The Book of Exodus began in the mud beside a great, enslaving river on the plains; it is ending today at the foot of a mountain on the far side of the wilderness. 

And when we compare the Book of Exodus to the Book of Genesis, we see that Exodus is the literary mirror image of Genesis, because Genesis begins on a mountain and ends in the mud beside a great, enslaving river on the plains. 

This is the story of Genesis: 

In the beginning there was a mountain in the east. The top of that mountain reached to the heavens, into the land of Eden, the land of Delight; the foot of that mountain was rooted in the low-lying wilderness that was the earth. And high on that mountain overlooking the plains there was a garden, separated from the wilderness below by protective valley walls. 

And as Genesis describes that garden to us we see that it was oriented toward the rising sun. All kinds of vegetation grew out of the ground there — seed-bearing plants and trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. All kinds of animals had also been formed out of the ground there: birds for the sky, fish for the waters, domesticated livestock and wild animals and all the crawling things that love to burrow in the earth. In the middle of the garden there were two trees: the Tree of Wisdom that was the Tree of the Word of God, and beside it the Tree of Life, whose leaves were made for eternal food and for healing. 

There was also a river flowing down through the middle of the garden, down from its source at the top of the mountain, in the land of Eden. After flowing through the garden, from there it was separated into four headwaters, four rivers — one river for each of the four cardinal points of the compass: north, south, east, west. Those four rivers then plunged down out of the mountains and spread out in every direction to meander across the plains of the earth. And wherever those waters flowed wealth and beauty sprang from the soil: precious stones, gold, aromatic spices — and so even from the very earliest pages of scripture we see that the Mountain of the Lord was bringing life to the wilderness. 

And of course that garden was the cradle of mankind. We were there — you and I — in the bodies of our ancestors, Adam and Eve. And because we were there in the body of our first father, by the trespass of that one man death came to us all. Because of Adam’s sin, we lost our home in the garden. We were driven out of the mountains, down, into the wilderness plains where the four rivers flowed, to survive the best we could by the sweat of our brow. 

And the Book of Genesis, as it continues the story of our ancestors, returns again and again to a tension that exists within the human heart. We all carry this ancestral memory of the Mountain with us, the richness of the river and the trees — we remember it, and we long for it. At the same time, by the common grace of God, the low-lying plains are also rich with gold and precious stones and aromatic spices — and we long for these things also. We are torn between the high country and the low country, between the heights of the Mountain of the Lord, and the well-watered plains of the earth. And we forget so easily that the earth is well-watered because of the Mountain of the Lord. 

And so, throughout the Book of Genesis we see the nations of mankind divided by these competing desires. 

For instance: Cain, the first murderer, flees eastward from the presence of the Lord into the Land of Nod, into the Land of Wandering, the vast wilderness plains east of Eden. But even there he remembers the mountain he has lost. So he build a city, an artificial, man-made mountain centered around the worship of himself. His civilization expands to fill the earth with violence, in the end seducing or enslaving even those few sons of God who had refused to worship at Cain’s false mountain. 

So God struck Cain’s civilization and destroyed it. But even as his judgement fell, he chose one man named Noah to lead a remnant of mankind back to a new creation — a new creation that began, once again, on a mountain: the mountains of Ararat. 

But again, Genesis tells us, as people moved eastward they found a plain and settled there. And what did they do on that plain, between the great Tigris and Euphrates rivers? Just like Cain, they built an artificial mountain, a tower that reaches to the heavens, a city centered around the worship of themselves. And they seduced or enslaved the nations of the earth to this great building project: they formed the first empire. 

So, once again, the Lord struck that empire and freed the nations from that centralising tyranny. But even as his judgement fell, God again chose one man named Abraham, drew him up out of the ruins and established his family upon a high mountain in the west: a mountain called Hebron. And God promised Abraham that his descendants would inherit that mountain country forever. 

