Easter Saturday Reflections

This is a strange day in the church’s year.  A day caught between the sorrow of Good Friday and the joy of Easter morning.  A day to remember.  A day for reflection for all who are caught in between times.  We have several children’s bibles, and one, the Big Picture Story Bible has a chapter for Easter Saturday.  I love the text of this particular chapter especially because I think it captures how the disciples might have felt wonderfully.

Darkness fell upon the land.

Jesus was dead.
He was buried in a tomb.
A big stone was rolled in front of the entrance,
and the people all went home.
For Jesus’ followers, that dark day
was followed by a long night.

The hours passed very slowly.
Jesus’ friends cried.
They had thought he was the king.

But now their hearts were filled with sorrow,
and their minds were filled with fear.

“What happened?”
“Why did Jesus have to die?”
“Wasn’t Jesus God’s forever king?”

The questions kept coming until the next
day turned into night.

As Jesus’ followers tried to sleep, they thought,
We will be sad forever.

“Will God ever rescue his people from sin?”
“Will we ever have our place with him?”
“Will God ever bring again his blessings on
all peoples of the earth?”

There are Psalms written for these kind of times.  They are called ‘lament’ – a word that indicates a pouring out of the heart to God in grief, sadness and even anger.  The language used expresses the heart.  It isn’t always neat, tidy and precise – sometimes it is shocking to our ears (try Psalm 137), but it gives us permission that we can always take our feelings to God and express them (after all he’s not going to be surprised or shocked). One such Psalm is Psalm 88, which starts off on a note of hope, but from then on is increasingly dark until the last line (famously echoed by Simon & Garfunkel):

Lord, you are the God who saves me;
    day and night I cry out to you.
² May my prayer come before you;
    turn your ear to my cry.

³ I am overwhelmed with troubles
    and my life draws near to death.
⁴ I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
    I am like one without strength.
⁵ I am set apart with the dead,
    like the slain who lie in the grave,
whom you remember no more,
    who are cut off from your care.

⁶ You have put me in the lowest pit,
    in the darkest depths.
⁷ Your wrath lies heavily on me;
    you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.^[d]
8 You have taken from me my closest friends
    and have made me repulsive to them.
I am confined and cannot escape;
⁹     my eyes are dim with grief.

I call to you, Lord, every day;
    I spread out my hands to you.
¹⁰ Do you show your wonders to the dead?
    Do their spirits rise up and praise you?
¹¹ Is your love declared in the grave,
    your faithfulness in Destruction^[e]?
¹² Are your wonders known in the place of darkness,
    or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?

¹³ But I cry to you for help, Lord;
    in the morning my prayer comes before you.
¹⁴ Why, Lord, do you reject me
    and hide your face from me?

¹⁵ From my youth I have suffered and been close to death;
    I have borne your terrors and am in despair.
¹⁶ Your wrath has swept over me;
    your terrors have destroyed me.
¹⁷ All day long they surround me like a flood;
    they have completely engulfed me.
¹⁸ You have taken from me friend and neighbor—
    darkness is my closest friend.

At different times everyone lives in such times.  We may wish we had not seen such times, but as Gandalf points out in the Lord of the Rings so do all who see such times.

“Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil.”

That is the note of hope we have as those who know the next day in the story.  And for all the implications of that to dawn in our world we wait.

Moses: God dwells with his people

After chapters 32-34 Exodus returns to the subject of the tabernacle. If you are reading through the Bible this can sometimes feel like an anticlimax. Why on earth does the Bible go into so much detail about how Israel built the tabernacle? We have, after all been given much of the detail design already. Why do we then need a blow by blow account of how it is put together?

The clue is in the events of chapters 32-34. Think of Israel at the foot of the mountain building the golden calf. Then read into Exodus 35. Moses calls the people to go, and calls for all who want to give freely to the tabernacle, to go and bring back what is needed. This was not about forcing people. It was about them giving freely. This is what happened:

Exodus 35:20 Then all the congregation of the people of Israel departed from the presence of Moses. 21 And they came, everyone whose heart stirred him, and everyone whose spirit moved him, and brought the Lord’s contribution to be used for the tent of meeting, and for all its service, and for the holy garments. 22 So they came, both men and women. All who were of a willing heart brought brooches and earrings and signet rings and armlets, all sorts of gold objects, every man dedicating an offering of gold to the Lord.

Notice the description here – the tabernacle was constructed out of those who gave freely and willingly, moved from within to give of their treasure for the service of the LORD. Notice what a contrast that is to the golden calf, where they construct what God has not commanded. Here God has given the designs and now people give freely to what is needed. Not everyone brings the same thing, and not everyone brings the same amount, but they bring as God directs each of them individually.

How will all this material be taken and used well? Who will co-ordinate this work:

30 Then Moses said to the people of Israel, “See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; 31 and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship, 32 to devise artistic designs, to work in gold and silver and bronze, 33 in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, for work in every skilled craft. 34 And he has inspired him to teach, both him and Oholiab the son of Ahisamach of the tribe of Dan. 35 He has filled them with skill to do every sort of work done by an engraver or by a designer or by an embroiderer in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, or by a weaver—by any sort of workman or skilled designer.

This is vital. It isn’t Moses. He isn’t a gifted craftsman, he’s a shepherd and a leader for the people, but he isn’t an architect. It’s Bezalel who will head up this work – he is filled with the Spirit of God – with skill, intelligence, knowledge and craftsmanship. The Spirit who hovered over the waters of creation and breathed life into people is the Spirit who fills Bezalel, so that the practical skills and intelligence he has will be put to use for the service of God.

Bezalel and Oholiab are both gifted also to teach others to also carry out the work. The work is a team effort, requiring skill and intelligence, craftsmanship and teaching. God provides the people to do the work in the way he wants the work done.

So in his church. We have all sorts of people, with all sorts of giftings – and all are to be used for his service. We have people who are gifted to lead, and we have people with much more specific skills. So we need to make sure service is allocated according to gifts. God will provide what is needed for the church to do what he wants it to do.

As we read on in Exodus 35-40 we then see each part of the tabernacle and priestly garments being made. In chapters 39-40 a refrain echoes through – this was done ‘just as the LORD commanded Moses’. It is done in obedience to God, and in line with God’s ways. The people have learned to obey, at least in this matter. Finally we get this account of the completion of the tabernacle:

33 Then Moses set up the courtyard around the tabernacle and altar and put up the curtain at the entrance to the courtyard. And so Moses finished the work.

