The Unveiling: Recovering the Story of New Creation

“I will not go up in your midst, because you are a stiff-necked people, and I might destroy you on the way.”
– Exodus 33:3

“Due to Israel’s sin with the golden calf, the earlier promise of Gods presence to guide Israel on her way, once the very expression of his blessing, has now become the instrument of his judgment. But that God would consent to withdraw his presence is also an ironic expression of his long-suffering grace. Given the “stiff-necked” nature of the nation, Gods withdrawal of his presence from Israel’s midst is not only part of his judgment upon the people for their sin (32:34), but also a necessary act of divine mercy which makes it possible for Israel to continue on as a people.”
– Scott Hafemann

“From this point forward, Israel would only encounter God’s glory through a veil- whether that be the one covering Moses’ face, the one in the tabernacle, or (Paul argues by extension in 2 Cor 3:14-15) the “letter” or written “Moses”. The progression in 2 Cor 3 from Moses the lawgiver to “Moses” as a metonymy for the “letter” or written Torah allows Paul to focus his critique on the mediated nature of the “old covenant” (3:14) without criticizing the Torah itself.”
– Jason A. Staples (Paul and the Ressurection of Israel)

Let this poor heart be your mountain
be your mountain
the mountain where you dwell, O Lord
Yes, let this poor heart be your mountain
be your mountain
the mountain where you dwell, O Lord
and let this hunger become a pathway
become a pathway
that brings you here to me, O Lord
Yes, let this hunger become a pathway
become a pathway
that brings you here to me, O Lord

Fire, fall down
Thunder, surround
Glory, come down
Fire, fall down
Thunder, surround
Glory, come down

Let this longing become a love song
become a love song
that you teach my heart to sing, O Lord
Yes, let this longing become a love song
become a love song
that you teach my heart to sing, O Lord
Let this desire become a fire
become a fire
burning deep and bright in me, O Lord
Yes, let this desire become a fire
become a fire
burning deep and bright in me, O Lord
– Brother Isaiah (Holy Hunger)

Just as i came to read the above passages in Staples book, I found myself simultaneously asking God to teach me what it means to reconcile the veiling with the ensuing revelation of the unveiling of God in Jesus in the Judeo-Christian story, and this song by Brother Isaiah came on my spotify shuffle.

Let this poor heart
Let this longing
Let this desire

I wonder about the ways in which conservative Christians, driven to protect all of the things they see as necessary to claiming Gods presence in our lives and in this world, and progressive Christians, driven to do away with the many things they believe get in the way of seeing Gods presence in our lives and in this world, can equally find themselves standing apart from the story of Torah by way of making it either an enemy or an antiquated evil, a reflection of things that our conservative or progressive ideolgies have superseded in their grasp on the truth

I say this as someone who has stood in both of these polarized camps and operated in the same tendencies. I say this as someone who also found myself once intrinsically stuck without a real way to anchor Gods presence in my life and in this world. As someone for whom “the story” had ceased being told and could no longer be told because of the ways the new waged this necessary war against the old. I found myself unable to get back to Jesus, either through those conservative trenches or that progressive battlefield.

Some time ago I came to this realization through a time of crying out to god to “show” or unveil that seemingly absent glory once again- to be drawn back to (or simply to) the “story” of God is to be drawn into a story that speaks first and most completely to the whole of creation. Without this creation-new creation story there is no revelation or unveiling.

It is through this story that we arrive then at the story of Israel, the people through whom God would reveal this glory in its fullness. Thus, how we see the story of Israel becomes our lens for seeing the story of creation-new creation, and subsequently how we see ourselves in relationship to creation. What god does in the veiling becomes an equal judgment of the enslaving Powers of Sin and Death that reign over creation, and a divine mercy for this movement towards new creation, or what the scriptures call the story of salvation.

What do we find in this story when it is allowed it to speak?
– we find the freedom to see the imagery of the garden (dwelling with God) and the wilderness (gods removal of his presence) as both a judgment and a grace note, both of which find their resolution in the giving of the spirit to once again dwell in the whole of the creation
– we find the condemnation not of Gods good creation, or the other, but of the Powers of Sin and Death
– we find the freedom to see death and suffering as fundamentally opposed to life and transformation
– we find the freedom to lay claim to the fulfilled promise that God not only will make all things new through the establishing of his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, but has made all things new through the establishing of the kingdom in the here and now. As Staples puts it, “when Paul refers to the “curse of the Torah,” he is referring to death… the blessing, on the other hand, is equated with life… Unfortinately, modern readers frequently overlook that for Paul, like his Jewish predecessors and contemporaries, death is not solely an individual problem but a corporate one.”
– we find the freedom to locate evil as the antithesis of love, finding in the story of the veiling a fundamental problem of idolatry, not moral failings. If Gods life defining and life giving presence cannot coexist with Sin and Death, then the unveiling must come with the removal of these things, which is exactly what the ancients understood the blood (which was life not death, a grace gift not a necessary killing) to do- it has the power, in the face of that which opposes god (Death) to remove the pollution of Sin and Death from the creation space precisely because it is where life resides, a life that, through the ritual practice of gift giving sacrifice (of which death and killing do not belong) resides with god through the fire, or the burning.
– we find the freedom to hope and to wonder in a world still burdened under the reality of Sin and Death. In the story of Torah righteousness is not moral perfection but resurrection reality. It continually points to that which we can claim as truth in the unveiling (jesus and the spirit) even as we wait in anticipation for its completion- a transformed creation space.

Be a mountain
Be a love song
Become a fire

Because the unveiling of gods presence has happened for the sake of gods good creation.