But despite that promise, God’s chosen family found itself divided between their desires for the high country and the low. Abraham had a nephew named Lot, an adopted son, who felt like God’s mountain country was too small for his ambitions. So when he was given a choice, Genesis tells us that Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain at the foot of the mountain country was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. And forgetting that the plains were well-watered because of the mountains, Lot left the source of those waters; he left the true garden of the Lord on Mount Hebron, he chose for himself the whole plain and set out toward the east, just like Cain had, just like the people who built the ill-fated tower. And once there, Lot took up residence in the great cities of the plain, cities centered around the worship of mankind. 

Now, Lot did receive the promise of redemption, in the end. But barely; and only after he was driven by God’s judgement back up into the mountains. 

And Genesis goes on to tell us that Abraham himself was torn between the purity of life on the mountain and the wealth of life on the plains. Several times his faith in God failed, and he abandoned the Lord’s mountain country for the land of rivers…only to repent and be brought back each time. 

And Abraham’s descendants also wrestled with the same temptation. Abraham’s grandson Jacob, when he got into trouble, fled eastward from God’s mountain, and he ended up living amid the ruins of the empire on the same plains his grandfather had been redeemed from two generations earlier. And God had to rescue Jacob also, driving him back up out of those ruins and re-establishing his family upon a high mountain in the west: a mountain that Jacob named Bethel, the House of God. 

And even Jacob’s descendants were torn. When a famine swept the earth, including their mountain country, they relocated to a plain that was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt — a plain that was the land of Egypt. 

And that is the end of the story of Genesis. 

So Genesis began on a mountain of healing trees and a life-giving stream; it ends in the mud beside a great, enslaving river on the plains. 

But the Book of Exodus, as we have already noticed, is the Book of Genesis told in reverse: it begins in the mud of the plains; it ends at the foot of a great mountain in the east. 

And if you have been worshiping with us over the last 15 months, then you already know the story of Exodus: 

How God chose one man named Moses to lead his people up out of the ruins of the Egyptian empire into the wilderness; how God met his people there and introduced himself, saying, “I am the Lord who heals you”; and how he began healing his people by testing them with thirst and hunger and thirst again. They were tested with war and with reconciliation, and with the challenges of organization and administration. 

Through all these tests God was showing his people that, even though they had been physically freed from slavery in Egypt, they were still enslaved mentally, emotionally, spiritually — they were still divided within themselves between a longing for the high mountain-country of God and the wealth of the plains. They needed to be healed from the inside-out! And this kind of profound healing would require a profound kind of relationship with God: a covenantal marriage relationship. 

And so we have seen how, after God’s people had matured from infancy into adolescence, God led them at last to the foot of Mount Sinai in the east, on the far side of the wilderness, a mountain already flowing with a new river of life. We have seen how God signed a marriage contract with his people; how he gave them the Ten Commandments and the Book of the Covenant, and how he called Moses and the 70 elders of Israel up, onto the mountain, to actually eat with God. 

And that moment, halfway through Exodus, was the pinnacle of the book. We realized that Mount Sinai had become the new Mountain of the Lord, the new garden of Eden. There the ancient tension was resolved: there, on the mountain, in the shadow of the trees, beside the newly flowing river, the children of God ate and drank and knew that they had come home. 

But even then, as we celebrated that moment with God’s people, we realized that this could only be a taste of home. Because Mount Sinai is not Israel’s final destination. God did not promise Abraham the mountain country of Arabia, he promised him the mountain country of Canaan. 

This created a new tension. In order to inherit Abraham’s mountain country, the people are going to have to leave God behind on Mount Sinai. But what kind of long-distance marriage relationship is that going to be? 

That is when God called Moses back up to the top of Mount Sinai and gave him some very detailed blueprints for a very special structure: a tent called a tabernacle. 

And as the Lord described the tabernacle to Moses, we saw that it was oriented toward the rising sun; that it contained bread made from seed-bearing plants, wine made from fruit, and all kinds of animals; that in the middle of the tent there was a lampstand shaped like the tree of life, and a golden ark filled with the Word of God. There was also a basin of water for washing, and high walls to protect the tabernacle from the wilderness outside. We saw that it was trimmed in gold — the precious heavenly metal — all around the top where the tent reached up to heaven, trimmed in silver halfway down, and trimmed in bronze — the common earthly metal — all around the bottom where the tabernacle touched the ground…

In short, we came to realize that the tabernacle was actually a recreation of the original garden of Eden on the Mountain of the Lord, the home where God lived with his first children. 