34 Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. 35 Moses could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

36 In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; 37 but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out—until the day it lifted. 38 So the cloud of the LORD was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the Israelites during all their travels.

The cloud comes down and God’s glory comes down. Moses cannot enter. God has come to dwell with his people. There is a complete restoration.  The promise of God living among the people – dwelling – he is at home with his people – is fulfilled.  Full forgiveness and restoration has been given.  Take heart from that.  If you have sinned forgiveness is on offer, and God will restore you – and it will be a full and complete restoration – just as it was for Israel.  The next line of the Bible after Exodus is Leviticus 1:1 ‘The LORD called to Moses from the tent’ – just as he had called him from the mountain. The place where God will manifest his glory is now the tabernacle, and later the temple, not the mountain.

Not even Moses can enter the tabernacle. God’s presence is too radiant. Leviticus will be full of strict instructions as to how to approach God. The cloud of God’s presence also becomes the means by which God will guide his people. They go with God in their midst, and therefore they go with God as their guide, going when he says it is time to go, and staying when he says it is time to stay. They are not to invent their own itinerary, but to stick with God’s itinerary, and then when he says go, go.

To think about the implications of this for us, first of all we think of the cloud of God’s presence and the strict instructions required to enter God’s presence. As I type this it is Good Friday. One of the things that happens on Good Friday is that the temple curtain is torn. The barrier between God’s presence and the world is torn down.

The key question then is: where does God’s presence manifest itself? Is there anywhere in the New Testament equivalent to the giving of the law and tabernacle at Sinai? As the Spirit descends at Pentecost there are tongues of fire and a mighty wind. God’s presence comes down, not on a tent, or to a building, but to a people. God’s people have God’s Spirit living in them.

Like the Israelites we are on a journey to a land. We have been rescued out of slavery to sin, and will one day enjoy life with God forever, in the fullness of his presence. But our journey is not the same in every respect, and the methods by which God guides are not the same in every respect. Right now a pillar of cloud outside the house that lifted and led us to the next place would feel quite welcome.

It sometimes feels like God is not guiding, or that he has forgotten about the particular journey we are taking. Yet that isn’t true, so we take our steps to do what can be done – we seek to trust and to obey in the things we know, and to trust that if God has a particular place or destination in mind he will make that clear.

There are times and days when it is easier to see the reality of that than others. Right now, for us, it is hard. In a months time we will be leaving this house and we don’t yet know where we will be going to. We are looking at houses, seeking to work out where would be sensible places to live. I am searching for jobs that would enable me to use my mixture of skills and talents to build up and encourage God’s people.

In the midst of all that the call is still to trust the God who guides. In some of the decisions we will make there will be a choice that is up to us. In other things we trust that God will make it clear. Having God as a guide does not bring neat and tidy answers. I doubt it did for even the Israelites with the pillar of cloud in a very obvious way – I imagine there were some who grumbled at having to move on again, and others who didn’t understand why they were staying in a particular location at a certain time.

We just don’t see the whole story now. One day we will. One day our faith will be sight. We will see the full story of God at work. In the first of CS Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, the Magician’s Nephew there is a character called Digory, who believes that Aslan could provide him with something that will cure his dying mother. He is about to be tasked with a quest by Aslan, but first he wants to ask for the cure. This is the conversation:

“But please, please – won’t you – can’t you give me something that will cure Mother?” Up till then he had been looking at the Lion’s great feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion’s eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself.

“My son, my son,” said Aslan. “I know. Grief is great. Only you and I in this land know that yet. Let us be good to one another. But I have to think of hundreds of years in the life of Narnia.

I think this illustration makes two vital points – the first is that God, like Aslan, really does care, and feels with us in the midst of suffering, sorrow and confusion. The second is that there is more going on than we can see. That second point makes it really hard sometimes, because I want to be able to see. But I can’t. So we have to trust the God who is our guide, that he will nourish us on the way and provide us with all we need. The only hymn that could possibly go with this theme is:

1 Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,
pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but you are mighty;
hold me with your powerful hand.
Bread of heaven, bread of heaven,
feed me now and evermore,
feed me now and evermore.

2 Open now the crystal fountain,
where the healing waters flow.
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
lead me all my journey through.
Strong Deliverer, strong Deliverer,
ever be my strength and shield,
ever be my strength and shield.

3 When I tread the verge of Jordan,
bid my anxious fears subside.
Death of death, and hell’s Destruction,
land me safe on Canaan’s side.
Songs of praises, songs of praises
I will ever sing to you,
I will ever sing to you.

And so we walk through Isaiah 50:10

10 Who among you fears the Lord
and obeys the word of his servant?
Let the one who walks in the dark,
who has no light,
trust in the name of the Lord
and rely on their God.

Knowing that the reality is that the God who promised to be with Moses in all that he faced is the God who is with us still. The God who utterly compassionate and good. Slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. He doesn’t explain himself. But he is with us through it all – working for our good and his glory in it.

 

 

The Humble King

I’m not really sure if it is still Lent or not (answers on a postcard) – and I have one Moses post left, but it is late to write now, so instead I am posting my reflection from the evenings Maundy Thursday communion service.  I love this night in the run up to Easter.

13 It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

2 The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

7 Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

8 “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

9 “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

10 Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” 11 For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not everyone was clean.

Jesus knew 2 things.

• The hour had come
• That the Father had put all things under his power

What would you do if you knew your time had come and that the Father had put all things under your power?

What could God use his power to do in this world right now?

And what could he use his power to do in your life right now?

What does Jesus use his power to do?

He got up from his seat, took off his outer garment, wrapped a towel around him. He poured water, washed feet, and dried them

The job of the servant – the lowliest servant – was the fact that no-one had washed their feet what triggered the disciples argument in the other gospels about who was the greatest? Did it begin as an argument about who was the greatest? And was this Jesus’ way of answering that argument. 

Jesus is doing two things here.  One is a simple demonstration of his love as an example to follow – that followers of Jesus must take the role of the lowliest servant.

The second is that he is acting out a parable of his action on the cross.  Feet washed by Jesus.

