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Moving Tent
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"I saw the tent, which was over me one moment, leveled with the ground the next, and in a few minutes it was stored on the back of a pack-mule to be carried off. When it had been removed, no trace remained of its ever having been there." This was the experience of Cunningham Geikie when he traveled in Palestine 150 years ago, traveling in deserted country with his Arab guides as he studied the lands of the Bible. His experience could in some ways be paralleled in 2012, when ordinary holidaymakers compactly stow away their lightweight plastic tents, and drive off in their cars, leaving no sign of their overnight stay - unless it be a patch of dry ground, or, God forbid, litter. Tents are temporary dwellings, a picture perhaps of fleeting human life. Tents are what make possible the nomadic lifestyle. Jabal, son of Adah, grandson of Methuselah, was said to be "father of those who dwell in tents and have cattle" (Genesis 4.20). Tent dwelling persisted - Noah, even though a cultivator of the soil, lived in a tent (Genesis 9.21). Abraham as he migrated with his flocks from place to place had his tent by the oaks of Mamre when the Lord appeared to him (Genesis 18.1). Isaac in the Negeb welcomed Rebekah to the tent (24.67). Laban (31.33) searched Jacob's tents for stolen property. Later, when the Israelites were en route from Egypt to Canaan they necessarily lived in tents, which were presumably made of black goatskins draped over supports. (Paul, a thousand years on, would have understood the details of this - he was a tent-maker Acts 18.3.) The collection of manna in the wilderness was organised on the basis of tent occupancy, you had to collect an amount proportionate to the number of occupants of your tent (Exodus 16.16). The most important tent among them was one pitched by Moses, away from the camp. He called it the Tent of Meeting. Anyone who had to consult Yahweh would go out to the Tent of Meeting, outside the camp. Whenever Moses went out to the Tent, all the people would rise. Every man would stand at the door of his tent and watch Moses until he reached the Tent. The pillar of cloud would come down and station itself at the entrance to the Tent, and Yahweh would speak with Moses. When they saw the pillar of cloud stationed at the entrance to the Tent, all the people would rise and bow low, each at the door of his tent. Yahweh would speak with Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Then Moses would turn back to the camp, but the young man who was his servant, Joshua son of Nun, would not leave the Tent (Exodus 33.7‑11). This tent door meeting of God with Moses must have been like his experience when he was placed 'in the cleft of the rock' (Exodus 34.22‑3). Elijah, 300 years on, stood in the mouth of a cave for God to speak to him (1 Kings 19.9‑18). When the Tabernacle had been made, a greatly more elaborate tent of meeting, it was erected in the midst of their camp, and the cloud and glory rested inside it. But even the Tabernacle would be dismantled, and all the people would move on. And God's presence went with them. In the book of Job, when Eliphaz the Temanite is discoursing about how mankind die, he uses the metaphor of a tent collapsing. "If their tent cord is plucked up within them, do they not die?..." (Job 4.21). Paul in 2 Corinthians 5 uses the same comparison at greater length. He has been telling how his ministry as an apostle results in suffering, but that in Jesus there is new life and resurrection. "So do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day." The sufferings are slight, compared with the weight of glory in store. We must fix our eyes on the unseen things. "For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." It is a 'heavenly dwelling' which will clothe us when the 'tent' has been taken down. Peter had the same thought. He had been urging believers to live up to their calling, and was not ashamed to be reminding them. "I think it right, as long as I am in this tent, to arouse you by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my tent will be soon as our Lord Jesus Christ has showed me." He wanted to be sure that they remembered his teaching when he was gone (2 Peter 1). We should not of course think that a tent in scripture always means something temporary. Jesus in Luke 16 speaks of wealth being temporary, success being temporary, the power of money something that fails, but, he says, live in such a way among these transitory things that you get a welcome into the eternal tents. Tents can mean home. A tent can be the place to meet a victorious general. Jesus wants us to aim for a permanent home and a permanent welcome. The writer to the Hebrews does not seem to have a high opinion of the life of a tent-dwelling nomad. Part of Abraham's faith was to look beyond his life in tents: "He looked forward to the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Hebrews 11.10). Abraham lived as a stranger and as an exile, desiring a better, a heavenly country. God has prepared for all men of faith a city - "But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel" (Hebrews 12.22‑4). This city can be described as the place where God has his tent. The foretaste was when Christ came. "The Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us. And we saw his glory, glory as the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1.14). In John's vision of Revelation 7 there is a "huge crowd, too many to count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and the Lamb crying 'Victory to God and the Lamb'. They had come from the great trouble. Their clothes are washed clean with the Lamb's blood. The One sitting on the throne will pitch his tent with them. They shall not hunger and thirst any more; the sun shall not fall upon them, nor any burning heat, because the Lamb that is in the middle of the throne shall shepherd them, and shall guide them to streams of living waters, and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes." (Revelation 7.13‑17). This is God among his own special people. In Revelation 21 it goes further. The Holy City comes down out of heaven from God, dressed like a bride. "And I heard a mighty voice from the Throne saying, 'Look! God's tent is with human beings; and God will pitch his tent with them; and they shall be his peoples, and God himself will be with them as their God. And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. And Death shall be no more; and sadness, and crying, and pain shall be no more - for the former things have gone.' And the One sitting on the throne said, 'Look! I am making all things new.'" (Revelation 21.3‑5 King). So God's tent is pitched among mankind with permanent glorious consequences. At the present we are living our lives, poised between the temporary and the permanent. However settled life may be for us, we need to remember that 'all good things come to an end', and that as of now we do not possess a continuing city. From God's perspective we are like tent dwellers, who after a little stay upon earth must pack up and move on. He has of course prepared a permanent home for us. That home gains its essential character in that God pitches His tent there, dwells with us. But for now, as we journey we are in a world of temporary things, through which we need to travel in the right direction. As an old hymn puts it, For ever with the Lord! GC |