But this was a mobile home. A portable garden, a mountain that can be carried so that God can journey with his people across the wilderness to the mountain country of their inheritance. 

And last week we saw how the Israelites gathered the raw materials and shaped each part of the tabernacle just as the Lord commanded; how Moses inspected their work and blessed them; and then how Moses anointed the tabernacle, piece by piece, and assembled it for the very first time over the course of a seven day ritual of atonement. 

And the last words we read last week, after Moses did everything just as the Lord commanded him, were these: “And so Moses finished the work.” Which finally confirmed for us the underlying new creation symbolism of the whole project: 

In the original creation at the very beginning of Genesis, God worked for six days naming and anointing and assembling the elements of the earth that was to be his temple. And then — on the morning of the seventh day — when God had finished the work he had been doing, he rested. In other words: he moved into his new temple. He sat down on his throne. He took up residence and gathered his children in to enjoy him forever. 

Well, in the same way here, at the very end of Exodus, Moses has worked for six days naming and anointing and assembling the elements of the tabernacle. On the evening of the sixth day, having finished the work, Moses stopped. And he has been waiting for the dawn of the seventh day, when the Lord will come to take up residence in his new temple. 

But the Book of Leviticus, which comes after Exodus — where Moses wrote down a more detailed record of these rituals and these days — the Book of Leviticus indicates that Moses actually waited all the way through the seventh day until after the dawn of the eighth day. 

[34] Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. [35] Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 

And this is the end of the story of Exodus. 

So the Book of Genesis began with creation, and ended in misery; the Book of Exodus began in misery, but it ends here with a new creation. 

But the end of the Book of Exodus is obviously not the end of the story of God and his people — it’s just the beginning. We know this because — as we already noticed — Mount Sinai is not the final Mountain of the Lord. Even this brand new tabernacle here is not the final Mountain of the Lord: it is only a temporary, portable mountain, an ark designed to carry God’s people safely home to the eternal Mountain of the Lord. 

And all that is made clear by this closing footnote to the book: [36] In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; [37] but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out—until the day it lifted. [38] So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the Israelites during all their travels. 

… 

That was good news for the ancient people of Israel. 

But now we have this question that we like to ask every week, in one form or another: how is this good news for us? 

Well…this is good news for us. But it took a long time for it to become good news for us. 

This is the first half of that story, this is the story of the Old Testament: 

After many false starts and failures, the people of Israel finally managed to follow the pillar of cloud and fire through the wilderness, back across the Jordan River of Life, and up into the mountain country of Abraham, where they discovered that it really was like the garden of the Lord. 

But just as God had revealed to them in the wilderness, they still needed to be healed of their longing for the wealth of the plains. So the Lord continued to test them, to heal them; they continued to fail, and repent, and fail again, and repent again. 

And after Israel had matured from adolescence into young adulthood — about 500 years after their deliverance from Egypt — God led his people to one particular mountain in the land and revealed that he was ready to shift houses again: out of the portable mountain that was the tabernacle and onto the more permanent mountain that was Mount Zion, beside the city of Jerusalem. So the people built a stone temple there on Mount Zion according to the same pattern as the tabernacle, just two times larger, and with the garden themes etched ten times more vividly into the structure: 

That temple was also oriented toward the rising sun, covered with gold and silver on the inside, bronze on the outside. And every wall, every piece of furniture, every stand, every tool was carved to look like trees and vines and fruits and flowers and seed-bearing plants and living creatures: lions and bulls and cherubim. In the middle of the temple there were two towering bronze pillars made to look like trees draped with vines and fruits and flowers. And, of course, there was a basin of water for washing — but this time the basin was the size of a swimming pool, and they called it the Sea. 

And again, scripture says, when all the work for the temple of the Lord was finished, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord. And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled his temple. 

In other words: God moved into his new temple. He sat down on his throne. He took up residence and gathered his children in to enjoy him forever. 

