I’m supposed to be preaching on the first commandment on Sunday [see www.burdekin.ucaweb.com.au for podcasts of my sermons]. It’s interesting having that text in your head as a cyclone approaches. In some ways I don’t have to preach – just point to the cyclone. What greater example of the awesomeness and awfulness of God do we need? This cyclone was not God, but as a part of God’s creation, it made us fall on our knees and hide in toilets. If a cyclone can do this – how much more should we understand the awesomeness of the statement; ‘I AM the Lord your God.’
If you read the lead up to the giving of the Ten Commandments the parallels in imagery is striking. A huge cloud mass had descended on the mountain. Thunder and lightning was growling all around. The mountain was cordoned off as dangerous. Do not get too close or you will die. The Israelites were filled with fear. ‘Don’t come too close’ said God. ‘No chance of that!’ said the Israelites.
As we read those words, ‘I am the Lord your God,’ are we filled with awe and wonder? Do we tremble in our boots? Or have we become too familiar with God.
Stop and consider with me the amazing parallel in imagery between a cyclone and meeting God.
When we know a cyclone is coming, and this is a modern blessing, we drop everything and start to prepare. Whatever was on our agenda is forgotten, the cyclone sets the agenda. We stock up on food, water, the very basics of survival. We find someplace that might survive the coming of the wind. Some of us even retreat, knowing that perhaps we can’t stand against such a force.
We go through our lives and clean out all the junk, toss away the stuff that doesn’t matter and only gets in the way.
Meeting God the Israelites did the same, but on a spiritual level. They let go of their own agenda’s and got onto Gods. They cleaned up their lives. They ceremonially washed their hands and hearts to be in the terrifying presence of the Lord. When the cyclone hits it knocks down anything that is not held down. It removes anything that is not strong. It removes the weak, broken and dead branches. Takes out the weak structures.
In scripture the presence of the Lord is compared to a refining fire. A purifying force that cleanses and removes all that is not dross and waste.
And this is what I find most startling of all. The strongest winds are right near the eye of the storm; the ones that do the most damage. But then, when you enter the eye it is complete calm; perfect stillness and peace. They say that in the eye birds start to sing. The sun can shine or the stars twinkle. Compared to the storm around it, it is surreal. It is not something that you would believe was possible, if it were not so.
A cyclone is not the presence of God – but is it something that points to a greater reality? A consuming presence that destroys all that is not strong and pure and holy in its path. But once you enter the very presence of God – it is perfect peace. A place of such calm and contrast that you cannot believe it exists. The birds sing, the sun shines, the stars twinkle. An impossible place.
In the film ‘Contact’ starring Jodie Foster, Jodie travels to just such a place. Her travels there are awe-full, terrifying, as she see galaxies, nebula, black-holes overshadow her. She wonders if she is going to survive as she is tosses around the infinite universe like a rag-doll in her puny, little man-made spaceship. This confident scientist is emptied, humbled, left in awe, only able to confess, ‘I had no idea. I had no idea.’ Isn’t this what a cyclone does? It puts us in our place. It reminds us of how puny, how powerless, how pointless our lives really are. All our bluster is blown away. We can only tremble and say, ‘I had no idea. I had no idea how powerful the world is. I had no idea how big the universe is. I had no idea how great is our God.’
If a cyclone can do that, how much more should the presence of our God humble us. ‘I had no idea. I had no idea.’ I am the Lord your God, who brought you through the winds of Yasi, out of the wilderness of complacency. You shall have no other God’s before me. All other God’s are a joke before the real one. How is it that we can have any other gods? Only when we forget the awesomeness of the one true God. How great is our God.
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