And Built His Tent Among Us

"Exodus 33:7-11

Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting… …When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the LORD would speak with Moses… …Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.

Heaven, paradise, Eden, it is not so much a place, a geographical location. It is a condition, a state of being, a relationship. In the simplest and truest terms theologians have called heaven “friendship with God”. The loss of Eden then was not the loss of real estate, it was the loss of a friendship. And so, the rest of the biblical story is the story of God and humanity becoming friends again. It is the story of our way back to the garden, back to Eden, back to where God and man meet as friends.

The Tabernacle, also known as The Tent of Meeting, was meant to be a step toward the restoration of this friendship. It was designed to be the garden grown back, paradise regained, friendship restored. In the Tent of Meeting the Torah says that “the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” And so in the Old Testament and for Judaism today, the tabernacle turned temple was the sign and symbol of Israel’s friendship with God. But it was and remains for them only a place, a location; it’s real estate.

That real estate, the Temple, a brick and mortar tent of meeting, was destroyed nearly two thousand years ago by the Romans. Naturally, for the Jews this felt like a second expulsion from Eden, the friendship lost again, the place of meeting destroyed. And so nearly two thousand years later we still find them weeping at the last vestige of the Tent of Meeting, aptly named “The Wailing Wall.”

But God is not in any particular location. There is nowhere geographically that we need to go to meet God, to speak to him or hear him speak to us. Because the Apostle John tells us that “The Word became flesh and built his tent amongst us.” (John 1:14) The Apostle tells us in no uncertain terms that the Tent of Meeting is a man, a man named Jesus.

Now, the centurion was right to say to Jesus, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof.” That’s his way of saying, ‘I am not a man like Moses, that we should inhabit the same home and speak face to face as friends.’ But God comes under our roof nevertheless. Becoming flesh God builds his tent, his tabernacle, amongst us. He moves into the neighborhood, so to speak. He grows the garden anew. And his name is Jesus, Immanuel, God with us. And he comes to meet you and me saying as he said to Moses, “I have called you friend.” (John 15:15)

So visit the wailing wall but do not weep. Pray for the conflict in Israel-Palestine but do not think that peace will be found in real estate gained or lost. Because paradise is not geographical. Eden is not a garden. And, heaven is not a place. No, it is a single person, Jesus, true God and true man where God and man meet and peace is found. He is the tent of meeting where you can go to talk to God as to a friend.