It is He Who remembered us in our low estate, for His steadfast love endures forever; and rescued us from our foes, for His steadfast love endures forever; He Who gives food to all flesh, for His steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of heaven, for His steadfast love endures forever. (Verses 23-26)
God told Moses He wasn't going to go into the promised land with the rebellious children He'd led through the wilderness. To Moses, God said: "Depart! Go up from here, you and your people you have brought up out of the land of Egypt to the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob...I will send a angel before you...go up to the land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked and stubborn people (Exodus 33)!" Yikes! An exasperated God, unwilling to live any more with a people who fashioned a gold calf out of the spoils of their slavery then bowed down to worship it instead of the miracle-working God Who'd proved His love for them over and over again in the wilderness. Can you blame Him?
The original commandments, etched by God's own finger into tablets of stone, now lay shattered in chalky shards on the desert floor. It broke God's heart, so He didn't want to travel with the "children" any longer. All it would take to get the refugees to the land of promise was one angel. Really? So His Presence was always an unnecessary bonus. A proof of His great stubborn love. God moved along with His people because He wanted to be with them.
Of course, Moses, the great smasher of stone tablets, can't fathom being left alone with the rebellious and untamed lot from Egypt, so he pleads with God to change His mind. Precisely because the people are stubborn and rebellious.
The next morning, after His conversation with Moses, God meets the prophet on the top of Mount Sinai. In his grip, Moses carries two new tablets, freshly hewn, per God's instructions. They are a blank page for God to write, a second time, His commandments for His people. I can't even properly imagine what happens next. God comes fully upon the mountain summit, covering it in a thick cloud of Presence...and stands there with the man. The two of them. Not speaking, yet. Moses adjusting himself to the overwhelming aura of God's glory; God adjusting to the smallness of the confines of a mountain top on Earth. Then God walks in front of Moses as the mountain quakes with the power of a heavenly visitation and the unrestrained authority of the Voice which spoke all things into being speaking to a prophet. There God declares His character: "The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, but Who will by no means clear the guilty." There. He declared it. The very reason He will go with Moses and the people. His character.
Thrown face-down by God's words, Moses worships Him in the vaporous cloud that's included him in glory. "If I've found favor with you, please go with us into the land Your promised. We are stiff-necked and stubborn and we need Your love and forgiveness. Please take us for Your inheritance!"
If I were God, the argument would've been puny. Go with us for precisely the reason that we are vain and mutinous. I mean, how can a people with such flaws ever by anything without their God Who provides even their daily bread? Even with God, in their very midst, the people weren't capable of walking faithfully with Him for very long. But God, ever faithful, ever loving, redoes the commandments. Etching once more, in miraculous splendor, the rules that quite literally never should have been broken the first time! Then He promises more marvels! "It is an awesome thing that I will do with you (Exodus 34)."
"Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends," said Jesus in the moments before His death (John 15). Hours later, on another mountain top, the Voice of God cried out, "It is finished." The character of God meeting head-on the selfish, arrogant, rebellious heart of mankind. Defeating it because He is "the Lord, the Lord, a God gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love." How should we live then? Based upon such unrelenting, all-encompassing and prodigious love? If our own ridiculous lawlessness in the face of His omnipotence can be overcome by God's great love for us--by its steadfast, never-changing, eternal, ironic, inexplicable love--then we must be a people characterized by hearts so thankful that God is grateful not that we grovel at His feet, but that we get His heart.
God told Moses He wasn't going to go into the promised land with the rebellious children He'd led through the wilderness. To Moses, God said: "Depart! Go up from here, you and your people you have brought up out of the land of Egypt to the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob...I will send a angel before you...go up to the land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked and stubborn people (Exodus 33)!" Yikes! An exasperated God, unwilling to live any more with a people who fashioned a gold calf out of the spoils of their slavery then bowed down to worship it instead of the miracle-working God Who'd proved His love for them over and over again in the wilderness. Can you blame Him?
The original commandments, etched by God's own finger into tablets of stone, now lay shattered in chalky shards on the desert floor. It broke God's heart, so He didn't want to travel with the "children" any longer. All it would take to get the refugees to the land of promise was one angel. Really? So His Presence was always an unnecessary bonus. A proof of His great stubborn love. God moved along with His people because He wanted to be with them.
Of course, Moses, the great smasher of stone tablets, can't fathom being left alone with the rebellious and untamed lot from Egypt, so he pleads with God to change His mind. Precisely because the people are stubborn and rebellious.
The next morning, after His conversation with Moses, God meets the prophet on the top of Mount Sinai. In his grip, Moses carries two new tablets, freshly hewn, per God's instructions. They are a blank page for God to write, a second time, His commandments for His people. I can't even properly imagine what happens next. God comes fully upon the mountain summit, covering it in a thick cloud of Presence...and stands there with the man. The two of them. Not speaking, yet. Moses adjusting himself to the overwhelming aura of God's glory; God adjusting to the smallness of the confines of a mountain top on Earth. Then God walks in front of Moses as the mountain quakes with the power of a heavenly visitation and the unrestrained authority of the Voice which spoke all things into being speaking to a prophet. There God declares His character: "The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, but Who will by no means clear the guilty." There. He declared it. The very reason He will go with Moses and the people. His character.
Thrown face-down by God's words, Moses worships Him in the vaporous cloud that's included him in glory. "If I've found favor with you, please go with us into the land Your promised. We are stiff-necked and stubborn and we need Your love and forgiveness. Please take us for Your inheritance!"
If I were God, the argument would've been puny. Go with us for precisely the reason that we are vain and mutinous. I mean, how can a people with such flaws ever by anything without their God Who provides even their daily bread? Even with God, in their very midst, the people weren't capable of walking faithfully with Him for very long. But God, ever faithful, ever loving, redoes the commandments. Etching once more, in miraculous splendor, the rules that quite literally never should have been broken the first time! Then He promises more marvels! "It is an awesome thing that I will do with you (Exodus 34)."
"Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends," said Jesus in the moments before His death (John 15). Hours later, on another mountain top, the Voice of God cried out, "It is finished." The character of God meeting head-on the selfish, arrogant, rebellious heart of mankind. Defeating it because He is "the Lord, the Lord, a God gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love." How should we live then? Based upon such unrelenting, all-encompassing and prodigious love? If our own ridiculous lawlessness in the face of His omnipotence can be overcome by God's great love for us--by its steadfast, never-changing, eternal, ironic, inexplicable love--then we must be a people characterized by hearts so thankful that God is grateful not that we grovel at His feet, but that we get His heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment