The Norovirus and Exodus 19

I’m laying here right now, totally and completely depleted, wasted, exhausted. "What from?" you ask. My family has been put through the gauntlet with a stomach bug that has earned us one urgent care visit, two emergency rooms, and one hospital stay, all in the span of a week. And now, I lay here out of necessity because it is my turn to do battle with the norovirus. Being sick, stinks. Especially being stomach sick because it is so contagious and leaves you feeling so dirty. So, naturally I take a shower to wash off all the virus junk, try to keep this monster at bay.

While I’m no longer the child who enjoys being sick because that means she gets to stay home and just watch tv all day, being sick does have one advantage. It forces me to slow down. Everything around begins to slow down and it’s no longer my fulltime job to take care of the family, I have to take care of myself too. Laying in bed has afforded some good time to just read. Not endless amounts of facebook posts, although that is tempting. The Bible. Chapters and chapters at a time.

The Spirit of God placed me in the book of Exodus and I had one of those moments where I know I’ve read it before but I’ve never really read it before. Exodus 19. This may just be one of the most underestimated chapters in the Bible. Most Christians are familiar with the chapter that comes after. Most people who aren’t Christians have heard of what is in the next chapter. The ten commandments. God comes down to visit his people and give the law to Moses. Thou shalt not, Thou shalt. Do this. Don’t do this. The rule book of the Bible, right there in Exodus 20. But, chapter 19 shows the heart of the Lawgiver before He even gives the law to Moses. Read Exodus 19, taking time to check out the headings in a couple chapters before and after.

God has just brought His people out of Egypt, crossed the Red Sea, fed them bread from heaven, water from rocks and why? Why did He do all this for the people of Israel? Did you catch it in verse 4? He was bringing them people to Himself. All this that happened before, He was doing that He might be with His people. He desired their presence. Did He need it? By all means, no. He didn’t draw the people out of deficit that He had. He drew them out of His love and desire to experience community with His children, no strings attached.

But wait! There are tons of strings attached. 613 commandments in the Old Testament to be exact. He drew them out with conditions, with expectations and anyone whose been in a relationship before will know that expectations will kill a relationship. His love is conditional, isn’t it? By all means no, my friends!

Let’s keep checking out chapter 19. Moses is interacting with the Lord and being asked to take messages back and forth to the people. All the while, the people have never seen the Lord, never heard the commands from the source. So, God says, “I am coming to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you forever.” God wants to show a portion of His presence to the people that they may believe. However, in order for the people to be able to come near to God, they must consecrate themselves. They must clean themselves to be ready for the presence of the Lord and even then, they can’t even touch the mountain on which the Lord is dwelling.

God brought the people out of slavery that they might dwell with Him, but dwelling with Him, meant that they had to be clean. There in lies the grace! God did not allow them to come before Him unclean. He gave them the grace to prepare for His presence. He knew that He is so glorious, so holy, so righteous that His people would not survive in His presence. So, what does He do? Like any good father, He protected His kids from Himself. It was as if He was saying in our modern language, “I’m so good and I want you to be with me. But, my goodness is too great for you. It will destroy you. You must come under these terms, or you cannot come at all. If you do come on your own, you will perish.” God does not delight in the death of the wicked and He was trying to protect His children from the death that would certainly come from His holiness.

We forget that He is that holy! He forget that He is that far above our understanding and ability to cope! He forget that He is the supreme of all that is good and we think that we can just come to Him as we are. That’s what the old hymn says, right? Come as you are.

That freedom to come before a holy and righteous God is what it is, real freedom. Do come as you are! But that freedom was bought with the sacrifice of Jesus dying on the cross. You see, God did lay out 613 commands that He meant and expected to be followed or else we are in the same danger as the Israelites standing before God, unconsecrated. God wants to dwell with us, but knows He is so holy. We can’t come near him. We are so dirty that we can’t make ourselves clean. My son’s body was so sick, so full of the stomach bug that it couldn’t get well. We needed the intervention of someone without the stomach bug to help him begin to recover. He needed a stomach bug savior. That’s us. We are so terribly sick and dirty with sin that we need an outside intervention to make us well enough to be with our Father. Enter Jesus. He is our covering. He is our consecration. He is our IV fluids. He is what makes us right before God, so that we get God.

Are you ready to come before the presence of God as you stand?

Have you looked at God’s commands as burdensome or an expression of His grace, His protection?