Lets talk about perspective.
The Oxford dictionary defines perspective as a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view.
So, this morning as I stepped outside to smoke a cigarette and drink my coffee, I knew that it was 28 degrees outside because I'd caught word on the radio that a hard freeze was coming. But, when I first stepped outside it didn't feel that cold. It felt like it was maybe in the upper 30's. After three minutes, it got a little colder.
And after five minutes, a little bit colder.
And after eight minutes, a little bit colder.
And after ten minutes, it was time to go in. For one, my cigarette was out. Secondly, by body was starting to tell me that it's core temperature was going down, which led to my hands getting this numb feeling and my nose running. As my body temperature changed, my perspective changed as well.
While I was out there, I looked through the trees and saw three lights slowly floating across the sky. There was also one blinking red light. All the lights were moving at the same speed, and they were equal distance from each other. They looked like they were just beyond the trees towering above me. The lights appeared to be moving 20 miles per hour, if that.
The reason I know what these three lights and one blinking red light moving beyond the trees are is that my language has a word for this - airplane. So, in this case, language changed my perspective from seeing an unfamiliar set of lights traveling across the blackness to the very familiar reality of an airplane.
And then there's this: He (God) did not take away the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people.
We've all heard the story of God leading the Israelites through the wilderness, right? God was in the pillar of fire and pillar of cloud, and the Israelites followed it. End of story.
Well, that's not the end of the story, because for the writer of this story, there was very rich meaning in the words used in this passage.
First of all, a thought on pillar.
The hebrew word for pillar is ammud (am-mood), which comes from the root word amad (aw-mad).
Everybody say it with me. Am-mood and aw-mad. Good job.
There is something very significant about this root word. There was a reason the author would have used this word, because he or she wanted to get a point across about the peculiarities of these crazy nomads who were crossing the desert, looking as if they were signing their own death warrants.
Amad is a verb meaning to stand, take one's stand, be in a standing attitude, stand forth, take a stand, present oneself, attend upon, or, my favorite, be or become servant of.
As a reader in 2014, it's easy to forget that we have this thing called perspective working on our senses at all times, including when we read the bible. From our perspective, it's easy to read about the pillars of smoke and fire without even questioning what it really means.
So, what were the Israelites doing with pillars of fire and smoke?
They were having the first church service in history!
And what did this first church service look like?
It looked like taking a stand with clouds during the day and fire at night.
Huh?
Let me explain.
Where else in the scriptures have we heard of fire and smoke? It saturates the Torah.
What were fire and smoke a result of? You got it, offerings!
So, what were the Israelites up to in this story? They were taking a stand through offering something to this God.
So, what was so special about this? Everything.
It was very common back then to offer something to the gods. And so, all around your house if you had wealth and could afford it, you'd have tangible representations of different gods. You'd have one shrine that represented the rain god, another that represented the sun, another that represented fertility, another that represented the lottery (just kidding), and so on. And, depending on what season of life you were in, you would have a pre-scripted offering you'd give to whatever god you needed help from. The offerings included incense, grains, and even animals (if you really needed a god to act quickly). On any given day, if you were walking through an ancient city, you would see columns of smoke rising into the heavens to greet the gods. That was the belief of the day.
Another thought of the day was, the desert was a cursed piece of land. Civilizations had to build around water, because water is the most fundamental building block. It's where stuff happens.
So, to write a story about a group of nomads traveling through the desert is to make a statement, or take a stand, about something that would have been thought of as crazy to any average city-dwellers at that time.
Why?
Because the author was trying to tell the audience that not only was there a god in the desert, but this god would connect with you in the desert, and this god would provide what normally four or five gods combined would hopefully provide.
These people were telling the world, "We're following one God, and this God provides everything we need, even in the desert!"
And another point.
We like to think of the desert travels of the Israelites as this non-stop, always on the move, journey for 40 years. Yet, have you ever tried to light a candle on the move? Much less, have you ever tried to light a thousand candles on the move?
These people weren't just moving, but they were constantly sending fire and smoke up to this god. These people wanted to take a stand for who and what they believed in, and the author wanted to get this point across to the readers.
So, what does this mean for us?
The author is trying to tell us that the Israelites were unified in taking a stand for something, and the action of taking that stand was the driving force behind their journey and their worship.
When we take a stand for something (notice the word for and not against) as a tribe of people, there's power that comes out of it. When we take a stand as a community for the things we believe this God is for, like liberating the oppressed, feeding the hungry, and giving water to the thirsty, we find power there.
When we take a stand for the things we believe our God represents,
we're led by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
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