Holy Nation: Holy God & His Holy Things
“And you shall make
response before the Lord your God, ‘A wandering Aramean was my father. And he
went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number, and there he became a
nation, great, mighty, and populous. And the Egyptians treated us harshly and humiliated
us and laid on us hard labor. Then we cried to the Lord, the God of our
fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our
oppression. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an
outstretched arm, with great deeds of terror, with signs and wonders. And He
brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and
honey. And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground, which You,
O Lord, have given me.’ And you shall set it down before the Lord your God and
worship before the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 26:5-10).
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ!
Tonight, we continue our series, “Holy, Holy,
Holy,” based upon our Old Testament readings during Lent. To be “holy” means to
be set apart for a unique purpose. The One who is Himself “holy, holy, holy” is
set apart from us as infinitely as heaven is above the earth. Yet, surprisingly
our holy God wishes to be with us, to be close to us, and to that end He has
set us apart as a people for Himself.
Moses gave instructions
to the Israelites for the day when they settled in the Promised Land. At a
place that the Lord would choose, the people were to bring the firstfruits of
the land and give it to the priests. Right up front, the Lord wanted His people
to give back to Him the first and best of what He’d given them, in anticipation
of further providence and blessing down the road. Although Moses described them
as “some of the firstfruits,” it was to be a widely distributed sample,
some of the firstfruits “of all that you produce”—not just of fruits and
vegetables, but also of sheep and cattle.
The Israelites will
not have acquired this land by accident, nor by their own genius or military
muscle. The covenant-Lord had spoken an oath to their fathers that He would
give them this land, and He would do what He promised. This new land was an
inheritance, something that belonged to them as His gift. It didn’t matter to
God that there were still many other nations living in the land who didn’t wish
to give it up. In the Lord’s eyes, and in the eyes of Moses, the land was
already Israel’s inheritance, they were His holy nation.
It may seem out of
place to have this reading during Lent. Lent is a time when we think of the
dangers and perils to which we are exposed on our journey to the
“promised land.” This text tells what the people of God are to do after they
are safely settled in the Promised Land. But it’s always good when you’re
on the journey to be reminded of the blessings ahead, what it will take to get
you there, and the appropriate response when you finally arrive there.
The brief recital of
Israelite history in verses 5 through 10 is similar to a creed or liturgy. As
the Israelites offer the firstfruits of the land, they are to remember their
ancestors, who had been landless and suffered countless hardships in Egypt
before the Lord finally delivered them.
The men and women
and children of each new generation could adopt these verses as their own
confession of faith. Even though they hadn’t yet been born when the Lord had
rescued His people from Egypt, they could identify with their fathers and
grandfathers who’d seen the Lord’s mighty miracles and received the gift of the
land.
God set had apart
Israel as a holy nation from the time of Abram. “From [that] one man, and him
as good as dead,” (Hebrews 11:12) God had built His people. They came from
humble beginnings among the nations. They were few in number, homeless, and
oppressed. It was only by God’s grace that they survived and became strong and
numerous.
“A wandering Aramean
was my father” refers to the patriarch Jacob who had lived for a while in the
region of Aram (or Syria). He left Canaan because he had to flee for his life
from his brother Esau (Genesis 27:41-45), lived in Aram until his uncle Laban came
after him (Genesis 31:17-30), and finally relocated to Egypt to escape the
famine (Genesis 46:1-7). Jacob’s extended family numbered only 70 sons and
grandsons when they left Canaan (Genesis 46:27), but the Lord multiplied them
into a people so large and powerful that the Egyptian pharaoh enslaved them
because he feared they might join Egypt’s enemies (Exodus 1:6-14).
The Egyptians mistreated them and made them
suffer with hard labor. It wasn’t only physical pain, but also humiliation that
made their lives miserable. In their suffering they cried out to the God of
their fathers.
When they cried to God for help, He brought them
out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, and
with miraculous signs and wonders. The miraculous signs and wonder included all
the plagues the Lord inflicted on Egypt. Throughout the plagues, He made a
distinction between His people and the Egyptians (Exodus 8:23), spearing the
Israelites from the plagues of flies (Exodus 8:22), death of livestock (Exodus
9:4), hail (Exodus 9:26), and darkness (Exodus 10:23).
