Lectionary Text for March 3, 2014
Old Testament Lesson
Exodus 24:8-18
8 And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”
9 Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, 10 and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. 11 And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank.
12 The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.” 13 So Moses rose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God. 14 And he said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we return to you. And behold, Aaron and Hur are with you. Whoever has a dispute, let him go to them.”
15 Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. 16 The glory of the Lord dwelt on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. 17 Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. 18 Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights. [1]
For Transfiguration Sunday in Series A…the Lectionary is divided up into three years and each year has its own designated readings…we get three mountain top readings. The Old Testament lesson is the one printed above which recalls Moses on Mt. Sinai. The Epistle lesson is from 2 Peter 1 and recalls Peter’s eyewitness account of Jesus’ Transfiguration on the mountain. Finally, the Gospel Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration in Matthew 17.
In our study we are going to draw some parallels between the Old Testament text from Exodus and the Gospel text from Matthew.
The first thing we notice is verse 8 and Moses sprinkling blood on the people saying, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.” This odd act is one of pointing toward something. It would be wrong for us to read the Old Testament in light of ritualistic sacrifices of other cultures. In most other sacrificial cultures, a living thing is killed and its blood is offered up as something that pleases God. However, we know from Scripture that these things do not “please” God…
Isaiah 1:11
11 “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?
says the Lord;
I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams
and the fat of well-fed beasts;
I do not delight in the blood of bulls,
or of lambs, or of goats. {C}[2]
Rather, the blood points to the sacrifice of Christ, which again is not a ritualistic sacrifice of a life, but very real happening where God takes on the result of sin (death) unto himself for his creation. This is what Christ is heading for after the Transfiguration when he heads down the mountain.
Verse 12 deserves a brief focus simply because of its use of two words we often associate as being the same thing. 12 The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.” [3] Law and commandment are two different things. The law is the instruction which God give in order to be able to know how He has commanded the world to work. Christ then fulfills the Law perfectly, thus the revelation of his Glory on the mountain points back to verse 12.
Finally, as we head into 40 days of Lent, we are both reminded of the Temptation of Christ (the reading for next Sunday’s Gospel) and we are drawn to Moses’ 40 days on the mountain. Remembering that Jesus is with both Moses and Elijah (Law and the Prophets) on the mountain, it begs remembering that 1 Kings 19 records that Elijah was 40 days and nights to the mountain of God.
All of this is about fulfillment. God is in the world working to save the world from its sin (separation from God’s plan). He accomplishes this in Christ.
[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Ex 24:8–18.
[2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Is 1:11.
[3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Ex 24:12.