Illuminating Spirit, open our hearts and minds to your Word in this time. Amen.
As I was reading the Old Testament passage this week, I was immediately struck by the scene where God had somehow become very angry with Moses, angry enough to decide to kill him. This caught me off-guard. And I have to admit that my first reaction was, "well, I know what part of the Scripture I'm not going to preach from on Sunday.
But as I thought about it, I wondered "why is it that I want to run from this passage, why I don't want to deal with it from the pulpit?" In the midst of it all, I decided that my desire to push this passage away may have been my reaction to God's prodding me to enter deeper into the story through it.
It's passages like these that confuse us, I think, because God's behavior seems so…inconsistent with what we have seen in other parts of the Bible. Just when we feel like we've got God all figured out, we are thrown for a loop as we read the passage and wonder "where in the world did this come from?" Perhaps it all leaves us with the thought, "Maybe I didn't know as much about God as I thought I did." That can be an unsettling thought.
Sometimes the people around me surprise me in a similar way, a way that makes me think, "Gee, maybe there's more to this person than I thought."
I remember one day when I was in college I lived in a house with three other students. It was Jeannie, Mark, Susan, and I. It was a very interesting year, and over time I got to know my friends ever more so.
But one day, I remember walking into the house, and as I reached the middle of the living room, Jeannie appeared out of the back of the house, walked right up to me, grabbed me by the lapels, glared into my eyes, and said in a frustrated voice:
"You never plan anything.
You write little notes to yourself.
You drive me crazy!"
Then she calmly let go and walked back to her room without saying another word. Meanwhile, I'm standing there dumfounded, asking myself, "where in the world did that come from?" Given what had just happened, I decided it best not to ask.
Jeannie and I, to this day, are very close friends. And I think that it's moments like that that make our friendship as deep as it is. It's in those moments when others do things that we just don't expect that I believe is an invitation to get to know them a little better. If we decide not to run from those moments, then we have the opportunity to enter into a deeper relationship, taking it to a whole new level.
And so I decided that it was best not to run from this passage. As I took another look at it, I discovered that…it was just as confusing as it was the first time around. I still couldn't understand "what in the world is that all about?" Nope, no clearer picture of God. Still confusing.
I believe very strongly that God speaks to us through the Scriptures. But I guess that I also believe that God does not always speak to us in the way that we would like. I believe that God uses the Scriptures to confound us in order to stop us from going in certain directions. You see, whenever we run into those confusing walls, I think that God is trying to tell us that we are asking the wrong question. At that time God wants us to ask a different question. I was asking the question, "who is God?" When I changed my question to "what does this passage show us about what God wants us to do?", then I found myself in a whole new world.
In this passage, God blessed the behavior of Zipporah. God likes what she did. On a most basic level, it seems that Moses did not abide by God's command to have every male of the covenant lineage circumcised. Apparently, neither he nor his son were aligned with this command. To fend of God's wrath, Zipporah first circumcises her son (something that Moses should have done), and touches the foreskin to Moses' "feet" (which is of course a euphemism for Moses' own member). That's the particulars of what is happening here.
But what I think may be more important here is what Zipporah is doing in the bigger scheme of things. Moses was in trouble, and she was willing to bear his burden upon her shoulders. This type of behavior is what I call "standing in the gap" for someone else. It's about being there when someone is in need.
I got to experience what Moses felt not too long ago as a couple of friends of mine really stood in the gap for me. A little over a week ago I moved into my apartment in Spring Valley. Two very close friends of mine, Tom and Mike, helped me load up the truck, move everything over here, and get it all in my second-story apartment. We finished unloading around 2:00 in the morning. These two were absolute martyrs through the whole thing. There's no way I could have ever done it alone, and I assure you I was a wreck the whole time we were doing this. The entire scene was just ugly. And the most incredible thing is…this is not the first time they did this for me. They helped me move earlier in the summer too. I can't tell you how indebted I feel to these two men, my dear, dear friends, who were willing to stand in the gap for me when I really needed it.
When Jesus gathered his disciples along the Galilee, I wonder if that was precisely what he was trying to teach them. Those that followed him got to see him doing a variety of different ministries. In this passage, a couple stand out.
First, we see him teaching, helping others to connect with the Word of God in the Old Testament, helping them to connect with what God wants for them through the Scriptures. In essence, he is mentally standing in the gap for those who want to learn. Also we see him driving out unclean spirits. Again, he's standing in the gap for those who need him, only this time it is spiritually.
Is this ultimately what Jesus was trying to teach his disciples: how to stand in the gap. Was he laying a foundation so that they would understand him when he would later say, "love one another-stand in the gap for one another, as I have stood in the gap for you.
If this was his ultimate message, then it certainly seems that one disciple in particular really picked up on it. His name was Paul.
Hear his words to the Philippians (2.5-9): "Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and (found human in appearance), he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name…"
Follow Jesus. Paul's message through and through.
Jesus was willing to stand in the gap for us, both in life and in death. And through both Zipporah and Paul we find that this type of behavior God truly blesses: God blesses that willingness to do likewise and to stand in that gap. It doesn't mean that this type of behavior is commonplace. Quite the contrary, it is in rare moments that we run into people who are so consumed by the fires of love in such a deep way that they are driven to stand in the gap for those who need it: for those who are hungry, for those who are marginalized, for those who are afraid, and, yes, even for those who have to carry box after box of seminary books up to the second floor.
But when we look deep into the life of the man named Jesus of Nazareth, we know that is our common call in life. We are unique, for we are called to be conformed into the image of a God who was willing to be crucified…for us in order to stand in the gap forever.