Knowing all that he is, and knowing all that is about to happen Jesus gets down from the table, just as he left the glories of heaven, and takes on the job and the status of the lowliest servant just as he had taken on human flesh and blood in order to live and die for us.

Why does he do this?  Why did Jesus become man?  Why does Jesus step down from the glories of heaven.  Because he loves his disciples. We are loved to the end.  We could say loved all the way to the finish line. Remember Jesus’ lasts words on the cross ‘it is finished’.   Jesus loved to the finish – ‘it is finished’.

And what this acted parable shows us is that in order to be part of Jesus’ followers we have to first let him serve us.  Peter’s objection is so much like the objections we are tempted to make. Do we really need Jesus to stoop down to wash our feet.  We may well have given our lives to him – we have had the bath. But he still needs to wash our feet.

Because we get dirty.  We walk this life in this world and the dirt of the streets sticks to us.  Sometimes we choose to wallow in the dirt. Sometimes we are self centred and full of sin, and we need our feet washed to cleanse of us these things.  We need to stop and let Jesus wash us clean.

Sometimes we get dirt and mud splashed on us. Sometimes walking is very hard work, and our feet get calloused and sore.  We need to let Jesus wash our feet. Sometimes the answer is not to press on. It is to stop, and to let Jesus wash our feet.

This is what God’s love is like.  Self giving. Not self regarding. He gives himself for us.

Pause to reflect on that.  

Some have come today with a burden of sin.  Something you want to stop, but it just seems so ingrained.  You need to sit and let Jesus wash your feet.

Some of you are tired and weary of all you do.  You do so much. You work so hard. At home, in church, in the community.  Giving. Giving. Giving.

Your feet are sore.  You have worked hard. And you need to stop and let Jesus wash your feet.  You need to see afresh the wonder of the reality that the God of all creation, the one who made the universe with a word stoops, kneels in humility and washes our feet.  There is no greater wonder. There is no greater love.

Today Jesus says: stop: I want to wash your feet.  

Jesus says: remember: I love you. And I want you to know that love.  The love that went to the end.

At that point we listened the song: Humble King by Brenton Brown.  The lyrics read like this:

Oh kneel me down again
Here at Your feet
Show me how much You love
Humility

Oh spirit be the star
That leads me to
The humble heart of love
I see in You

For you are the God of the broken
The friend of the weak
You wash the feet of the weary
Embrace the ones in need
And I want to be like you Jesus
To have this heart in me
You are the God of the humble
You are the humble King

Oh kneel me down again
Here at Your feet
Show me how much You love
Humility

Oh spirit be the star
That leads me to
The humble heart of love
I see in You

You are the God of the broken
The friend of the weak
You wash the feet of the weary
Embrace the ones in need
And I want to be like You Jesus
To have this heart in me
You are the God of the humble
You are the humble King
You are the humble King

You are the God of the humble
You are the humble King

Or listen/watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV_3l6Ng5lA

12 When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. 13 “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

Do as Jesus has done because of what Jesus has done for you.  We look to Jesus’ example, knowing that what Jesus did is what gives us the power to walk in his ways.

We don’t have to screw ourselves up and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. Instead we have to look to Jesus, see what he did. First allow him to wash us clean, and to wash our feet, and then in the strength given by that we do likewise.  We do the nasty, dirty, hard things – and we do them because we are set free by what Jesus has done for us.

For he is indeed the God of the broken.  The friend of the weak. The one who washes the feet of the weary and embraces the ones in need.  

Then we sang and moved into communion – where I read this poem by Edward Shillito (written in the aftermath of WWI.)

If we have never sought, we seek Thee now;
Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;
We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow,
We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars. 

The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;
In all the universe we have no place.
Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm?
Lord Jesus, by Thy Scars, we claim Thy grace.

If, when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near,
Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine;
We know to-day what wounds are, have no fear,
Show us Thy Scars, we know the countersign.

The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak;
They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.

And then used this prayer:

This is the table not of the Church but of the Lord.
It is to be made ready for those who love him,
and who want to love him more.

So, come,
you who have much faith
and you who have little,
you who have been here often
and you who have not been for a very long time,
you who have tried to follow
and you who have failed.

Come, not because it is I who invite you:
it is our Lord.
It is his will that those who want him
should meet him here. (Iona Community)

Moses: Shining Face

Now we get to the final part of these amazing chapters:

Exodus 34:29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. 30 Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. 31 But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them. 32 Afterward all the people of Israel came near, and he commanded them all that the LORD had spoken with him in Mount Sinai. 33 And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.

This time Moses comes down to a much more ordered scene.  The people have learnt that 40 days and nights is not so long to wait (although it can feel like an eternity in some situations).  Moses comes down with the skin of his face radiant because he has been talking  to God.  He has glimpsed the glory of God and it has had a physical impact on him.  Notice the little detail that Moses was unaware of this – he didn’t know that his face was shinning.

Aaron and all the people do see.  They see the skin of his face shinning, and they were afraid to approach him.  Even the reflected glory of God in Moses’ face is too bright for the people to come near.  Moses has to call to them, and then they come near.  He talks with Aaron and the leaders.  Then the people approach and he tells them all that YHWH has said to him.  And then when he finishes speaking he puts the veil on.

Notice that he doesn’t veil his face when he is speaking God’s words.  It is almost as if Moses’ shining face is a visual aid for the people to see what God has done for them.  There is a irony here, when we remember back to the start of this story.  In Exodus 32 the people make a bull calf of gold to represent the gods who brought them up out of Egypt.  They want a visual image of what God has done for them, a god that they can see and touch.  God does in the end provide them with a visual image – Moses.  It is through the sight of a person transformed because of seeing God’s glory that the people will see that God is truly in their midst.

The Old Testament is crystal clear that all images made by people to represent God are inadequate – and the key reason for this is that God’s image is already supposed to be in the world, so that people can see what God is like.  In Genesis 1 people are created in the image of God, to represent God to the world, to rule over and care for God’s world.  The story of the fall shows Adam and Eve’s rebellion, and the way in which that image is now marred as people rebel against God, fight each other and destroy God’s world.

Moses reflecting God’s glory is one way in which God shows his image to the people – Moses becomes the image bearer of God to Israel.  And then he must be veiled so that the glory does not become part of the everyday.  God speaks directly to Moses, and the shining face of Moses authenticates Moses’ authority as the one to speak God’s words to the people.

