preparing to encounter God - 16th week Thursday

In the book of Exodus, in our first reading today, the people prepared themselves for what is called the theophany.  Theophany means the manifestation of God, the encounter between God and his people.  As it is written, “on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai before the eyes of all the people.”  To prepare for this encounter they have to sanctify themselves and curiously, they also have to wash their clothes.  Washing clothes is no ordinary task for a people who had made the desert their home.  Imagine thousands of people washing their clothes at a place where water is so scarce.  But making oneself presentable physically and outwardly were considered an important part of the preparations for the encounter with God, so important in fact that it was worth mentioning in the book of Exodus, and worth doing in a desert.

Why are these preparations important?

Encountering God is something we look forward to, something we anticipate, something we prepare for.  It is not as if we are passing by the church on our way to the mall.  It is not as if I am going to mass just in case I am early for school.  Our outward preparations create in us an expectant heart.  It makes the encounter important.

Encountering God is not an ordinary experience.  It is special.  There was this woman who said that even at home when she prays her morning prayer she just doesn’t jump out of bed and pray.  No, she said, she goes through her morning rituals first – the washing, the brushing, the bathing, the combing, and the dressing up.  Only then will she pray her morning prayer.  She’s not going anywhere.  She thought that it was only proper to meet God prepared and groomed.  It is our outward preparations that create the difference of this activity from all our other activities.  It makes the encounter extraordinary, it makes it special.