11 Anoint the basin and its stand and consecrate them. 12 “Bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and wash them with water.13 Then dress Aaron in the sacred garments, anoint him and consecrate him so he may serve me as priest.14 Bring his sons and dress them in tunics.15 Anoint them just as you anointed their father, so they may serve me as priests. Their anointing will be to a priesthood that will continue for all generations to come.”16 Moses did everything just as the Lord commanded him.

So Moses poured oil onto the priest, the tabernacle, and everything in the court of the tabernacle as God commanded him, and everything that touched the oil became holy. This allowed the priest, now made holy, to move on to the holy God.

This is probably the simplest explanation for the tabernacle. If we were to read all of Exodus chapters 34 to 40 which detail every little thing about the tabernacle, how it was created, the artifacts it contained, and how the priest was to be dressed, we would find that setting up the tabernacle, and giving sacrifices there was never simple or easy.

What we can see through this is that God is holy, and it is never easy for a sinner to meet a holy God. So the Israelites had to go through a lot of processes to meet God. Is there any other way than this series of formalities to meet God?

● How to Meet God through Jesus Christ

In the Old Testament, people needed a tabernacle, a priest, and sacrifices to meet God. However, everything changed with Jesus in the New Testament. How did Jesus make meeting God possible?

Hebrews 10:12

12 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.

Jesus is our better High Priest, who acted in accordance with the tradition of the Old Testament sacrificial rites that God ordered Israel.

First, Jesus has become our eternal high priest. His title “Christ” is the Helaian transliteration of the Hebrew word ‘Mashmach’, (Messiah?) which means ‘anointed with oil’. In the Old Testament, in order to meet the Holy God, the priest must have been anointed with holy oil, but Christ Jesus was already holy because he is the only son of the holy God, and lived a perfect and sinless life on earth.

Second, Jesus gave himself as a sacrifice for our sins. In the Old Testament, the priest sacrificed animals to God so that the blood of the animals would absolve the sins of man. Because the punishment for sin is death, God accepted the death of the animals in place of the death and blood of the people. But Jesus took our sins upon himself and died as a sacrifice of his own accord. His blood has absolved our sins and bestowed his righteousness and holiness to us.

Finally, Jesus became the head of the church.

Colossians 1:18

And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

In the Old Testament, the Israelites needed to meet God in the tabernacle. But today, we can meet God through the church community that Jesus is the head of. He is our leader, the head of the church, and we are the body of the church.

● God’s grace through Jesus Christ

Now let’s turn our attention to God’s grace as it was displayed through the tabernacle in the Old Testament and Jesus Christ in the New Testament.

God ordered the people of Israel to set up the tabernacle and to make the priest and the tabernacle holy with oil and to complete all kinds of necessary preparations to consecrate themselves to God. Sometimes, we may feel that God’s orders are too cumbersome and that many of these requirements are burdensome.

But this was not a one-sided order from God, but rather a big display of his grace because God had provided an opportunity to forgive sin through the tabernacle. In fact, the Israelites were only able to live as a holy people of God by confessing their sins and offering sacrifices to him.

So why did God change the way we meet him from the tabernacle to Jesus Christ?

When God first gave people the covenant, the people came to the tabernacle every time they broke his covenant and sinned, in order to meet God and repent of their sins. But human sin increased day by day, and in the end could not be absolved only through the sacrifice offered at the tabernacle. Even the priests who should have been holy were not holy before God.

Also, the people used the laws and commandments given by God in order to boast about themselves, or elevate their own status, and did not love their neighbors. So God abolished the sacrifice at the tabernacle and absolved all sins with only one sacrifice, once for all, through Jesus.

If there was a way for a sinner to come to God through the tabernacle in the past, now God has come to us, who are sinners, directly through Jesus Christ. This is because Jesus has now become our eternal high priest, the eternal sacrifice for our sins, and the head of the eternal church for us. This is God’s good and wonderful gift of grace for us, unholy, unforgivable sinners.

Recall the challenge of “Going to Busan from Seoul by only city buses.” This kind of situation is almost as trying as offering a sacrifice at the tabernacle would have been in Old Testament times. The reason is that we have to go through too many obligatory steps to meet God, who is our final destination.

But what if we took a flight from Seoul to Busan? Surprisingly, it would take less than one hour. We wouldn’t have to transfer along the way, and we would just be able to sit comfortably in one seat for the entire journey. This scenario is like the grace of Jesus Christ that God has given us. He is our fast, one-way ticket, with no layovers, on a comfortable plane to go to God, our final destination. And the flight’s name is “My Savior, Jesus Christ”.

John 14:6

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

The important thing to note in this passage is that there is only ONE way to God, and that way is through Jesus Christ. There is no other way! There are no transfer stops or indirect routes, or different transit methods but Jesus Christ alone.

Remember the three veils between the Israelites and the ark of the Covenant? These were walls that blocked sinners from the holy God. The people of Israel had to ask a mediator, the high priest, to go to God and perform sacrifices for them on their behalf.

We also are sinners and blocked, as if with the veils of the tabernacle, from the holy God. But Jesus’ death changed that completely.

Luke 23:44-46

44 It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour,

45 for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.

46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.

The veil of the temple was torn in half with Jesus’ death, and this symbolizes the disappearance of the veils between us and God through Jesus. His death and sacrifice on the cross for our sins makes it possible to go directly to God and meet God right away through Him. This is the love of God, and the great, marvelous, unimaginable grace of him who saved us from death through Jesus.

I hope you will spend today meditating on the amazing grace of God that came most intimately through Jesus. And I hope you will spend today basking in the mercy of God, who came to us through Jesus Christ and now considers us holy and righteous, and sons and daughters in his own family through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. God bless you!