34 Whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would remove the veil, until he came out. And when he came out and told the people of Israel what he was commanded, 35 the people of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face was shining. And Moses would put the veil over his face again, until he went in to speak with him.

There is a parallel idea in the transfiguration of Jesus – only in that case Jesus is transformed into what he truly is and the disciples witness the shining and God speaks telling them to listen.  But Jesus does not walk around shining, or veiled with a physical veil – although in a sense the entire incarnation is a kind of veiling of God’s full glory, so that people can actually walk around with God incarnate.

Paul writes of Moses’ veil in 2 Corinthians 3:

7 Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? 9 For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. 10 Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. 11 For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.

Here Paul is saying that the ministry of the Spirit has even more glory than that of Moses, such that now, by comparison the former glory has come to have no glory at all.  The law that Moses gave was only temporary.  A way to teach Israel what it was to walk with God, and to show God’s character, but for one nation, at one time.  By contrast the Spirit is given permanently.  So Paul goes on:

12 Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, 13 not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. 14 But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. 15 Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. 16 But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Paul seems to be playing slightly with this idea of veiling.  Moses’ glory was veiled to protect the people, but Paul also here suggests that their hearts were veiled, they did not understand, or respond as they should.  But in Christ the veil can be removed, and so we actually see the glory of God and are transformed into his image. What in the Old Testament was only for Moses is now for all believers.

It is true we don’t (usually) see a physical representation of that glory – the transformation Paul speaks of is moral and spiritual rather than outward – but it is still glorious for all that.  We see the glory of God when the Spirit removes the veil from our hearts and we look on Jesus and all he has done for us.  When we contemplate the cross this Easter we are beholding God’s glory.  When we read reflectively on Scripture of what it tells us about God that is beholding God’s glory.

That takes time – we need to pause long enough to move beyond simply reading to reading + thinking + imagining + praying + listening – and as we do that we will behold God’s glory.  It may not make our face shine, but it will make us change inwardly.  And as we do so we will be transformed more and more into the image of God that we were always supposed to be.  More and more into the likeness of Christ.

And as that happens people will see a difference.  Isn’t that our longing deep down.  And I think we all know what we should do.  But doing it is a different matter.  Stopping long enough to properly reflect and pray on and chew over the Bible – or at least long enough that we can take it into the rest of the day to chew over as we get on with our daily lives – is always hard for us to do – both practically, and also because sometimes it can be uncomfortable and reveal hard truths about ourselves.

I read Paul’s words again:

17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

As I do I ask myself: how much do I really know this freedom, and what are the practical steps to stepping forward into this freedom?  What does it look like to behold the glory of the Lord, and so be transformed?  Right now in the midst of all the craziness of life here and now it seems a long way off.  Tom Wright suggests in one of his books, that just as we often give up something for Lent, so we should find something to put on for Easter – for the period between Easter Sunday and Pentecost.  Perhaps this is my challenge for this year. To behold the glory of the Lord.

Clearly there is only one hymn possible to quote.  May these wonderful words of Charles Wesley be your prayer and mine this Easter:

1 Love divine, all loves excelling,
joy of heav’n, to earth come down,
fix in us Thy humble dwelling;
all Thy faithful mercies crown.
Jesus, Thou art all compassion;
pure, unbounded love Thou art;
visit us with Thy salvation;
enter ev’ry trembling heart.

2 Breathe, O breathe Thy loving Spirit
into ev’ry troubled breast!
Let us all in Thee inherit;
let us find the promised rest.
Take away the love of sinning;
Alpha and Omega be;
end of faith, as its beginning,
set our hearts at liberty.

3 Come, Almighty, to deliver;
let us all Thy life receive;
suddenly return and never,
nevermore Thy temples leave.
Thee we would be always blessing,
serve Thee as Thy hosts above,
pray and praise Thee without ceasing,
glory in Thy perfect love.

4 Finish then Thy new creation;
pure and spotless let us be.
Let us see Thy great salvation
perfectly restored in Thee.
Changed from glory into glory,
till in heav’n we take our place,
till we cast our crowns before Thee,
lost in wonder, love, and praise.

 

 

A Psalm in the midst of silence

You will get the glory and honour,

One day.

Today though praise is far from my lips. It’s there.  As my eyes opened I realised I was praising you.

But when my brain woke up there was no praise to offer of my own choosing. There was rants and tears.

I know the so called right answers.

Today that faith I claim, that others have said I must have more of than them; that faith doesn’t look much like walking by faith as I imagine at times it should be.

I look at the news, pick a country and the need of God to step in and put an end now to it all is needed. He is slow to anger. I dread to think of His anger if He is not yet stepping in. His word says He weeps, that He is father to the fatherless.  If He is holding back because His ways are not ours and He sees the bigger picture and so is waiting, what is there that we can do to make a difference in the mean time?

The news doesn’t tell it all, there will be stories in all those places where God was seen to step in.

You will get the glory.

All I wanted was to serve You, to have You at then center, to love Your people. Somewhere it seems I thought that meant the things we needed would be met. Somewhere along the line I didn’t think it would be this messy or hard.

All I wanted was to be a mum and wife and honour You. I am tired of You getting the honour when people are the ones going through it in all sorts of ways. People being stretched so thin there are holes appearing. Lives quite literally being ripped apart. People not living as they were created to because that doesn’t seem to fit with the way the world is going.

You get the honour in the end because Your ways are not ours and we cannot see it all.

Sometimes I wonder if You remember that children need roofs over their heads? But why should ours get a roof any sooner than children around the world with nothing? I wonder if You have forgotten that to feed children parents need jobs to pay. But the world says one either has the wrong or not enough experience.

All we wanted to do was honour You. We thought we were making wise, responsible decisions, living in faith. We thought we were following You. This wasn’t in the plan. This wasn’t where I thought You would take us.

People, I, say there are no coincidences, that God wastes nothing. His ways are not the way of the world because none of this makes sense. The world makes little sense.

Is it God I hear or voices that should be treated by yet more pills. I want to honour You. I want to say You have us. I want to walk by faith. I want to see Your word made clear, not twisted and distorted.  I want our children to know You love them.

I want You to get the honour. Does it have to be this way?

