Pitching Our Unique Tents

[HKHaugan]

I don’t know how many of you have ever been camping in your travel but the experience is quite different from our everyday sleeping and eating in an already established house.  Some of our friends say their idea of camping is a Holiday Inn.  In other words there is a tremendous contrast between our age and the biblical age when traveling involved camping for anyone and everyone, without exception.  It was a major undertaking requiring exacting preparations.  The tent was the critical piece of equipment on a journey anywhere.  Therefore we need to set the stage to look at the context in which the tent played a central part.

 

Travels, journeys and trips all had a purpose.  They were not jaunts to a protected or designed campground for relaxation, fishing, leisurely hiking, scenery appreciation or ‘doing nothing.’  Their immediate goal was daily survival until they reached their final long-term goal---their destination. Also getting there was not done over interstate highways. Weather, marauding bandits, hostile tribes, sickness, impatience, rebellion, emotional distress, childbirth, family and interfamily conflicts, food needs, animal care, terrain, unexpected events, sound trusted leadership, sturdy quality equipment and length of journeys; all required detailed assessment and accountability. 

 

Even into the early 20th century travel was approached with applied thought and serious planning.  In fact the word ‘travel’ gets its use in old English from the earlier word ‘travail’ which meant it was difficult and may involve pain along the way (In old French it implied torture). In old English is the biblical quote, “Come unto me all ye that travail and are heavy laden and I will refresh you (Mt.11:28 Wycliffe Bible---1385AD--- Alle ye that traueilen, and ben chargid, come to me, and Y schal fulfille you.).”

 

All equipment had to be adequate and able to withstand extreme conditions for a long period of time.  Now think specifically of the Hebrews. They are God’s special people.  They have been told to take a journey to a special land, the Promised Land.  It would involve travail through a wilderness of deserts, valleys and mountains.  The wilderness is the context for their travel and their journey.  Even a ‘day trip’ was well planned. 

 

Three things were essential,---trust in God, planning and equipment. 

 

First, trusting God daily was totally different from the culture of the world around them.  They found themselves in the daily need to be dependent on God for every next moment because every next moment brought unique challenges that only God could lead them through.  Trust was not only personal, it was interpersonal thus relational beginning with God and then applied to one another.

 

Second, the Lord God had a unique plan.  It was daily focusing on Him as they went along.  Moses’ task as God’s appointed leader was to constantly make the people aware of God’s presence and instructions. This would take a daily patient awareness of self and group discipline. God’s plan for them was personal and interpersonal growth through reliance on Him.  Therefore without the conscious awareness of the Lord God to be their daily guide, disobedient unplanned, unprepared, hasty decisions, whether made by individuals, groups or leaders, invited the takeover by wild beasts.

 

Third, without adequate equipment they were vulnerable to the elements, the enemies they would encounter and the temptations fear would introduce.  The details involved in the construction of the Tent of Meeting, the worship center, were exacting and set the standard for all their equipment.  Obviously the tent had to be made of the best material, its seams sewn with precision, its maintenance frequently attended to and its setting up and taking down a careful procedure.  This was especially true of the Tent of Meeting, the worship tent.  The journey to the Promised Land would be arduous, lengthy and contentious.  All the tents would be their homes for their long journey which to them was probably an unknown time and distance, which we know now was forty years and several hundred miles.  The Lord God was always setting the bar high in every area of their lives.  Unlike the low standards of surrounding cultures, God was lifting them into His perfection. 

 

But there was one more step in God’s plan.  He promised His security with a condition. “I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run. ²⁸ I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way. ²⁹ But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. ³⁰ Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land (Ex.23:27-30 NIV).”  Then again in Deuteronomy He cautions the Hebrews, “The LORD your God will drive out those nations before you, little by little. You will not be allowed to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals will multiply around you (Deut.7:22 NIV, underlining for emphasis).”  Note the patience required.  You grow into and in the journey, while you are on the way, day by day, moment by moment, event by event, person by person and encounter by encounter.

 

OK, so what does all this mean for us now in the 21^st century? While all of the above essentials, trust in God, planning and equipment, were foundational for their journey, it is the spiritual context that dictates how we view them in our journey, our spiritual journey.  Given personal trust in Jesus and His daily plan of reliance on Him, it is the spiritual equipment we’ve been given that needs to be developed.  That is our tents, meaning our bodies, our congregations and the universal Body of Christ.  We will look at the tent in the next segment.