Cloud and Fire - by Greg Steggerda

When God led his people out of Egypt, an earthly salvation that was part of his plan to deliver spiritual salvation as well, he manifested himself in an unusual way: He went ahead of the Israelites as a cloud of smoke by day and a fire by night.

When Isaiah prophesied for the Lord, he was given these words, found in Isaiah 4:5-6 “Then the Lord will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night; over everything the glory will be a canopy. It will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and hiding place from the storm and rain.”

As an English major I love the symmetry, but as a Christian I’m amazed at the possible meanings. In Zion, which is a code word for the new Jerusalem or heaven, God will create the same manifestations that he used on earth.

It’s as if God is saying, “Once I led you myself, step by step, so that you would’t lose your way. You couldn’t, because I was there. I told you whether to march, and led you when you did. But then we stopped and you thought you knew where I was, in the temple, so you stopped following. You went your own way, and got horribly lost.

“But now I’ve brought you back, and I will be so obviously with you that there is no way for you to get lost again.”

That may be a little fanciful, but I think it communicates perfectly what the great story of redemption is all about. It reminds me, in this waiting period before Christmas that is meant to recall the long wait for the Messiah, that I too need this savior. I need him badly.

Someday he will come, and I will go, and together we will be in this place of the smoke cloud and the blazing fire. Watch and wait.