The Cloud of Unknowing

“The Lord said to Moses, ‘I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, so that the people will hear Me speaking with you and always put their trust in you”....The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was” (Exodus 19:9; 20:21)

Moses alone was spiritually prepared to meet the Lord. The people were caught up with their immediate concerns, the trauma of having left everything behind in Egypt to follow Moses to a place that he himself was not sure he would find. Nobody can blame them; in fact, they’re much like us. At the moment, our nation is plunged into economic mire that has captured the attention of every adult in the land. It’s normal. But to come in touch with the Lord, one must transcend the cares of daily living. God is beyond time and space, and to be in touch with the Almighty is to rise above the immediate situation and overcome the obsession with here and now. God would meet Moses only when he went up through the cloud and beyond the people. Later Moses would move his tent from the center of the camp to the margin, to be alone with the Lord.

In the early stages of Christianity, believers understood that requirement. The Hebrews before Jesus Christ obeyed that commandment from the Almighty to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy. Some may remember the time when America honored that commandment and instituted laws to see that God’s Law was enforced. A vestige of that era is the Sunday sale of alcoholic beverages only after noon. To many, it’s little more than an annoyance. “Time is money,” says the money worshipper. No time to spare for God thoughts.

The purpose of the Sabbath rule is much like the reason for God to meet Moses above whatever went on below the dark cloud. It was to place the prophet in the atmosphere of silence, stillness and the foretaste of eternity. To speak with God in prayer, one must shut down the noise of the world, turn off the concerns that whirl around in the mind, and imbibe the nourishment of the soul. Here is the heart’s longing—the voice of silence in the presence of the holy. The Sabbath was not a time to wash the family car, or sprawl out in front of the television watching anything and everything that distracts a person from his problems, although that is a sort of therapy. The Sabbath had always been the day of opportunity to consider life from a distance, gazing at one’s style of existence as though it were a motion picture, seeing oneself on the screen. Many just don’t want to think about where they are on their journey through this world, how they got here, if they are fulfilled, and what else they could do in the unknown time they have before the end.

Ask Orthodox Christians why they attend the Divine Liturgy Sundays, and they likely will say it’s to receive the Holy Gifts of Jesus Christ, or more honestly to be with the family, not disappoint parents or spouse, to take the children to Church School, or maybe even to listen to the homily. All are valid, especially the first; but equally important is to have an opportunity to capture the essence of Sabbath, even for a few minutes of the week. The heavenly Father sent His Son and the Holy Spirit to enter time and space in order to elevate the consciences of all human beings, raising them to the mystical mountaintop within their souls, so that they can experience God’s presence and discover that part of them which lives on after their bodies are placed in the grave. When the choir sings the hymn: “Let us mystically represent the cherubim,” they are calling on us to do the impossible. We are not angels, much less the highest order of angels. Yet they invite us to represent them at the sacred liturgy; i.e., take their place at this sacred altar the way they surround the throne in heaven. Mystically, because it is a mystery, but it can only happen when we “lay aside all earthly cares.” Like Moses on Mt. Sinai entering the cloud, we can in the holy temple rise like him above what demands our constant attention and just for an hour put all those thoughts, regardless of their importance, into a mental closet so that we might make a space in our souls for the Lord to come into us, abide in us, and fill us with spiritual gifts that God knows may become so precious that we will want them always.