“There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but be in accord. Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern.” – A.J. Heschel, The Sabbath

On the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation (Gen 2:1-3).

Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work. It is a Sabbath to the LORD in all your dwelling places (Lev 23:3).

I want you to notice in Leviticus 23 how the Sabbath connects God’s people with the Creation account and serves as the introduction to the great pilgrim feast cycle. Sabbath, ultimately, is my subject in this study Learning to Delight in God.

But first, Spring is approaching and it is a very auspicious season of the year, biblically. The first of the two great festivals is Passover, connected by seven weeks with the second, Pentecost. It was in these two historical events, out of Egypt and to Mt. Sinai, that God showed himself as Redeemer and Revealer.

Apart from God’s self-disclosure, we can only speculate about his identity.

For the world to know its Maker requires self-disclosure. The Holy One must unveil himself for us to perceive him. Otherwise, he is too high and utterly inscrutable. We can only speculate.

Taken together, these two feasts tell us much about his identity, his character, and his conduct. They also tell us much about humankind—our purpose and our privileges.

The brilliant astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who, with a colleague, proposed a whole new unified field theory of the cosmos, acknowledged that he finally came to believe in a God. His view is that it all began from something not larger than a small pea, and then in a big bang, began exploding, and it continues exploding even now. Yet when asked questions about God he could, of course, not answer. He could only speculate, as the philosophers of old have done.

Why? Because no matter how great our knowledge of the work of his hands, he is Holy—Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh. He is radically, totally, other than anything conceivable. Everything that exists is because he causes it to exist. Therefore to know him requires that he reveals himself to us.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist or astrophysicist to believe in a designer. The universe witnesses the handiwork of design. To believe it all happened by chance is about as likely as believing that if an infinite number of rednecks fired an infinite number of shotguns at an infinite number of stop signs, they would eventually compose the works of Shakespeare in Braille.

[laughter]

Well, I’ve just given you more proof that you can take the Okie out of Oklahoma but not the Oklahoman.

[laughter]

At the Exodus, our Holy Creator revealed his Name.

Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:13-14)

The divine name, revealed to Moses at the bush on fire yet not consumed features three forms of the verb to be. The Holy One says, in effect, “I am the One who was, the One who is, and the One who will be. I am.” It is a combination of four-breath consonants in Hebrew: Y-H-W-H, Yahweh.

We know his name because he revealed it: God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The LORD [YHWH], the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you'” (Exodus 3:15)

And we know that he speaks: And God said […]. As he did, he expelled breath, and the universe was created. Chaos was converted to order by his word. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God (Heb 11:3). When he brings his people to himself at the mountain, again, he speaks, and out of moral chaos—out of paganism—he creates morality and order.

It is his word that literally holds everything together. What makes the cosmos cohere? That is what the physicists are looking for and the most brilliant minds cannot explain. What is the invisible force that holds everything together? It is the sustaining utterance of YHWH.

He still speaks. Do you hear him? Should he cease to speak, we should cease to be. For in him, in his very breath, his Spirit, we have our existence, we have life. Apart from him, we would not be.

That is why it is so important we hear the word of the LORD. Hear, O Israel: The LORD is God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

We must hear.

It is, therefore, not surprising that he transforms us through Jesus, his Incarnate Word: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

The very word that had the creative energy to form or frame the universe is the very word that can transform you in the renewing of your mind. That’s why we lay hold of the Word. That’s why we listen and obey Jesus. Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. (Matt 7:24).

We need to understand the mindset of the earliest followers of Jesus.

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power (Heb 1:1-3).

Whether you know it or not, you are sustained by the Word of God. Hallelujah!

That is why we pursue him. That is why we diligently study like this, the things that are important to him. We want to lay hold of him for he is life! It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life (John 6:63).

As we lay hold of his word, his word lays hold of us.

In light of this important discussion, the big question I want to wrestle with is this. Why did God redeem Israel? Why the salvation at Passover? Why the revelation at Pentecost? The answer has profound implications for us who follow Jesus in the new covenant and for our view of his mission on earth today.

Why?

The only possible explanation of what would compel the Holy One to leave his high, exalted, unreachable place and draw near to a people who were the least of all nations is revealed in one word:

Ahava, in the Hebrew tongue of Jesus.

Love, in ours.

His Holy Love.