In the Shadow of the Pyramids

A voice like thunder. A pillar of fire that reached the mountain. Smoke. Thick darkness.
No wonder the Israelites were petrified. It’s not every day you come face to face with the awesome might of the Creator of the Universe and live. They were scared out of their wits. Fear gripped them.
Not an earthly fear, like you may experience when face to face with a poisonous snake, a lion, or the thought of someone breaking into your house at night, but a deep, bone-trembling fear.
The fear you can only experience when you are confronted with something so wonderfully other-worldly that you sense your vulnerability as never before. You sense death like never before. A fear you can only experience when you’re face to face with a Being that can set fire to a whole mountain, and block out the sun.
In the middle of the desert.
A fear you can only experience when you’re face to face with a Being that can set fire to a whole mountain, and block out the sun, in the middle of the desert.
What kind of Being can do that?
When the Creator of the universe brings His full presence to the mountain you’re camping on, you run. And the Israelites did just that. They told Moses the fire would kill them all if it carried on. So Moses is told to go alone, to venture back into the furnace, in the hope he comes back alive.
And God agrees.
So Moses goes into the fire alone.
The Israelites return to their tents and Moses dictates the instructions for the new society that God is building through them. They listen, expectantly, ready to follow (we hope!). But before he continues, Moses makes an interesting remark – he tells the Israelites not to turn to the right or to the left, but to follow the path straight. Following the Commandments is the only path that leads to the destination God wants for them.
The Commandments are the way that leads humans out of the shadow of the pyramids of the hierarchical, productivity-driven, self-obsessed dictatorship of Pharaoh and into the sweet horizon of the community-centred, Agape-based, other-focused society of the Creator.
The Commandments are the track that leads the Israelites to become the great, planet-blessing nation that God promised they would be. The first few verses of chapter six remind the Israelites, in case they forgot, that the covenant God formed with Abraham was a two-way covenant.
To receive the promised inheritance God intended for them, active participation was required. To proactively follow the God that brought them out of the land of slavery and into the space where God’s Kingdom rules.
Out of the shadow of the pyramids
Perhaps this is the same straight and narrow path that Jesus refers to in Matthew 7:13–14 – the wide gate that leads to death versus the narrow gate that leads to life. The narrow path, the straight path, the way of the Commandments, the way of the God of emancipation.
The Commandments are the way that leads humans out of the shadow of the pyramids of the hierarchical, productivity-driven, self-obsessed dictatorship of Pharaoh and into the sweet horizon of the community-centred, Agape-based, other-focused society of the Creator. Jesus simply reiterates the same thing He said thousands of years earlier to their ancestors: His way leads to peace. To restoration. To redemption. The Garden of Eden all over again.
The Commandments are not to be missed or read over. They are central to the Bible and God’s plan for reclaiming the human heart and bringing a new way of life. A holy, set-apart, different way of life. A way of life that leads to Eden reborn in your heart now, and that continues into eternity.
The Commandments are a statement to Pharaoh and the other power-grabbing, people-using, material-loving gods around them.
The Commandments were Yahweh’s way of saying He was the One who had a plan for them. He was the One who would restore them from the effect of sin. He was the One who removed their identity as slaves of Pharaoh and granted them the identity of valued, equal, loved citizens of God’s Kingdom.
And they were supposed to live like it.
A different kind of nation
The ordinances, commands, and statutes of God are designed for a purpose. They are not there because God hates ‘fun’. They were instigated to set Israel aside as a different kind of nation.
A holy nation. A set-apart people.
They remind the Israelites that life is different under the reign of Yahweh. It’s not competition-focused but community-focused. But more than that, the Commandments are a statement to Pharaoh and the other power-grabbing, people-using, material-loving gods around them, to say:
WE DON’T LIVE LIKE THAT ANYMORE! We are free.
We are liberated.
We don’t live under your rule anymore. We are separate. Free to show the world what true humanity should look like. Liberated to show the world what the original plan for human beings was. Liberated to show what true dominion over the plants, seas, and animals looks like. Liberated to show the world that the Israelites-in-slavery story mirrors the humans-in-the-garden story and the humans-in-the-21st-century story. The storyline is the same.
The old way of life has gone, the new has come. Redemption and restoration have come to our house. We don’t need to use material things to create idols in our image, gods that bring death; we know the true Creator, the One who brings Life.
Life to the full.