What does it mean to walk by faith? What does it mean to be wise stewards and makes decisions based on the minds you have given us? How do we walk both those questions at the same time in the face of silence?

And when this wave at some point passes You will get the glory, You always do. For You always do and You do as You please. Right now that just doesn’t help.

One day You will get the honour and glory.

Moses: Covenant Restored

Following the instructions about idols YHWH also re-iterates several other sets of instructions from the previous set of laws in Exodus 21-23. Firstly the passover:

18 “You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib, for in the month Abib you came out from Egypt. 19 All that open the womb are mine, all your male livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep. 20 The firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. And none shall appear before me empty-handed.

These instructions go back to God’s words to Moses in chapter 4 where God spoke of Israel as his firstborn son, and that the penalty for Pharaoh would be the death of his firstborn. In chapter 12 the Israelites are told to slaughter a lamb and put the blood on the doorposts so that the firstborn might live. The firstborn belong to God – as a sign that the people as a whole are God’s firstborn who belong to God. Remember that in many of the cultures of that day the firstborn child had a high status as the heir of the family estate.

This firstborn imagery carries on into the New Testament, where Jesus is the Passover Lamb, who dies – God’s firstborn who dies that we might all become children of God.

21 “Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest. 22 You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year’s end. 23 Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. 24 For I will cast out nations before you and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land, when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year.

Then there is instruction about rest and about festivals. Notice how the Israelites are to rest even at peak times – even at harvest when all the crops are to be gathered in they are to rest. It would be easy to look out and say “Today is a good day, it is time to gather in all my crops – if not they may be wasted by a sudden storm tomorrow – I can always rest another day”.

No, they are to rest each 7th day. Sabbath is an act of trust in God. It is saying that he can work while we rest. We may not be bound by a particular day in the same way, but the Sabbath principal is still vital. Success in God’s work does not depend on our efforts – we sow and plough and harvest – but, as Paul writes to the Corinthians, it is God who gives the growth.

The same kind of principal applies for the festivals. They might say ‘do we all need to go up to the tabernacle, won’t that leave our homes unguarded’. But God promises that their land will not be coveted in that period. God will protect. The question for the people is: will they trust God that he knows best, or will they think that the obvious, rational choice is the right one? The same question faced them through a number of their laws – the jubilee principal of restoring land to the original owners every 50 years, for example. The same question applies to us. Will we trust God to do things his way and operate in line with that, or will we try to make things work out way?

That means keeping the commands he gives us. Should I make more money by cheating, or by breaking a law, or by lying?  Answer – no.  It may not be easy to do, but it is usually relatively straightforward to tell.  When we have a straightforward command from God in the Bible then we need to obey it.  We need to keep our activity in line with what he has revealed.

In addition sometimes following God sometimes means taking an action that looks slightly odd to others.  All Israel’s men leaving their homes undefended and going up to celebrate YHWH’s rescue and provision looked like a reckless act – but it was what YHWH had commanded because remembering that he is the one who protects, and he is the one who delivers is what matters most.  Giving away part of our income is one way that we demonstrate this principle in our lives.  At other times it may be more radical – a change of career direction, a move to a different country – but each time we step out in such a way we show that we trust YHWH’s ways above human wisdom.

25 “You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover remain until the morning. 26 The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”

At this point I’m going to confess to ignorance over why boiling a young goat in its mothers milk is so wrong that it is mentioned both here and at the end of Exodus 23. Instead we will move on to the end of these words to Moses.

27 And the LORD said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 28 So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

These are intriguing, because back at the start of chapter 34 YHWH declared that he would write on the tablets – but here Moses is described as writing them. Whether that means that YHWH inscribed some words, leaving Moses with the ten commandments (literally ‘ten words’), or whether YHWH commanding Moses the words to write down to do the actual writing still counts as YHWH writing on the tablets is debatable. The important thing is that the writing of the words shows that the covenant is still in force. Israel are restored to the position they occupied before the golden calf. God has completely forgiven them, and so Moses has the evidence of the restored covenant in his hands.

Notice how he is up the mountain for a second period of 40 days and nights – parallel to the first period of time when he received the instructions for the tabernacle. Each of these details in the story fits together to show just how securely the covenant between YHWH and Israel was now restored, and so each of the details works together to show us how complete YHWH’s forgiveness is of Israel, and therefore of us when we sin and turn back in repentance.

 

Moses: Yahweh whose name is jealous

Yesterday we saw how YHWH declared his intention to renew the covenant. Today we see his instructions to Israel, and their basis in God’s character.

11 “Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 12 Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. 13 You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim 14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), 15 lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they whore after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, 16 and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters whore after their gods and make your sons whore after their gods.

Notice first of all the interesting juxtaposition here of the promise to drive out the inhabitants of the land with the instructions not to make any covenants with those inhabitants. A covenant was an agreement, or treaty, and it would have been tempting for Israel to make its way in the land by making agreements with the tribes in the land. It is as if God is saying to Israel: don’t make your way in the land by coming up with clever policies. Instead trust me, and don’t make agreements that will lead you astray, or be a snare to you.

Instead of making agreements they are to tear down the altars, and break their pillars and cut down their idols – they are not to compromise in any way shape or form, but simply destroy. I imagine we’d be tempted to criticise the cultural vandalism of this programme, and complain about the narrow mindedness of this invading force.

Before we do that though we should consider what the Canaanite religion involved. It was essentially a fertility religion. Religious rites involved prostitutes. Sacrifices were sometimes human. Religion served the interests of priests and rulers, and kept a population in check, in often brutal ways.

This was not how God wanted his people to live and so he tells them here not to compromise. Not to make agreements with the people of the land. Not to take part in their sacrificial meals, or intermarry so that they are not led astray to worship their gods. Notice the language used ‘whore after’ – it isn’t exactly pleasant to picture idolatry as prostitution – yet that is what it was for Israel.

Israel were betrothed to YHWH. Sin was not just treason against their King, it was adultery against their betrothed. Not just breaking rules, but cheating on God. That is why at the heart of this section is the comment put in brackets which gives the reason for all these instructions:

for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God

YHWH is jealous for his people. We’ve looked at how this can be positive before. But in this context even more so. He doesn’t want them to ruin their lives in Canaanite idolatry. He knows it will look good, and be easy to follow, but will ultimately lead to ruin. He knows it is going to make Israel stand out in the brutal world of the ancient Near East if they don’t worship other gods as part of the pursuit of money, sex and power.