In the tenth and final plague, the Lord dealt differently
with Israel in the most dramatic way. While He struck down all the firstborn in
Egypt, “from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of
the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock” (Exodus
12:29), the Lord rescued all firstborn of Israel through the blood of the
Passover lamb. “For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians,” Moses told
Israel’s elders, “and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two
doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to
enter your houses to strike you” (Exodus 12:23).
This last plague caused such a great terror
among the Egyptians that they “were urgent with the people to send them out of
the land in haste. For they said, ‘We shall all be dead’” (Exodus 12:33). The
Lord carried out these miraculous signs and wonders to bring judgment on all
the gods of Egypt (Exodus 12:12), so the Egyptians would know that He was the
Lord (Exodus 7:5), and so His name would be proclaimed in all the earth (Exodus
9:16).
The Lord would bring the people of Israel into
their own land flowing with milk and honey. He would make them into His holy
nation, not because of their merit or worthiness, but because of His mercy and
grace. As Moses explained earlier in Deuteronomy:
For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The
Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His treasured possession, out
of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you
were more in number than any other people that the Lord set His love on you and
chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord
loves you and is keeping the oath that He swore to your fathers, that the Lord
has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of
slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 7:6–8).
The Lord would bring His people out of the
misery and oppression of Egypt, through the wilderness, and into His Promised
Land, a land filled with good cities they did not build, a houses filled with things
they did not work for, cisterns they did not dig, vineyards they did not plant,
a land flowing with milk and honey. And the people are encouraged to believe
this, even as they wander in the wilderness. And they are cautioned, that when
they do receive all these things, not to forget this. In response to their deliverance,
they are to bow before the Lord and bring Him the firstfruits of the land.
Ultimately, the greatest gift the land will
provide is the Messiah. The prophets of the Lord are clear. The Messiah must be
born in the Promised Land. Thus, we see how important this small piece of
property becomes. Its true value is in the gift of Jesus, who will provide His
blood and very life to endow all people with forgiveness and everlasting life
for His children.
St. Peter reminds us that, like Israel, God has
set apart us Christians as a holy nation as well: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for
His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called
you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).
Like the Israelites, we are also of
unremarkable origin among the nations of the world. Paul tells the Corinthians:
“Not
many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful,
not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is weak in the world to shame
the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that
are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might
boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:26-29).
This has been true throughout history. There is
nothing special in us that caught God’s eye or earned His favor. He saved us
solely out of His goodness and mercy without any merit worthiness on our part.
He called us to be His people, His holy nation. He did it all! The Lord’s
outstretched arm, signs, and wonders set us apart from the sinful world as
holy.
We are set apart as holy by the forgiveness
Jesus earned when He literally stretched out His arms on the cross to save us. In
His resurrection, Christ gives us the greatest of His miraculous signs, proof
that He is the Son of God, that His Word is true, that the Father has accepted
His sacrifice for our sins, and that we, too, shall rise.
God’s mighty acts continue through His
ministers and means of grace: The Gospel proclaimed and carried out is powerful
beyond any earthly might. In Holy Baptism, God gives us His Holy Spirit, He
delivers us from the bondage of sin, promises us an inheritance in God’s
heavenly land, and declares us saints even now. The Lord sustains us in
holiness as He gives us His very body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins
and the strengthening of our faith.
As the people of God, we do not live with amnesia
about the past. The remembrance of God’s saving acts gives us our identity.
Because this identity is a gift, we live lives of gratitude expressed in acts
of worship and obedience. Our thankful recollections for God’s saving acts
compel us to bring gifts to Him. These gifts will also be of benefit to the
Church and to the needy.
In response to God’s deliverance, we bring Him
gifts and worship Him. Truth be told, we give Him what was always His in the
first place. We are simply stewards of His creation and gifts. The worship we
bring is simply receiving His Word and speaking it back to Him. The good works
that we do for our neighbors were prepared by Him beforehand.
Go in the peace of the Lord and serve your
neighbor with joy. You are forgiven for all your sins.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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