But even that was not the end of the story of God and his people. Because Israel still had not been thoroughly healed from the inside-out. They had come home to a physical mountain; but spiritually they had not yet arrived. Spiritually they were still divided. They still found themselves longing for the wealth and power of the plains: for the empire of Egypt in the south, the empire of Assyria in the north, Babylonia in the east. 

So the Lord continued to test them, to heal them. And the people continued to fail, and repent, and fail…until they gradually repented less and less. 

So God finally gave them what they wanted: he destroyed his temple and his city, he drove his children out of his garden, down from his mountain, eastward into the Land of Nod, into the land of wandering, to live once again in the mud beside a great enslaving river on the plains of Babylon — right back to the same ruined plain their ancestor Abraham had been redeemed from more than 15 centuries earlier. 

But even there the Lord did not abandon his people. He gave them a prophet named Ezekiel. And Ezekiel says that, fourteen years after the destruction of Jerusalem, “in visions of God he took me to the land of Israel and set me on a very high mountain, on whose south side were some buildings that looked like a city.” 

Ezekiel assumed that those buildings were the ruins of Jerusalem — but when he got closer he realized that this was not a city in ruins, this was city that had been rebuilt. Except that is was a city so large that really it was the size of a whole country. And overlooking this city was a new garden-temple so large that it was really the size of a city. And while Ezekiel was standing in the eastern gateway of that temple, looking toward the sunrise, he says, “I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east. His voice was like the roar of rushing waters, and the land was radiant with his glory. The glory of the Lord entered the temple through the gate facing east.” And Ezekiel heard a voice saying, “Son of man, this is the place of my throne. This is where I will live among the Israelites forever. But first,” the voice says, “for seven days you are to provide a blood sacrifice daily for a sin offering. For seven days you are to make atonement for the temple and cleanse it; thus you will dedicate it. At the end of these days, from the eighth day on…then I will accept you, declares the Sovereign Lord.” 

And as the vision continues, Ezekiel looked and saw that this temple also had water for washing. But not in a little bronze hand basin; not in a great “Sea” the size of a swimming pool. No: just as in the original garden of Eden, this was a river. It begins as just a trickle from the top of the mountain, from under the eastern threshold of the temple. But as it flows eastward down the mountain it grows deeper and wider until it is a river that cannot be crossed. And just like the rivers that first flowed from Eden, wherever this river flows across the plains of the earth, everything lives. There are swarms of living creatures and large numbers of fish, and fruit trees of all kinds that grow on both banks of the river. And Ezekiel is told that “their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.” 

And this promise of a river was really remarkable. Because — here’s the thing: there is no river flowing from the top of Mount Zion. When the people built the temple there, and extended the city of Jerusalem around it, they had to dig a pipeline to bring water in from somewhere else. 

But the people believed God’s promise. So God chose yet another man named Zerubabbel to lead his people back up to Mount Zion in Jerusalem. They rebuilt the city and the temple, as best they could: the city was not the size of a country; the temple was not the size of a city. But still, the people finished the work. They dedicated the temple with hundreds of sacrifices. They celebrated the first Passover after their return, and then for seven days they celebrated with joy the Festival of Unleavened bread. They rested, and celebrated, and the sun rose on the seventh day, and the people waited for the Lord to take up residence once again in their midst — 

And they waited. 

And they waited. 

But no glory came to fill the temple. No river began to flow from Mount Zion. All the people received was this quiet promise from the prophet Haggai: “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth. I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill my house with glory.’” And at the same time, from the prophet Zechariah, they also received this promise: “In those days, many peoples and powerful nations will come to Jerusalem to seek the Lord Almighty. In those days ten people from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew and say, ‘Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.’” 

And that is the end of the story of the Old Testament. 

So the Old Testament, like the Book of Genesis, begins on a mountain, and ends in misery. But obviously the end of the Old Testament is not the end of the story of God and his people; we know this because of those unfulfilled promises. 

And so this is why, like the Book of Exodus, the New Testament begins in misery and finally ends on a mountain. 

