God Makes The First Move (Leviticus 1)
God Makes the First Move
Leviticus 1:1 — the verse that answers the Bible's greatest cliffhanger.
God Makes the First Move
Leviticus 1:1 — the verse that answers the Bible's greatest cliffhanger.
We named our boat the Blarney Stone.
Junior year physics. Our teacher had us build boats out of paper, glue, and paint — they had to float a real adult across the school pool. Melanie's group built a canoe that looked like REI had dropped it off that morning. My buddies and I picked our water polo coach, and because he was Irish, we thought Blarney Stone would be hilarious. It was — right up until launch day, when our coach took one step into the boat and we watched weeks of cutting and gluing sink to the bottom of the pool.
I think about that boat every time I read the end of Exodus.
Because Exodus ends on one of the great cliffhangers in the Bible. God has rescued these slaves out of Egypt by sheer grace — the kind of rescue where He keeps reminding them they did absolutely nothing to earn it. Then chapter after chapter of building instructions: the tabernacle, the curtains, the exact color of the dye, even the specific perfume God hand-picked for the air.
This tabernacle has two names in Hebrew. The first is the dwelling place — where God's presence comes to rest. The second is the meeting tent — where people come to meet with God. So the question stretched across the whole back half of Exodus is: can the dwelling place become a tent of meeting? Will any of us actually get to draw near?
And then Exodus 40:34: "The cloud covered the meeting tent, and the Lord's glorious presence filled the dwelling. Moses couldn't enter…"
Moses couldn't enter.
Imagine being one of the Israelites at that moment. We've cut, sewn, hammered, painted, raised this thing from the ground. Moses — Moses, the guy who already walked into the cloud at Sinai — can't even get through the door. Did it all sink? Did our project just hit the bottom of the pool?
And then comes Leviticus 1:1.
"Then the Lord called to Moses and said to him from the meeting tent."
God speaks first.
That single line is the answer to the cliffhanger. We didn't pull this off. He did. The whole rest of Leviticus is God leaning out of the meeting tent saying, here's how we're going to do this — together. He initiates. He moves first.
If Moses had been the one to move first, the whole story is over. He'd have pulled out a whiteboard: all right, what kind of dance do we need? What act of devotion proves we're worthy? That's the religion of every other altar in the ancient world. It's Elijah on Mount Carmel watching 400 prophets of Baal cut themselves trying to get their god to look up. It's the gods we still chase under different names today — success, image, pleasure — all whispering the same line: you'd better make the first move.
But Yahweh, from the very first chapter of the very first book, has been the God who moves first.
You can see it thousands of years before the meeting tent. In Genesis 15, God ratifies His covenant with Abraham by cutting animals in half and laying out a path between them. In the ancient world, you walked that path to declare: if I break this covenant, may what happened to these animals happen to me. Abraham gets ready to walk. God puts him to sleep instead. Then a smoking pot and a flaming torch — the presence of God — pass through the pieces. Twice. God walks both sides of the deal.
Then Romans 5: "While we were still enemies, Christ died for us." Not when we'd cleaned ourselves up. Not when our hearts had finally turned. While we still had our backs to Him. He had already paid the price.
I keep coming back to a winter afternoon in seventh grade. Pop Warner football practice was canceled and nobody told me. I'm standing in the mud in my pads — and one other kid gets dropped off. Grant. Faster than the rest of us, the kind of cool kid who didn't even know my name. He walks across the field and asks if I want to run drills. For an hour, in the rain. I still remember it.
If a seventh-grade me can still feel what it meant for someone like Grant to take the first step toward someone like me — how much more the God of the universe.
So this week, two invitations. If you've never said yes to this God who moved first for you, come find me after a service. I'd love to pray with you. You don't have to clean yourself up to come — that's the whole point. He already moved.
And if you have? John says it plainly: we love because He first loved us. Who in your life is waiting for someone to take a first step toward them — an invitation, a word, a phone call to mend something that broke? You've already been moved toward. Pass it on this week.
The meeting tent is open. He spoke first.
