A Tale of Two Mountains; Sinai vs. Zion

July 26

Read: Hebrews 12:12-29

A Tale of Two Mountains; Sinai vs. Zion

“Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.” (v.12,13)

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“Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” (v.28,29)

The Kingdom of God is unshakeable. It is not being broken apart or taken away… quite the opposite. We don’t always have eyes to see the ways that the Kingdom is advancing, but the scriptures clearly teach that what God is building will never pass away. (cf. Daniel 7:14) We are in this Kingdom… brought in by Christ. Called by the Father. Empowered by the Spirit. (cf. Acts 1:8) In the Kingdom of God, the Lord will strengthen his children… he will “lift our drooping hands and strengthen our weak knees.”

The trajectory of God’s work in us is one of “healing” and “making straight”… or fixing what is “crooked”. (v.13) Whatever is “lame” is not “put out of joint” but rather is “healed”. God WILL heal us whether in this lifetime or the next. God is indeed straightening our crooked selves. I know it is tempting to fixate on a specific or acute matter of “healing” when we approach this passage. (We can all identify a moment where an illness was not healed in this life or we are waiting for it to happen.) What is more important for this morning is to notice the overarching goal and demeanor of God towards his people. The bigger picture is clear. God’s goal for his people is not frustration or brokenness… it is encouragement, strengthening, and restoration. Through his indwelling presence and unfolding Kingdom, the Lord is conquering those things which war against him and his people. He is lifting up… not beating down. He is healing… not breaking or pushing further “out of joint”. This should serve as an encouragement.

The same is true regarding his Kingdom. We have not been called into a “shaky” Kingdom. But there is one more point to be made here: It is not just a matter of “shaky-ness”; God has not called us into a kingdom of trembling fear, rules, and destruction. It is quite the opposite:

“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” (v.22-24)

Do you see how the scriptures juxtapose Mt. Sinai with Mt. Zion? (re-read Heb. 12:18-24) Sinai represents the old covenant… the law… a place were the people are separated from God. It is filled with fear, trembling, death, fire, destruction and so forth. Mt. Zion is the mountain of Christ! It is a place of grace, forgiveness, life, restoration, celebration, faithfulness, perfection. This is the place where Jesus is the “mediator of a new covenant”. This is the unshakeable Kingdom of God that we have entered into.

In a day and age where it may seem as though things are getting a little “shaky”, we desperately need to be reminded of this truth. We are in need of our “lifting our drooping hands and strengthen our weak knees, and straight paths for our feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.” Nothing will shake the Kingdom of God. It is time to take our eyes off of Sinai and place them on Zion! Love you guys. - JDP