Waiting for the Cloud to Lift

By:
Stan Moody

December 7, 2008

Numbers 9:15-23
John 14:15-21

Do you ever experience the feeling that God is on vacation? My thoughts lately have not been very positive concerning the Christian life and the presence of God with His people. I have felt like the Prophet Isaiah who, when he heard the voice of the Lord, cried out, “Woe is me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty” (Isaiah 6:5).


In the midst of these thoughts come two messages of hope. The first message of hope is that of the Shekihah, the cloud of the glory of God that was introduced to the children of Israel in the desert. The second message of hope is in the words, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”


This passage of Scripture in Numbers is very instructive for us as the groundwork for how God works with His people. When the cloud covered the tabernacle by day and as a pillar of fire by night, the people of God were to encamp. When it lifted, they were to set out in the desert. The people of God, then, were to be in one of two states – staying put or moving out.


While they were encamped, they worshipped God, conducted their lives in some normal fashion and learned from Moses and Aaron about the beauty and holiness of God. Perhaps it was during those times that they practiced living by the Law of Moses.


The times of encampment, however, were indefinite. God had placed His people in a position of not being able to plan from day to day. V. 22 tells us that the cloud was apt to be over the tabernacle for two days or for a month or for a year; they had no idea for how long. It was a lesson in patient living in the presence of the Lord – a lesson that they flunked time after time. What grated with them was that they could not plan their lives. They were trapped into total dependence on God.


God’s presence, however, was key to their existence. Likewise, whether staying put or moving forward, God is sovereign over our lives. The problem comes with our difficulty in staying put.


The American way is that if you are not going forward, you are going behind. That is why the Church of Jesus Christ in America puts so much emphasis on growth, progress, success and numbers.


If you read the 10th chapter of Numbers, however, you will notice that the times of staying put were the times when the Lord was especially present with His people. There were whole ceremonies of blowing trumpets, preaching, preparing hearts to love God and building strength for the next journey whenever that might happen and wherever that might lead. There is even a bit about Moses pleading with his father-in-law to stay with them instead of going back to his native Midian. He had decided to leave the assembly and go back to his people. Moses said to him, “Please stay with us. If you come with us, we will share with you the good things that the Lord gives us.”


The desert through which they wandered is symbolic of a wasteland, inhabited by enemies and dangers of all kinds. Here, in chapter 110, vs. 3, 36, is how Moses viewed their predicament:


Whenever the ark set out, Moses said,
“Rise up, O Lord!
May your enemies be scattered; may your foes flee before you.
Whenever it came to rest, he said,
“Return, O Lord, to the countless thousands of Israel.”


God’s presence is critical to our ability to stay put – to stay at rest. I believe that the believing church in America is straining at trying to move forward at a time when God wants us to come to rest. Times of rest are times marshall the resources necessary to move forward in God’s time and with His guidance – not in our time and in our own strength.


As difficult as it is for us Americans to accept, we are where we are and therefore, as Christians, are where God wants us to be. Instead of praying the usual prayer of, “Lord, what do you want me to do next?” maybe our prayer ought to be, “Lord, what do you want me to do while I am right here?” Direction from God is not just for the next big move into the unknown of the desert. It is, perhaps, merely to stay in the oasis of His presence now.


There is a phrase that intrigues me that I found had been originally employed by Dr. Altizer, the author of the “God is dead” movement in the 1960’s. His conclusion was that God had outlived His usefulness and had died with the crucifixion of Christ. My take is not that God had willed Himself to die but that the church kills Him off from time to time by refusing to stay at rest. But inviting the presence of God at times when nothing seems to be happening is a true test of faith, is it not?


I am thinking that we are living in a time when God has either been killed off by the church or been made so irrelevant as to be dead. We march on, taking the banner of Christ without the presence of the Father.


John 14 has much to say about such a way of living.


First, there is a lesson that we can draw from the OT Scripture this morning. That is, that people are insecure when God is not present. We as believers cannot cope outside the presence of our Father, the Living God. We become orphans and scared out of our minds. Jesus was well aware of this problem when He was saying goodbye to His disciples.


The discourse by Jesus in the 14th chapter of John begins with the words, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.” Peter was so attached to Jesus that he wanted to go with Him into death, if need be – anything but being left behind and abandoned. Jesus ties trust of God together with trust of Him, even though He was about to leave His disciples. There can be no Jesus without God, nor can there be any God without Jesus. Believing in Jesus but not trusting God is not an option for the Christian.