And so it is for us too. He is jealous for us. Jealous that we do not give way to sin. Jealous in this case meaning that he is passionately devoted to us knowing Him, because that is the relationship which we were made for – and which will therefore bring us most happiness and lasting joy.  So he is jealous that we do not go for the equivalents of Canaanite religion in our day. We need to remember that God is jealous, and that sin is at essence cheating on God.

That implies that sin causes pain in God. As adultery causes pain in a wronged spouse. So we cannot take sin lightly in our lives. We need to identify the idols and tear them down. Sometimes that is a simple action – removing certain books or music or images that leads us in an unhelpful direction, or stopping a particular relationship. Other times it is much harder and requires careful examination of our hearts with someone we trust to help us untangle what the idols we are following are.

That is always worth it. I was forcibly struck by the end of Tim Farron’s resignation speech in the summer:

“Imagine how proud I am to lead this party. And then imagine what would lead me to voluntarily relinquish that honour.
In the words of Isaac Watts it would have to be something ‘so amazing, so divine, (it) demands my heart, my life, my all’.

If you read more of what Tim Farron said on that occasion and since, it seems that for him to continue to lead his party would have led him into intolerable conflict with his faith.  You may disagree with him about that, you might wish it could be otherwise, but the important thing is that if for him the conflict was intolerable then he needed to make that decision.

We need to be ready to relinquish any honour, let go of any hope, or cut out any habit if those things are leading us away from Christ. We do that because we know he is jealous for us with a passionate, burning zeal that longs for the best for us. And we know that he longs for us with that passionate, burning zeal because we can look to the cross, and see the lengths he was prepared to go to for us, and for our salvation.

So to close, to reflect on God’s jealous love for us – a jealousy that is passionate longing for us to enjoy the relationship with him that will make us whole again:

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.

See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
Isaac Watts

Moses: Covenant renewed

After hearing YHWH proclaim his name, Moses reacts in worship:

8 And Moses quickly bowed his head towards the earth and worshipped. 9 And he said, “If now I have found favour in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”

Here it could almost sound like Moses is in doubt about whether he has found favour with God. It is more likely, however, that this is simply picking up on 33:17 where God assured him that he had found favour in his eyes, and that Moses is using that as the basis of his request. There is no longer any doubt, however since he has found favour in God’s eyes he asks God to come in the midst of them.

His reason for asking God to come with them is the very reason God has given for not going with the people. He wants God to go with them because they are a stiff-necked people. This is similar to Genesis 9 where God promises not to send a flood /because/ people are evil all the time.
God’s renewal of the covenant has to take into account this reality that people are sinful and so Moses pleads with God to go with them and forgive them.

He knows that a stiff-necked people cannot hope to make any progress unless God goes with them, and he knows that to do that God will need to forgive their sin and take them for his inheritance. This is an interesting word, which is often used to talk about the inheritance Israel will have in the land, but here it seems to be used as if Israel are God’s inheritance. This may be a similar thought to that we saw in chapter 19 where Israel were called God’s treasured possession.

It is a request that God’s forgiveness will enable Israel to be the people God has called them to be. God’s reply is a re-iteration of the rules he has given them previously, with some additional emphasis on staying faithful to YHWH. His reply begins like this:

10 And he said, “Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the LORD, for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.

This is where we see Exodus 34:6-7 in action. God shows himself to be truly the sort of God he claimed he was by his forgiveness of the people and establishing of a renewed covenant with the people. God will do marvels to bring the people into the land. Think of the parting of the Jordan and the walls of Jericho. And all the people around shall see God’s wonders – think of the reputation of Israel that caused the inhabitants of the land to be trembling in fear. It is an awesome thing that I will do with you, declares God – literally, a ’terrifying’ thing. God will act to save his people.

And there is another marvel that God could be talking about here. Not only will he do marvels to bring Israel into the land, but he is right now doing a marvel in his forgiveness of the people. This marvel of forgiveness is unparalleled in the nations around. They have sinned, but God has forgiven them – and such forgiveness is truly awesome. The Psalmist writes ‘with you there is forgiveness, therefore you are feared’.

This marvel of forgiveness is offered to us too. We have the reality of God’s forgiveness and grace brought into clearer focus through what Jesus has done for us on the cross. This is what the name of YHWH means for us. We see what compassion and mercy, steadfast love and faithfulness look like worked out in history. Like Moses, and like Israel, we can know the benefits of this name in our lives:

One Puritan writer put it like this:

The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty.

Exodus 34:6-7

“Well, you say, but though God is able to help me, I fear that God is not willing to help me, and therefore I am discouraged.

But be of good comfort, says the Lord, for my name is Merciful, and therefore I am willing to help you.

But you say, though the Lord is willing to help me, yet I am a poor unworthy creature and have nothing at all to move God to help me.

Yet be of good comfort, for the Lord says again, My name is Gracious. I do not show mercy because you are good, but because I am good.

Oh, you say, but I have been sinning a long time, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years. If I had come to you long ago, I might have had mercy. But I have been sinning a long time, and therefore I fear there is no mercy for me.

Yet, says the Lord, be of good comfort, for my name is Slow to anger.

Oh, you say, but I have sinned extremely, so many sins that I am never able to reckon up and to humble myself for them, I have broken all my promises to God and all the vows I made to him, and therefore I am discouraged.

Yet, says he, be of good comfort, for I am abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Are you abundant in sin? I am abundant in steadfast love. Have you broken faith with me? Yet I am abundant in faithfulness also.

Oh, but though the Lord is all this to his chosen ones like David, Abraham and Moses, yet I fear the Lord will not be this to me.

Yes, says the Lord, keeping steadfast love for thousands. I have not spent all my mercy on David or on Abraham or on Paul or on Peter, but I keep mercy for thousands.

Oh, but my sins still recoil on me. I am the greatest sinner in the world, for I have sinned all kinds of sin. I fear there is no hope for me.

Yet, says the Lord, be not discouraged, for I forgive iniquity and transgression and sin, even all kinds of sin. This is my name forever.

Oh, but I am afraid to lay hold on this promise, for I think this is a doctrine of license. Do not say that, says the Lord, who will by no means clear the guilty.