This is the rest of the story, this is the story of the New Testament: 

Just as God provided one messiah, Moses, to lead his people up to the Mountain of the Lord in Arabia, so also God provided one final Messiah, Jesus, who led his disciples up to the Mountain of the Lord in Jerusalem. Just as Moses was betrayed by his own people while he was on that mountain, Jesus was betrayed. And just like Moses, who went up to the Lord to see if he might win atonement for his people, Jesus also agreed to go up. 

So the sun set on the fifth day of that fateful Passover week, and Jesus was arrested under cover of darkness. The sun rose on the sixth day, and Jesus’ disciples waited for him to break forth in glory against all his enemies. 

Instead, they saw him crucified on that sixth morning, the morning of the Passover, his blood shed to make atonement for the temple and cleanse it. And when, like Moses, Jesus had finished the work, his disciples saw him die. 

So the sun set on the sixth day, and Jesus was buried. The sun rose on the seventh day, and still Jesus’ disciples waited. But no glory filled God’s empty temple. No river began to flow from Mount Zion. And so the sun set on the seventh day. 

Then the sun rose on the eighth day. And the glory of the God of Israel came up from the east and took up residence once again in the body of Jesus, and he became a living being, the firstborn of a new creation. 

And so, just as Moses returned from the mountain, transformed by glory, with the written proof of the renewed covenant in his hands, Jesus also returned, resurrected in glory, with the proof of the new covenant written on his hands. And just as Moses took days and weeks to teach his people how to assemble the tabernacle, Jesus also took days and weeks to teach his disciples how to assemble the Church. And when he had finished that work, he was taken up to his rest at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. 

And the disciples waited. 

And waited. 

They had been anointed by the blood of Christ and assembled. Like the tabernacle after Moses finished his work, they had been given form…but they were still empty. 

And then the sun rose on the seventh eighth day after the day of Jesus’ atoning sacrifice. Seven weeks and one day after the fateful temple-cleansing Passover, while the disciples were all together in one place, suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. 

In other words: the glory of the God of Israel came and filled his temple. He moved in. He sat down on his throne. He took up residence within the Church of Jesus Christ and he began at once to gather his children in to enjoy him forever. His voice was like the roar of rushing waters, like a new song sung by a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language. 

And when the crowds in Jerusalem heard the disciples declaring the wonders of God in their own languages, and when they asked, “What does this mean?” then Peter — a leader among the disciples — stood up and said, “Don’t you understand? This is the fulfillment of all the ancient prophecies! This is the shaking of the heavens and the earth! This is the shaking of the nations! This is the filling of God’s house with glory! — and from this eighth day onward everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved!” 

On that seventh eighth day — on that 50^th day after the Passover sacrifice, on that Day of Pentecost — Jesus’ people were healed from the inside-out. 

And that day marked the beginning of the healing of all the nations. Because that is the day the river prophecied by Ezekiel began to flow from the top of the Mountain of God in Jerusalem, from under the threshold of Jesus’ Church. It was just a trickle at first. But as it flowed down through Judea, down through Samaria, and then out across the plains in every direction — north, south, east, west — to the ends of the earth, wherever that river has flowed it has brought life and healing to the nations. 

And that river is, of course, the Holy Spirit of God, embodied within the Church that is the people of God gathered in from every nation — everyone who has called upon the name of the Lord Jesus for salvation. 

So, brothers and sisters: we were asking how this ancient Book of Exodus is good news for us. Now that all the stories have been told, here is the end of the matter: have we been counted among those who have called upon the name of the Lord? 

If our answer is yes, then here is our good news: “Behold!” Jesus says, “surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” The glory of the God of Israel has descended and has taken up residence here, among us. Here, in the shadow of the Cross, beside the Spirit’s river, we eat and drink and know that we have come home. 

But we also know that this is only a foretaste of home. Because we know that this is not our final destination. Our Father has not promised us this little shoplot at KL Trillion on Jalan Tun Razak, he has promised that we will inherit the earth. 

The Day of Pentecost was not the end of the story of Jesus and his Church — it was just the beginning. The ancient people of Israel spent 40 years — 500 years, really — following the cloud and the glory across the wilderness to the Mountain of the Lord in Jerusalem. They lived as foreigners and strangers on this earth, because they were looking for a country of their own. In the same way, for the last 2000 years, the Church of Jesus has been crossing and re-crossing and filling the wilderness of the world. We also live as foreigners and strangers here, divided in our desires, because we are longing for a better country — a heavenly one. 

