Preparation at Mount Sinai
God's presence with the people of Israel
God’s Promise to Israel
The people of Israel arrive at the foot of Mount Sinai after being brought out of Egypt just 3 months before. God tells Moses to recount this story to the people, of "how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself."1
In Exodus 19 God again promises that, "if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you will be my treasured people...you shall be for me a holy nation."
God’s Presence Descending
Then God gives them specific instructions for approaching the mountain where he is going to descend.2 The people are told to consecrate themselves for three days in preparation for God's arrival and they are told that they cannot approach or touch the mountain. The mountain is to be set apart as holy.3
The people follow these instructions and Moses goes into the presence of God, eventually returning with the Ten Commandments.
Approaching the holiness of God requires solemn consecration and so, just like the Israelites prepared for God’s arrival, we too can prepare our hearts in anticipation for Easter.
Preparing Our Hearts
We can ask that the Holy Spirit would help us prepare for his holy presence.
A note about today’s art:
Today's greenery is mistletoe. Commonly seen as a Christmas gimmick, mistletoe is actually a very interesting little plant. Mistletoe is a "parasitic plant" that binds itself to other trees and takes the nutrients from the parent plant.
Strange, but this can also be a beautiful symbol of our lives being connected to Jesus. We can think of ourselves as the mistletoe, binding ourself tightly to Jesus each day, drawing our nourishment from him.