You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them., because they could not bear what was commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned.” The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, “I am trembling with fear.” But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from Him Who warns us from heaven? At that time His voice shook the earth, but now He has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken – that is, created things – so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a Kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:18-29)

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It was a dark and stormy night! How's that for a creative and original opening! But it's true. It was June 23 - my fourth night in Chicago, and after class I had gone to dinner with two classmates. (And, yes, Lynn knows that I was out to dinner with two women that night!) We were eating some wonderful Thai food when the skies over Hyde Park suddenly opened, and down came the most torrential sheets of rain I have ever seen. We finished dinner, and the torrent was continuing. We stood in the entrance of the restaurant where we hoped to wait out the storm because we had a few blocks to walk and we were joined by a couple of locals. As we all chatted, suddenly sirens began to sound. My group was startled but the locals seemed oblivious to the sound. One of us finally asked about the sirens. “Oh, don't worry,” came the response. “That's just a tornado warning.” Just a tornado warning. We looked. The locals continued to be calm and apparently oblivious. Outside, folks were walking, cheerfully being soaked by the torrents of rain and paying no attention to the sirens. Finally we asked the locals “well, what do we do when the tornado sirens are going off.” They looked at us as if we were from another planet (we were actually from Ontario, Maine and New Hampshire.) Finally one said “nothing really. You'll know if one's actually coming.” Well, you know, “when in Chicago ...” After a little while we stepped out into the torrents and walked the three or four blocks to the residence, being soaked and listening to the blare of the tornado sirens. When I got into my room and dried off, I turned on my laptop and went on the internet. I discovered that earlier in the day Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto had been shaken by a moderate 5.0 earthquake. All I could think of at that moment was that between torrential downpours, tornado warnings and earthquakes, Jesus must surely be coming!

Well, the rain was heavy that night, but I've seen heavy rain before; tornado warnings are not unknown in Niagara region (although not common enough for us to have warning sirens installed) and I've lived through minor earthquakes before – one in Toronto when I was a teenager and one a few years ago when I was in Sundridge. A few years ago I actually read that the entire part of North America that includes such major cities as Toronto, New York City, Detroit and Montreal sits on a small fault line (which is why minor earthquakes aren't uncommon in the region) and that geologists estimate that there's a significant chance of a major earthquake striking somewhere in that area in the next hundred and fifty years. Usually, when we think of earthquakes striking somewhere in North America, we would think of the west coast: California especially, but they certainly aren't unknown all the way up through British Columbia and Alaska. In fact, earthquakes are so common in California that insurance companies there do a booming business selling earthquake insurance. If your home or business gets destroyed in an earthquake, the insurance company will pay for you to rebuild. They don't sell it anywhere else that I've been able to find, even though earthquakes can happen anywhere. It's actually believed that one of the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history occurred in 1811 in the area of what is now St. Louis, Missouri - it's estimated that by today's standards it could have measured 8.1 or higher on the Richter Scale. Yes – the wonders (and the horrors) of nature! “Acts of God” the insurance companies call them.

So ingrained in our minds is the phrase “act of God” when talking about natural disasters, that we still make the connection between God and natural disasters. Most recently, I suppose, was Pat Robertson's suggestion that the earthquake in Haiti in January was God's punishment for a supposed deal with Satan that Haitians made 200 years ago. Setting that nonsense aside – and nonsense is what it was – such things do raise questions and even fears in the minds of people about God. Long ago, we're told that God spoke to the Hebrew people from Mt. Sinai and in God's own voice came what we call “The Ten Commandments.” Yes, you may set Cecille B. DeMille's portrayal aside. Moses did not go up the mountain to get those ten commandments. They were spoken in God's own voice to all the people. Moses went up the mountain later to get the law in its entirety, because the people didn't want to hear God's voice anymore. Why not? Because God's voice was accompanied by dramatic signs of God's power. According to Exodus 20: “When the people saw the lightning and the thunder and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance … while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.” We may no longer believe that God is the cause of lightning, thunder and smoke (or torrential rain, tornadoes and earthquakes) but it's interesting that God still often gets the blame for such things when they happen.

The author of the Book of Hebrews in the New Testament understood such things. He understood that – fair or not – God was going to carry the bag, so to speak, when such frightening things happened, and so his goal was to provide a sense of assurance to the people about the nature of the God Who had called them to this new faith. Looking back to the experience on Mt. Sinai, he wrote that “you” (by which he means those who trust in Christ) “have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them ...” Instead, he tells them that they “have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven.” The people, the author is saying, no longer have reason to fear God, because God has come to them not in power but in the humility of human form in Jesus as one of them, to share their lives and even their weaknesses. There is no fear of God in this new understanding of God; in this new way of understanding that God has so graciously revealed through Jesus. There is now only assurance, and while at one time God's voice may well have shaken the earth, “the words 'once more' indicate the removing of what can be shaken … so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a Kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe ...”

There's instability all around us. It isn't just that the ground shakes now and then. Society changes at a sometimes dizzying pace as old traditions are challenged and new ways of doing things become more common. Corruption eats away at our trust in the system. In some parts of the world wars and revolutions are an everyday fact of life. Unemployment continues. Social programs and health care seem less and less able to cope with the demand. Families break up. Young people move away. All these things are happening around us. There's not much left that we can depend upon without question, and we respond in various ways.

Some people withdraw. They decide that they aren't capable of coping with all the changes around them and so they choose not to be active participants in society. Some people become angry. They lash out at “them” - at all those people who might have a different way of doing things, at all those people who promote change, maybe at all those people who look or sound or act a bit different. Some people become defensive. They decide that in such a world they have to be concerned only with themselves. Every man (or woman) for himself they would say. Charity begins at home. Look out for number one. People reject God. After all, God must be to blame. In such a world faith seems at best a naïve luxury; at worst – sheer nonsense. But there are some who realize that whatever might happen in this world, they don't have to fall into that cycle of fear and defensiveness and selfishness and withdrawal. There are some who put their trust in God. There are some who realize that Jesus came to encourage us to remember that this world is not a world to be feared (and neither is God a God to be feared) because, as the author of Hebrews 12:28 tells us, “we are receiving a Kingdom that cannot be shaken.” This “Kingdom that cannot be shaken” is, of course, God's Kingdom, but it's our Kingdom as well, and we're receiving it because we're not just people created by God - we are, as Paul says in Romans 8:17 “heirs of God and co-heirs of Christ.” What belongs to God and what belongs to Christ is ultimately going to belong to us as well. That's the assurance we're given by God; that's the insurance we receive against the upheavals that we constantly see in the world around us. In response to that assurance and to that insurance, “let us” – in the words of the author of Hebrews - “be thankful … and worship God acceptably with reverence and awe ...”