But if there is ever a poor, drooping, fearing, trembling soul that desires to know my name, here, says the Lord, is my name by which I will be known forever.

The name of God quiets the heart against all discouragements.”

William Bridge, A Lifting Up For The Downcast (London, 1961), pages 270-272. Slightly edited

Tomorrow we’ll see the warning that goes with this assurance.

Moses: Yahweh who punishes sin

Today we come to the end of YHWH’s disclosure of his name:

5 The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. 6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

Yesterday we looked up until the second half of v7 when the mood seems to change. Having been a very positive statement of God’s love and faithfulness, his grace and mercy, and his forgiveness of sins, we then get the ‘but’. He will not clear the guilty, and his punishment of sins will last down four generations.

Some scholars go far as to suggest that this represents a fundamental instability in YHWH, so that Israel never finally knows what YHWH will do. I think to say that is to read this text out of its context in the narrative. I think it is clear from the story of Israel in the Old Testament that YHWH forgives those who repent. Yet he will not clear those who wilfully refuse to repent.

In today’s society in the west we tend also to have a problem with the concept of sin being punished down the generations. We need to remember that this was written to a society with a much stronger concept of family, and family history and solidarity. In the Bible individuals do not exist alone, they are part of a society made up of families.  In the Bible families usually share the fate of their ‘heads’.

It is also possible that to the third and fourth generation refers to the possible extent of the living family – so that it is not so much that the punishment impacts to generations yet to be born, but to generations now living as part of the extended family unit. In this case what happens to the ‘head’ of the family, will inevitably impact on the rest of the family.

Sin has consequences beyond just me. It is never private. God will punish sin, and sometimes that punishment will be to leave people to face the consequences of their actions – and those consequences inevitably also impact those in the families of those who are punished. If we live in families the state my relationship with God is in impacts on my family. A habitual practice of sin will lead to patterns of life which will impact on a family for several generations. God will not clear the guilty who do not repent.

That is not a contradiction to the first half of these verses. It is a direct consequence of them. God is a God of love and faithfulness, and so anything that gets in the way of people experiencing this love and faithfulness needs to be dealt with. God’s love and faithfulness are not a license for us to sin – God is a God who will not clear the guilty who stubbornly refuse to repent.

God is a God who is angry with sin, a God whose wrath burns against sin – because he sees the impact sin has on his good creation. And he is a God who is angry with those who sin, because he sees the impact they have on people made in his image. That is fundamentally good news in a world which is marred by sin, and ruined by people exploiting other people.

Yale theologian, and native of the former Yugoslavia Miroslav Wolf puts it like this:

I used to think that wrath was unworthy of God. Isn’t God love? Shouldn’t divine love be beyond wrath? God is love, and God loves every person and every creature. That’s exactly why God is wrathful against some of them. My last resistance to the idea of God’s wrath was a casualty of the war in former Yugoslavia, the region from which I come. According to some estimates, 200,000 people were killed and over 3,000,000 were displaced. My villages and cities were destroyed, my people shelled day in and day out, some of them brutalized beyond imagination, and I could not imagine God not being angry. Or think of Rwanda in the last decade of the past century, where 800,000 people were hacked to death in one hundred days! How did God react to the carnage? By doting on the perpetrators in a grandparently fashion? By refusing to condemn the bloodbath but instead affirming the perpetrators basic goodness? Wasn’t God fiercely angry with them? Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God’s wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn’t wrathful at the sight of the world’s evil. God isn’t wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love.

It is good news that God is angry about sin and will not clear the guilty because it means that evil doers will not get away with it. I remember when the news reports of Pol Pot’s death came, one radio headline was ‘Pol Pot escapes justice’. No. He escaped an earthly court, but there is a throne to which Pol Pot, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, and every other earthly tyrant must bow.

And of course it doesn’t stop there. Volf goes on:

Once we accept the appropriateness of God’s wrath, condemnation, and judgment, there is no way of keeping it out there, reserved for others. We have to bring it home as well. I originally resisted the notion of a wrathful God because I dreaded being that wrath’s target; I still do. I knew I couldn’t just direct God’s wrath against others, as if it were a weapon I could aim at targets I particularly detested. It’s God’s wrath, not mine, the wrath of the one and impartial God, lover of all humanity. If I want it to fall on evildoers, I must let it fall on myself – when I deserve it.

Also, once we affirm that God’s condemnation of wrongdoing is appropriate, we cannot reserve God’s condemnation for heinous crimes. Where would the line be drawn? On what grounds could it be drawn? Everything that deserves to be condemned should be condemned in proportion to its weight as an offense – from a single slight to a murder, from indolence to idolatry, from lust to rape. To condemn heinous offenses but not light ones would be manifestly unfair. An offense is an offense and deserves condemnation…

That is why we see the second half of Exodus 34:7 as scary news. Because it is. Because each of us has sinned. But as we approach Easter we approach the cross. On the cross we see how it is that God can be a God full of grace and mercy to people as sinful and rebellious as us.

The cross is where we see God’s wrath and love combined. In Christ God took on himself the full extent of his wrath and anger against sin. God himself bore the wrath he has against our sin, that we might become children of God who know the love of the Father for his dearly loved Son as the love he has for each of us. On that day God came, and God punished sin, so that for all who trust in Jesus there is no condemnation.

 

 

 

 

 

Moses: Yahweh’s Total Faithfulness

Moses is up the mountain, standing there before God himself.  We don’t get much about God’s appearing, and we don’t get anything about what it looked like or felt like.  Instead what we get is the name of the LORD:

“Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.””
(Exodus 34:5–7 TNIV)

First of all YHWH pronounces his own name, and the unpacks its meaning.  The proclamation begins with a double calling of YHWH’s name.  Remember how God called to Moses: ‘Moses, Moses’, so perhaps now for Moses there is an echo of his original calling as YHWH now calls his own name.

Alternatively the start of the sentence could be intended to be read ‘YHWH is YHWH, the compassionate and gracious God…’ – in which case it alludes to God saying to Moses ‘I will be who I will be’.  That sentence reminded us that God is not dependent on anyone or anything else.  So perhaps here it would reinforce the idea that God is not dependent on anyone or anything else to be consistently compassionate and gracious.