So what is to be our application of the Book of Exodus to our lives today? 

We find our application here in this last footnote, in these last verses of the book. This is how it reads, for us: in all the travels of the Christians, whenever the cloud lifted from above the Church, they would set out; but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out—until the day it lifted. And so, for the last 2000 years, the cloud of the Lord has been over his Church by day, and fire in the cloud by night, in the sight of all God’s children during all their travels. 

This is our application: wherever the Spirit of God leads, we go. Where he settles, we remain—until the day he lifts us up again. 

Fifteen years ago, the glory of the Lord settled my family here, in Kuala Lumpur — literally: the City of the Muddy Rivers. We came to serve the Church in Malaysia; but really, I have to testify that you have served us much more in return. The cloud of the Lord has been over us through all the long days, his fire in the cloud through all the dark nights, and I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that you have been the cloud and the fire for my family. You have been the tree and the river of life. We were wandering across the plains of the east, and you gave us a home. We were hungry and you fed us. We were thirsty and you gave us something to drink. Through the Church of Jesus Christ in Malaysia the Lord who has promised to heal us all has healed my family in ways we did not even know we needed when we arrived. We owe you all a debt we can never repay. 

But now, for us, the cloud is lifting, and so we must set out; while for you the cloud is not lifting, so you must not set out. So once again we find ourselves divided in our longings: we want to remain here with you, and you with us, but we also want to be obedient to the glory that is leading us apart. So how shall we end our time here together, today? In just a few minutes I will read our Father’s closing benediction, and when I leave this pulpit I will cease to be your pastor, I will be just your brother again, just another member of this family. So what final word from our Lord shall I speak to you now as your temporary shepherd? 

Well, a while ago we were all goofing around on our church whatsapp — like we do — and some of you were teasing me about something — like you do — and my wife said, “You know, Ian, these people really love you. They really love us.” 

And I said, “Yes, that is true.” 

And then she asked this question: “Why?” 

And I have thought about how to answer that question many times over the months. Because I know that, really, we are not good enough to be loved by you. And, really, you are not good enough to love us. So how ah? 

This is the only possible answer: we love because he first loved us. We have all been baptized into Christ in the cloud. We all eat the same spiritual food and drink the same spiritual drink; for we drink from the spiritual mountain that accompanies us, and that mountain is Christ. The Holy Spirit that lives in you has loved the Holy Spirit who lives in us, and the Holy Spirit who lives in us has loved the Holy Spirit who lives in you. 

So I want to close here with the words of the apostle John, the Elder to the Church. He says, “Dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another.” 

Brothers and sisters, as you have loved us, continue to love one another. 2000 years ago the Lord Almighty took up residence in the temple of his people, and began to gather his children in to himself from all nations. He shook the heavens and the earth, and from that day onward many peoples and powerful nations began to go up to Jesus’ Church to seek the Lord Almighty. 

Brothers and sisters, the earth is still shaking. The Lord Almighty is still sifting the nations. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. And look: we all know that in this city right now there are many more than just ten people from all languages and nations, waiting to take firm hold of just one Christian and say, “Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you!” 

So, brother and sisters, continue to be the shadow of the Cloud during the heat of the day. Be the glory of the Fire in the darkness of the night. Be the voice that is like the roar of rushing waters, the voice of the great multitude that no one can count, from every nation tribe, people and language. Be the healing leaves of the Tree, and the life-giving waters of the River, as you have been for us. And all those nations will come to drink from the Well, as my family has. 

Brothers and sisters, this is not the end of our story, this is just the beginning. The bible is a book that begins on one mountain, passes through the valley of the shadow of death, and ends on the greatest Mountain of all. We are not there yet. The story of the New Testament is still ongoing. So let’s eat and drink together now. Let us be strengthened for the roads ahead. 

And who knows? It may be that the next time we eat and drink together like this will be on the true and final Mountain, at dawn on the last eighth day of the old creation, the first day of the new.