God in the Caravan

God in the Caravan--January 3, 2019

"And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth." [John 1:14]

God knows what it is to live tenuously in a tent city.

God knows what it is to dwell among people unsure of whether there will be a home for them waiting in the new land in front of them, and afraid of the terror they have left behind. 

God knows the life of the caravan; God has been there.

That is exactly what John is saying here in the opening chapter of the gospel we call by his name: that the living God has pitched the divine tent with us, with humanity, in the life of Jesus, much like God had done dwelling with the freed Hebrew slaves living in tent cities in the wilderness between the hoped-for Promised Land and the dangers of Egypt where Pharaoh made them fear for their lives.

When John says, famously that "the Word became flesh and lived among us," the word he uses that gets translated "lived" is really more literally "pitched a tent" or "camped out" or "tabernacled" with us, like the old tent of meeting where God and the people met while they wandered through the wilderness in the Exodus journey.  Quite literally, John says that in Christ's coming in the embodied flesh of Jesus, God was "camped out" with us, with all of humankind.

But to be clear here, the scene isn't like a fun weekend camping trip, or like that time when you were eight and set up your tent in the back yard on a summer evening.  This is long-haul living in a tent-city, not a fun day or two in the woods before you return to the creature comforts of running water and electricity in your house.  Most of us--at least among you who are reading this and me as I write--most of us haven't spent long, extended time living in a tent, I'll bet.

You might well love camping. You might well go hiking all over creation.  You might have been spending time in a tent from your toddler years all the way up through taking your kids and grandkids camping.  But for us, most of the time, it is a temporary arrangement.  It's a bit of fun precisely because it's a temporary escape, and we know full well that whenever we feel like it, we can take the tent down, pack up our belongings, and go back to a safe and comfortable home.  That's not the picture that John has in mind.  

No, John is picturing the decades-long wandering in the wilderness by the people of Israel, living in mobile tents as they wound their way through the deserted spaces between Egypt behind and Canaan before them.  And all throughout that journey, God symbolically dwelt with the people, right in their midst, throwing in all of God's chips, so to speak, on making the journey with them.  Now, everybody knew back in those wilderness days that God didn't really just live "inside" the tent, but it was meant to be an image, an illustration, a visible and tangible symbol of God's willingness to cast the divine lot with these people against all odds.  That journey wasn't a weekend at the local state park, or a night in the back yard with fireflies; it was an uncertain and open-ended trek which became a way of life. The wilderness wanderings were a time in Israel's history when they were forced to leave their old home (where they had lived in Egypt for centuries, as the Scriptures tell it) only on the hope that they would be able to make new homes in a new land, simply on the promise they had handed down from one generation to the next.  And all along the way, while fleeing from the government of their old country and waiting at last to arrive in their new land, the people lived in temporary camps of tent cities, moving in a caravan from Egypt to the Promised Land.  So, as the Scriptures tell it, God set up a tent there with them, too, for the whole journey. As long as it would take.

And that scene--of God coming "down" to live in a tent along with the Israelites--is what John has in mind when he says that in Christ, God "camped out" or "set up a tent" to live among us.  God's coming to be with humanity in Jesus is the ultimate expression of the same solidarity God had shown by living in the tent city of the wandering Hebrews.  It is a sign of God going "all in" to be with us, on the "side" of all humanity, enduring the dangers of the wilderness with us, as one of us, for as long as it takes.

So my mental picture is going to have to change here. Instead of picturing the coming of Christ like God taking a fun holiday or making a weekend camping trip to visit humanity, the image John has in mind is of God setting up a tent in the midst of our wandering caravan, living with us on the journey of life.  And John says that is what the Christian faith is all about: a God who, in Christ, chooses to throw all of his chips in with humanity by setting up a tent in our camp, just as God had done by joining the caravan of migrant Israelites leaving Egypt for Canaan generations before Jesus.  

If we are going to understand what it means to see Christ here, in our humanity, in a manger, and in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, then we are going to need to get our scene straight: God doesn't just "drop in" to visit humanity on a whim for fun, but chooses to dwell among us on the long caravan we call life.  If you ask John, there is no other God besides the One who camped out in the caravan of migrant Israelites fleeing Pharaoh, the same God who in Jesus set up a tent in our refugee camp to "dwell" with us on the journey we are all making called life.  Any deity who cannot stomach life in a tent city is a fraud.  

This, friends, is the Lord of the universe.  This is the One about whom we sing, "Oh come, let us adore him"--the God who "camped out" with us permanently in Christ, who has been dwelling in tent cities and caravans with fearful refugees since the days of Moses.  This is the One on whom we call today.

Lord God, give us the eyes to recognize you dwelling among us, and to hear with fresh urgency the stories of your camping out with your people as they fled Pharaoh and sought refuge in the land of your promise.  Teach us to recognize your presence there, and here among all who seek refuge today, too.