And so this passage is right at the heart of the Old Testament.  Right at the heart of what it means for God to be God.  It is quoted by Moses in Numbers when the people rebel against God and refuse to go into the land.  God threatens once again to destroy the people, and Moses quotes these verses back to him.

In the midst of a bleak chapter about the people’s rebellion in 2 Kings we read these words:

“But the LORD was gracious to them and had compassion and showed concern for them because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. To this day he has been unwilling to destroy them or banish them from his presence.”
(2 Kings 13:23 TNIV)

Then there are the Psalms.

“He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel: The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.”
(Psalms 103:7–8 TNIV)

“The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.
The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.”
(Psalms 145:8–9 TNIV)

The prophets:

“Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing— grain offerings and drink offerings for the LORD your God.”
(Joel 2:13–14 TNIV)

And somewhat ironically, by Jonah:

“Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened. But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the LORD, “Isn’t this what I said, LORD, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.”
(Jonah 3:9–4:2 TNIV)

Jonah knew that when he was asked to go and preach judgement against a pagan nation because of its wickedness that the very act of preaching judgement would give them a chance to repent.  And he knew that if they repented God would not send the disaster.  So he fled.  Jonah didn’t flee because he was scared of the response he would get.  He fled because he didn’t want God to show mercy and grace to his enemies – and he knew what God was like because he had read Exodus 34.

Jonah, like all the other Israelites knew these words: “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.”

We’ve seen that pairing ‘compassionate and gracious’ back in 33:19.  Here they are once again affirmed as God’s essential character.  He is a God who shows compassion and grace.  Compassion relates to the idea of a fierce love, similar to that of a mother for a child:

“But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.”
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!”
(Isaiah 49:14–15 TNIV)

Think of that bond between mother and child.  That is the bond that exists between God and his people – only stronger.

He is gracious.  He shows favour. Here the image is more of a King granting favour to a subject.  We have done nothing to deserve standing before him, and he grants us that favour.  He is compassionate, and he is gracious. And so, in that passage from 2 Kings mentioned above he does not wipe out Israel, but persists to show grace and compassion to them despite their sin.

He is slow to anger.  This is one of my favourite bits of Hebrew.  It is a very concrete expression – if you translated it literally it would be: he is long of nose.  Why is he long of nose?  The Hebrew expression for getting angry is literally ‘his nose burnt hot’ or similar.  Think of the way we talk about our face getting red.  Long of nose means that it takes a long time for his nose to burn with anger.  He is patient.  That patience gives us time, time to repent, knowing that if we turn to him he will be gracious and compassionate.

He abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness.  Here is another wonderful pairing of words.  The word translated love above is more than just that conjured up by the English word ‘love’.  This is not the love of the pop song: “You know I love you, I always will, my mind is made up by the way that I feel’.  So that when my feeling changes, then so does the love.

No, God’s love is not dependent on whim, or fancy.  Instead it is the love of the covenant.  The love of the promise.  The love of the vows at the wedding ceremony: for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.  God’s love is steadfast and unshakeable, because it comes from God’s character of compassion and grace.  If you want a ‘definition’ of God’s steadfast love read Psalm 136 which has the constant refrain “his steadfast love endures for ever” as the story of Israel from creation to the promised land is recited.

His steadfast love is a faithful love.  The word faithful here relates to the idea of truth.  Not simply in the abstract sense of being ‘correct’, but in the sense of being trustworthy, reliable, dependable.

In a world where each day seems to bring new revelations about yet another political, media or religious leader’s hypocrisy and sin that is good news.

Our God has no skeletons in the cupboard. No dark side. What he says and does are utterly consistent. Faithful and true.

Our God has never abused anyone. Never colluded in anyone’s abuse. And does not approve of cover ups.

Our God is totally and utterly reliable.

Compassionate.
Gracious.
Slow to anger.
Abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

Maintaining love to thousands. The word for maintaining can often be used for keeping or guarding, so it carries the idea that God is careful to keep on showing steadfast love.  God is not get bored of doing it, he isn’t going to give up on the idea of showing care and love.  He is our keeper, and he keeps us by keeping on showing steadfast love.

And forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin – all three commonly used words for sin in the Old Testament are used here – they overlap in meaning, but using all three of them means that everything is covered.  Everything can be forgiven.  I imagine that it was these words David had in mind when he prayed his prayer for forgiveness after his adultery with Bathsheba:

“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.”
(Psalms 51:1–2 TNIV)

The word for mercy here is the word translated grace in Exodus 34, and the word ‘unfailing love’ is the same as that translated love in Exodus 34.  David appeals to God’s grace, God’s steadfast love and God’s great compassion to get rid of all his sin – and again the three words used for sin in Psalm 51 are the same words as Exodus 34 – David’s description of his sin is as comprehensive as it can be.  He knows his only hope is in the grace and mercy of God who forgives wickedness, rebellion and sin.

All that is implied in the name of YHWH.  That is why we get verses like the Proverb – the name of the LORD is a strong tower, the righteous run into it, and they are safe.  God’s character provides us with the security we need.

That is why the name of Jesus is so important in the New Testament also.  Jesus is the Greek form of Joshua, which means YHWH saves.  Jesus, according to Paul in Philippians 2 is given the ‘name which is above every name’.  Jesus is YHWH come among us, YHWH as a man.  He comes with power over sickness, demons and death.  He comes with power over the sea, and over the wind and waves.

Jesus does what only YHWH can do.  In his life, death and resurrection he shows what this steadfast love and faithfulness look like in everyday life.  He comes, as John says, from the Father full of grace and truth – full of steadfast love and faithfulness.  So we have songs like this one which I love:

 Jesus, what a beautiful name.
Son of God, Son of Man,
Lamb that was slain.
Joy and peace, strength and hope,
grace that blows all fear away.
Jesus, what a beautiful name.

Jesus, what a beautiful name.
Truth revealed, my future sealed,
healed my pain.
Love and freedom, life and warmth,
grace that blows all fear away.
Jesus, what a beautiful name.

Jesus, what a beautiful name.
Rescued my soul, my stronghold,
lifts me from shame.
Forgiveness, security, power and love,
grace that blows all fear away.
Jesus, what a beautiful name.

Tanya Riches (Hillsongs 1995)

Tomorrow we’ll move on to the second part of the unpacking of the divine name, and see that this steadfast love and forgiveness does not mean we can simply do what we like and ignore him.