From Dawning To Awning

From first stretching sky's canvas for humid humanity to walk with Him in the cool of the evening, to giving instructions for His tabernacle tent, God would camp out with us.

But whilst the initial fabric God fixed in the heavens was done in a day, what a bewildering list the tabernacle itinerary appears to be, pulled taut in its teachings over several trudging chapters of Exodus! It would appear we’d much to learn as to how man’s fall had complicated the communion God cares for.

But though a curtain hung in God’s dwelling, embroidery emblazoned with fiery seraphim swords, guarding any return to Eden, eventually all barriers were torn away in the tearing of Christ Jesus's flesh who hung on Calvary’s Cross. Being made sin for us He proved He'd not merely been clothed with humanity but had majestically taken our identity to God's very core in a furious furnace of love!

Ultimately, God would have us gaze upon one another with open face that we might be so utterly transformed from glory to glory unto His likeness to the point that as a bride and groom we might know as we are known in mutual love, but first the veil must be taken away.

Were we to canvas for opinion, God's courtship of Israel has got to be up there with the strangest of all romances, for the first leg of their wilderness trek to Sinai was certainly no honeymoon until they made their vows together in the initially shattered shards of the Mosaic Covenant.

God certainly seemed to be at pains to piece together a picture for their sakes and ours in mirroring the depravity of the broken human heart with trying circumstances to tenderly prove again and again how He’d so sweetly deliver us.

Exodus 15v22-27 is just one beautiful illustration but three days journey on from the triumphant singing that drowned all ears on the safer side of the Red Sea. Here they complain bitterly of a lack of water whereas once too deep a body of water had proved a great barrier to their faith. The place was called Marah after their bitterness but Moses cast a tree representative of the tree Christ would hang on into the bitter waters that reflected their states of hearts until the waters became sweet to taste. The cup Christ would beg His Father to take from Him truly became the sweetest of wine to us at Pentecost. Having calmed their complaints for basic needs, God went on in verse 26 to reveal Himself as the God Who’d identify with our disease and heal us. Straight after this episode they come to Elim with 12 wells of water and 70 palm trees, numerologically symbolic of God’s complete provision for us as well as a practical relief to them at the time.

However much God would bring us into wilderness situations, it is always ultimately for our flourishing, as Hosea 2v14-15 attests: “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, Will bring her into the wilderness, And speak comfort to her. I will give her her vineyards from there, And the Valley of trouble as a door of hope; She shall sing there, As in the days of her youth, As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.”

Too often our survivalist instincts are way off when camping out with God, for whilst He loves the brutal honesty of an imprecatory Psalm or a Jeremiah lament that He can work with when we’re not pretending to be religious, our murmuring is much more deadly than we think. Look in Numbers 21 when Israel became so numb to God’s love in allowing the venom of the father of lies to sink deep into their hearts. Here God shows them that far from being an idle complaint that doesn’t harm anyone besides our sorry selves, murmuring is like poisonous snakes from which the only cure is to look to Jesus on the Cross made sin for us. When we consider how our disgruntlement with God adds to the pain He endured for us then surely those who realise such great forgiveness shall love much once more too.

The signs God gave Moses in Exodus 4:6-7 are all the more impactful in this sense, in that the leprous hand healed in the bosom proves the far greater surgery of the Holy Spirit in seeking to take sin out of us than us out of Egypt.

Nature abhors a vacuum, but maybe that Sunday school kid was environmentally ahead of their time considering a marine littered with plastics when they affirmed, "the Spirit hoovered over the face of the waters?" Needless to say though, despite our darkening Creation with a litany of complaints, God would still break in to the slightest opening of any chink of repentance in our hearts to wash anew, sanctifying what He has redeemed.

Sometimes our journeys towards greater appreciation of where we fit in to God’s grand schemes can be trying, but it’s well to remember He loves us all the while.

Having complained a little, though hopefully not too bitterly, about the length of the tabernacle instructions, let me briefly lay before you the story of Bezalel and Aholiab before the dawning of yawning…

Basically, Bezalel is introduced to us in Exodus 35 with an illustrious CV: “See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. And I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to design artistic works, to work in gold, in silver, in bronze, in cutting jewels for setting, in carving wood, and to work in all manner of workmanship.” And the narrative carries on to use the singular ‘he’ in describing all Bezalel did.

Aholiab meanwhile is merely referred to as having been ‘appointed’ and it’s not until 3 chapters later after summing up that ‘Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, made all that the LORD had commanded Moses.’ that it finally goes on to say, oh, ‘And with him was Aholiab the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, an engraver and designer, a weaver of blue, purple, and scarlet thread, and of fine linen.’ From here on in the text refers to ‘they’ in describing how Aholiab collaborates with Bezalel and the others even in giving the finishing flourishes to that aforementioned curtain.

What can we learn from this peculiar mini-drama hidden within the instructions to erect God’s dwelling? We’re all called as sons of God before we’re called as co-workers. Take heart in your relationship with God to outwork the beauties thereof in His timing. And it’s all for His glory after all. We as living stones are to support one another, uplifting one another, and fitting in with grace.

‘In your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed. In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling.’ (Exodus 15:13)