Hidden Behind The Veil

I'm inspired today to pull out the game of Outburst that we used to play fairly regularly before we started stockpiling all these boxes in our closet due to my husband's obsession with penchant for shiny new board games.

The concept of Outburst is simple: you're given a topic, then you "burst out" with everything about that topic you can think of. For example: if you're given the (subject-appropriate) topic of "Board Games," you might yell out: "Outburst! Monopoly! Sorry! Scattergories! Life!" The game comes with a bunch of topic cards that are scrawled all over with red squiggles so you can't see the print behind it... unless you put it in the card reader - a box with red transparent paper over it that neutralizes the red squiggles, and you can clearly read the print. Whoever names the most items that match the items printed behind the red squiggles on the topic card wins the round. 

The Lord led me to 2 Corinthians today. We actually had just a bit of a tussle about it. Because I'm a nerd who loves consistency and pattern, I really wanted to stay in Genesis 29, which is on the schedule, and I don't want to break the schedule. 

As per normal, when there's any difference of opinion between me and the Lord, He wins. It's just a thing. No debate. I don't know why I tried in the first place.

So here we are in 2 Corinthians 3 where Paul is writing about the glory of the New Covenant. Quick history reference: Back in Genesis, I've been digging deep into covenants. I've been reading about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and about how God made a covenant with them to make them into a nation and to give them the Promised Land. Then over in Exodus (I haven't gotten there yet), the Lord gave Moses another covenant. You might have heard of it: It's called the Ten Commandments. 

Here's your daily pun: Q: Who was the most wicked person of all time? A: Moses, because he broke all Ten Commandments at one time (not original with me, sorry; it's one I heard as a child. I have no idea to whom I should attribute the brilliance).

So anyway, Moses was so angry when he came down from receiving the Ten Commandments the first time and found the Israelites worshiping a golden calf, that he threw the stone tablets on the ground and smashed them to bits.

Punishment happened. It was ugly. There was death and a lot of it.

And then there came a Take 2. Moses went back up on the mountain with another set of stone tablets and God reiterated His commands and gave Moses a covenant between Himself and His people. It's this covenant that becomes known as the Law of Moses. This Law is used - hypocritically and exhaustively - by the Pharisees during Jesus' ministry to vilify anyone who walks more than a certain yardage on the Sabbath or who carries the wrong thing on the Sabbath or who rescues an ox who fell in a ditch on the Sabbath.

Jesus, of course, came to bring us the New Covenant, the one that is neither hypocritical nor exhaustive, and now, Paul is writing about that New Covenant. "Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone [the Ten Commandments given to Moses at Mt. Sinai], came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory [Moses had to wear a veil when he returned from receiving the stone tablets, because the glory of God reflected so brightly from him], fading though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?" (2 Corinthians 3:7-9).

The thing that really spoke to me today was this: the glory of God was so brilliant that Moses had to wear a veil because the reflection of God's glory was too much to handle, too dazzling for the eye to even look at.

Paul says: "And if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!"

A mistake that I've heard some people make: There seems to be a misconception that there's a dividing line between the Old and the New Covenants, that Moses's covenant ended, and that the new covenant that Jesus brought replaced it. I just wanted to point out that Moses's covenant with God, instead of ending, was rather transformed by the New Covenant which came about when Jesus took our sins on Himself. When Jesus - as the perfect, faultless sacrificial Lamb - shed His blood on the cross to cover over our sins, the once-and-for-all sacrifice, He fulfilled all the requirements of Moses's law, and made an eternal way to heaven.

How much greater the glory of that which lasts! The eternal Covenant!

There was a veil that hid the glory of God from the eyes of the Israelites so they could handle that reflective brilliance. But Jesus tore the veil of the temple in two through His death on the cross, and how our spiritual eyes are opened to be able to see and understand His glory, His great gift!

In 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, Paul says: "And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."

And here's where God surprised me this morning, and took me right back to Genesis 29 where I thought I'd be in the first place. It's the story of Jacob and his marriage(s, plural). He meets beautiful Shepherdess Rachel at the well and promptly falls in love with her. He works for her daddy for seven years in order to marry her, and in Genesis 29:20, it says: "[The years] seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her." At the end of seven years, he asks for "his wife."

Laban, Rachel's father, retains his shady integrity on a technicality. Jacob doesn't say: "Give me Rachel," Jacob says, "Give me my wife."

So Laban gives Jacob his wife... but it's Rachel's older sister Leah. There's a big wedding feast, and Jacob consummates the marriage. I've got to admit, the wording of the text made me laugh. In verse 25: "When morning came, there was Leah!"

Poor Leah. 

Okay, really, in the same situation, the shock might just have been the end of me. Why didn't Jacob recognize the bride he'd gotten to know over the course of seven years, and for whom he longed with all of his heart?

I'm gonna guess inebriation might have played a part. But even inebriated, Jacob should have paused if anyone besides his beloved Rachel were presented to him. I think the biggest factor was a veil - a covering that kept him from recognizing his true bride, the one for whom his soul longed.

Here's something in Jacob's continuing story: Jacob, the One Who Deceives (see my past blog posts on name meanings) strained all his resourceful energies to inheriting the blessing of the firstborn, overturning the law of primogeniture, and gaining all rights and privileges belonging to the oldest (what should have been Esau's). He gains his goals through deception.

In this chapter, the dog bites the hand that feeds it. The deception he has practiced turns around and stabs him, when, in the morning, "there was Leah!" Jacob storms off to Laban and demands an explanation. Laban responds in verse 26: "It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one."

Primogeniture with a twist. Leah, the firstborn, is forced to fulfill the requirements of the oldest, even when she is unwanted. And Jacob, the One Who Deceives, is himself deceived by the veil that Leah wears. Ah, the irony that just drips from this passage.

Jacob had his eyes fixed only on what he could see. He was looking at the red squiggles on the game card. He couldn't see behind the camouflage. He couldn't see the chameleon that blended into the room. He couldn't see behind the veil, and thus begins quite the chaotic story of division in his family.

Division in the church family is no laughing matter. It's what happens when we focus on the veil instead of what is behind it. 2 Corinthians 4:18 says: "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

Let us fix our eyes... not our failing, physical eyes, but rather the eyes of our hearts that Paul mentions in Ephesians 1:18... Let's fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. What is unseen is the spiritual realm that Paul describes powerfully in Ephesians 6:12. To see the spiritual realm, we need our spiritual eyes. In 2 Corinthians 10:4, Paul tells us how to deal with the strongholds we see in the spiritual realm. "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have the divine power to demolish strongholds."

Behind the veil, we can see the strongholds, but we can also see how much greater the glory of God is than the forces of the enemy. Lord, take away our physical eyes.

In our churches, Jesus, take away our physical eyes so we can see the divisions that are happening, and so we can demolish the spirit of disunity.

In the world, Lord, take away our physical eyes so we can see the spirit of unbelief that is spreading like a cancer.

In our nation, Lord, take away our physical eyes so we can see the harvest that is ripe for the reaping.

In our politics, Lord, take away our physical eyes so we can see the spiritual battles being waged over the course of this nation's leadership.

Jesus, "thank you" is never enough. "Thank you" is a token, a polite offering. Lord, hear the depths of unending gratitude that flows through me because You died in my place! You resurrected because You are God! You opened the gates of Heaven to unworthy me, because You love me that much! You ripped the veil in two, because no other sacrifice was worthy!

Jesus, I praise you! You are God, You are God, and there is none like You! Hallelujah!