The discourse in John 14 ends with two thoughts in v. 18, “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” and “I will not leave you as orphans.” Jesus then destroys in v. 20 any thought of separating Himself from God the Father: “In that day, you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” There is a pecking order here – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, or Comforter. The Son reveals the Father, and the Holy Spirit reveals the Son. And yet, all three are One, as we are one with Jesus.


We must, however, study this for its real meaning. We have the Comforter promised to the disciples, and there is talk about things that will happen in “that day.” Can we separate the Comforter from the Christ, and has “that day” already appeared? If so, where do we stand?


This is about the transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant. You will see that the presence of God remains as constant in the New as in the Old. It takes a new form, however, from the nation-state to the individual; from the temple to the heart.


This discourse was delivered by Jesus just after Judas had left the Last Supper to betray Him. He turned to the others and addressed them with the words, “Little children, I will be with you only a little longer.” He then predicts Peter’s denial. The whole conversation hinges on the phrase, “little children.” These are His brothers to whom He is speaking. What Jesus is acknowledging here is that without His physical presence, they stand together in a comfortless and helpless condition. They are like fatherless and motherless children out in the cold – a fate that to Peter was worse than death.


Only one thing will change that condition, and it is found in the 18th verse: “I wil not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” This is a confirmation by Jesus that the constant and abiding presence of God will somehow remain with them but in a different form. This coming of which Jesus speaks is not some final coming at judgment. What He is referring to here is that He will shortly depart from them in bodily form for a season so that they may receive Him in a better form forever. He must go in order for them to receive Him in a better form that the one with which they had become accustomed.


The consolation of God’s people absolutely depends upon His presence with them. And yet, today, we talk about the “absent Christ” in the sense that He is somehow in our hearts, like some fond memory. We confuse bodily presence with real presence. Our consolation, the confirmation of our faith, depends on the real presence of the Living Lord. He has the audacity to say, “I come” during the very moment of leaving.


The average Christian today finds it convenient to live in the myth of the absent Christ, trying to do a rain dance to bring Him back. Instead, we are cautioned to live in the calm assurance that we are never alone but that we have Him with us more closely than did those who were nearest Him during His days here on earth.


“The world will see me no longer, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live” (v.19). This “Other Comforter” He will send – the Holy Spirit – is no substitute God wafted in from outer space while the spiritual Father and a physical Jesus sit by in the heavens until the final day. The coming of the Spirit is the coming of Jesus. Where the Spirit is, there is Christ; where Christ is, there is the Spirit. How else could these common men have pressed forward with the Gospel with quiet confidence? How else could the great ministers of the faith down through history have pressed forward unless basking in the assuring presence of Jesus?


If you take away Jesus Christ, our elder Brother, who alone reveals men to the Father, we are all orphans – fatherless children who gaze up into an empty heaven seeking an epiphany. The epiphany has come and is dwelling with His people. It is His part to come; it is our part to see, or to be conscious of Him who has come.


The nature of the world is that it fails to see Him. But the eye of the soul of the believer in Jesus Christ sees Him because it has turned away from dependence on the senses of eye, ear and touch. Because He lives, He has come. Because He has come, we who love Him and have accepted Him see Him and are comforted.


I began this sermon with the thought that I am sometimes overwhelmed with the sense that “…I am a man of unclean lips and dwell among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the Lord.” We fail to see Him because we have become guided not by His promises but by our senses. For most Christians today, it goes something like this: “God will not put up with this much longer; we are coming down to the end when Jesus will come again.” That is living by your senses outside the promises of God.


That is what it is like to be orphans in a fatherless world. Without His presence now, our worried eyes see only trials and temptation. Without His presence now, we are among the walking dead. Without His presence now, we cannot have the Father.


The Shekinah cloud of God’s presence stands over this little church that patiently waits for that cloud to be lifted. We have gone forward; we will go forward. But we must be careful that when we move, the cloud goes before us and that we do not leave the cloud of God’s presence behind.


In this Christmas season, we do not celebrate what once was but what now is and will be because of what once was. We ought not to pray for the lifting of the cloud. We ought, instead, to pray that when the cloud lifts, as it forever does, we will be ready to follow into the desert.


Because this is the Advent season, I looked up the meaning of the word “advent” in the dictionary. The best meaning I could find was “a coming or arrival.” Some say we are living between the Advents. I say that we are living in the Advent. The Christ who has come comes to His people, one by one, and remains present. We must learn to live and practice in His presence and stop living as though in His absence.


I ask that you pray for us as a church in this sacred season that we will find peace in resting in the presence of God through Jesus Christ, His Son.


May the season of Christmas remind us of God’s abiding presence. May the season of Easter remind us of the cost of that abiding presence and point us to a God who will, indeed, never leave us nor forsake us.