Sermon Tone Analysis

The Christmas season is upon us.

We have already received our first Christmas card.

Perhaps you have too.

For many, this tradition of card exchange is a highlight of the season.

Letters and pictures pour in.

You catch up on the lives of people who live those lives far from us.

Going to the mailbox at this time of year can be a chore delivered from drudgery by a keen sense of expectation.

Who will we hear from today?

And when we fondly recognize a name in the return address corner we eagerly anticipate hearing their news.

Imagine receiving a card you did not want to open.

Perhaps you've held other envelopes whose contents you dreaded.

You hesitated.

You may have even handed the envelope to someone else.

Here, you open it.

Tell me what it says.

I just can't bear to read it for myself.

Deuteronomy anticipates just that kind of Christmas card.

Hopefully you'll understand what I mean as this message goes along.

But we cannot reach out to open the envelope labeled Deuteronomy without looking in the return address corner of the envelope and reading the name Moses.

Moses is the central human being in the book.

He is the human author as he is for the first four books of the OT.

But this book is more intensely personal.

The book begins and ends with Moses.

The book is a collection of four sermons he delivered to the entire nation of Israel as they prepared to enter the Promised Land.

Yet since he was not to go with them into the Promised Land, these sermons function as his collected farewell address to the nation.

He had led the people out of slavery; taken them to God's mountain where they entered into a holy covenant; guided them through the wilderness, and now brought them to the edge of the land that had been promised to this people for more than four hundred years.

When Moses delivered these sermons he was 120 years old-- still vigorous but not long for this world.

God has made it clear to him that he is going to die.

Deuteronomy ends with the death of Moses and the assumption of Joshua to the position of highest leadership in Israel.

In contrast, the message of Christmas is a birth announcemnent.

The focus is a baby in a manger not an old man on the mountain.

So it may seem odd to preach a Christmas or Advent message from Deuteronomy.

Where is Christmas in Deuteronomy.

The Magnificence of Moses

Moses is the connection.

Let me explain how by reviewing just how magnificent Moses was.

HIs words form the foundation for the rest of what God would reveal in his word.

No one else was like him.

Well, almost no one.

His leadership set the standard for all those who came after him.

Well almost all.

The postscript to the book, added after Moses' death, summarizes Moses' magnificence.

Deuteronomy 34:10-12 And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, 11none like him for all the signs and the wonders that the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, 12and for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.

Allow me to give you four words that connect the dots between Deuteronomy and Christmas.

1. Moses Reveals God

He functions as a Prophet.

He is really the first prophet.

Dueteronomy opens:

Deuteronomy 1:1-3 These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness ... Moses spoke to the people of Israel according to all that the Lord had given him in commandment to them,

In the Hebrew Bible the name for Deuteronomy is "These are the words."

The title of the book is not only the opening line but the very essence of the book.

Moses is revealing God's very words.

Even late in the book Moses reinforces his purpose:

Deuteronomy 29:1 These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant that he had made with them at Horeb.

Deuteronomy 31:1 So Moses continued to speak these words to all Israel.

God was not like any other being in the Universe.

People could not just look around at the creation and have a sufficient understanding of God.

It was necessary for Moses to reveal to the people what God was like.

Deuteronomy 4:35 To you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord is God; there is no other besides him.

Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

The people could not reflect back on what they had learned about deity from the Egyptians and know what their God was like.

They were not to try imagine what God was like.

God would and did reveal Himself to them.

We have the same need.

If we are to know God, He must make himself known.

Many in our world treat "God" as a symbol to which a human being can attach his or her own meaning.

"I think of God as being like . . .

" then each person gets to finish the sentence.

But Moses' magnificence reminds us that God is a real Person who alone can define Himself.

He is who He is and not what we invent Him to be.

This is why we need a prophet.

Someone must show us what God is like.

Moses reveals words from God, even God's laws, because each of these laws tells us something about what God is truly like.

Be careful when someone begins a sentence with the words, "I can't believe in a God who would . . .

."

That person has decided that they can define God instead of letting God reveal himself.

Moses' magnificence included the singular privilege to reveal God to people just like us who could not know Him any other way.

2.

He Represents the people before God

He functions as a priest.

He pleads for God for the forgiveness of his people.

Deuteronomy 9:24-26 You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.

25“So I lay prostrate before the Lord for these forty days and forty nights, because the Lord had said he would destroy you.

26 And I prayed to the Lord, ‘O Lord God, do not destroy your people and your heritage, whom you have redeemed through your greatness, whom you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

In Deuteronomy, Moses reminds the people how he stood between God and them, especially at Mt. Sinai also called Horeb:

Deuteronomy 5:4-5 The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, 5while I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord.

For you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up into the mountain.

Deuteronomy 5:22-31 “These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and he added no more.

And he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.

23And as soon as you heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you came near to me, all the heads of your tribes, and your elders.

24And you said, ‘Behold, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire.

This day we have seen God speak with man, and man still live.

25Now therefore why should we die?

For this great fire will consume us.

If we hear the voice of the Lord our God any more, we shall die.

[we don't want to open the envelope; we don't want this card; we don't want to hear from God] 26For who is there of all flesh, that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of fire as we have, and has still lived?

27Go near and hear all that the Lord our God will say and speak to us all that the Lord our God will speak to you, and we will hear and do it.’

28“And the Lord heard your words, when you spoke to me.

And the Lord said to me, ‘I have heard the words of this people, which they have spoken to you.

They are right in all that they have spoken.

29Oh that they had such a mind as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever!

30Go and say to them, “Return to your tents.”