The Thick Darkness

Exodus 19:6-20; 20:18-21

^{Note: This sermon was transcribed from a version recorded and shared with Peace Community Church on the Third Sunday in Lent.}

Friends, this Lent we have been traveling together through the wilderness. We’ve been traveling with the Israelites through the desert on the journey from escaping enslavement to finding liberation and freedom. And in the meantime, we’ve been paying special attention to survival each step of the way. And survival in the meantime means caring along the way.

God cared for the Israelites by sending them manna, grain from heaven, and we are the manna for one another, checking in with and serving our neighbor, those whom we love. Jethro cared for Moses as his father-in-law, and Moses cared for the whole people by embracing vulnerability and asking for help. Caring along the way means allowing ourselves to be cared for and asking for help when we need it just as we help others when they are in need.

This week’s Torah lesson also demonstrates for us what it means to care for ourselves and one another on the way. It is in these two chapters that the book of Exodus reaches a sort of climax point. The whole congregation of Israelites finally reaches Mount Sinai, and Moses requests that they all keep a safe distance. They fast and they wash themselves and their garments repeatedly. The Israelites were following all the right CDC and WHO guidelines. They did this because Moses knew that God was about to appear on that mountain.

Moses knew that we have to get ready and pay attention to receive God’s presence, but even if I had gotten ready, I still wouldn’t be prepared for what happened on the top of that mountain. The crash of thunder and the flash of lightning. The thick dark cloud overtaking the area in a stormy blast. The people all around me shaking with fear. I imagine that the congregation of the Israelites was at the same time confused and amazed and terrified.

Does that sound familiar to you? A people scared and confused by something they weren’t quite prepared to experience? The pandemic of COVID-19 or the novel coronavirus certainly has me feeling scared sometimes. Not only am I scared of contracting this violent virus and suffering its flu-like symptoms, but I’m scared for our community. I’m scared that senior adults and immunocompromised people will become infected and die much too soon. I’m scared that the healthy practices of social distancing and self-quarantine will become unhealthy states of isolation and loneliness and fear.

At times I even find myself confused. What are the right steps to take in such a time as this? How can we reach out to our loved ones while staying safe and healthy? How do we, in the words of one author I read, come together while we stay apart?

I can tell you I certainly wasn’t ready for worship to go digital all of a sudden. I swear I must have played with video software after video software and cursed its name for hours after hours this weekend trying to get them to work properly. I’m wondering. I’m asking myself where is God in all of this? How are we supposed to be the body of Christ in a pandemic among so many threatened, vulnerable, suffering bodies in our midst?

Then the people stood at a distance. Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was but an image.

God dwells in the thickest darkness in those places where we can’t see anything and in those times when we can’t even hear our own voices over the howling of winds and the clashing of thunder, when we feel most scared and alone. God lives there.

At this time, some of us may be drawing near to that deep thick darkness and beholding the awesome and terrible, the fiery and stormy presence of the Lord God. Some of us may take refuge at a distance, keeping the mountain a holy place, relying on others at our sides, in front of us, and behind us for love and support. And most of us I imagine are doing a little bit of both.

The thick darkness of pandemic looms over us still, and we will be dealing with its effects for a while yet as we wander in this new wilderness and sit in this thick darkness, socially distant with raw hands smelling like alcohol and antibacterial soap after 20 seconds of scrubbing to the chorus of Jolene. I mean “The Doxology.”

God is still with us, holding us, supporting us, and protecting us. And God’s Spirit is calling to us in her shouts and whispers, inviting us to daring new forms of presence and relationship. In person visits may pause but conversations continue happening over the phone and over video calls. Socializing at restaurants and coffee shops and bars may not be happening as often but intimate walks with your beloved friends and family will go on. Physical presence may be interrupted for the temporary moments. But faith and love will remain, and the greatest of these is love.

Amen.

Erica Saunders

Peace Community Church, Oberlin, OH