Prayer of
Invocation
Father, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and
love; and, that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Proclamation
Who’s the
most famous person that you’ve ever met or seen in person? Can you remember
what you felt like when you saw him or her? The heart racing, the hands
clamming up; on the one hand you felt woefully and supremely inadequate, and on
the other you felt uniquely privileged to be in the presence of such greatness.
I know Campbell will probably say meeting Steph Curry (who by the way, I’ve
been informed, I rank above in coolness according to a recent Confirmand poll),
or getting a Dude Perfect video sent to him for his birthday.
When I
was about 11, I met John Madden. At that time he was the head football coach of
the Oakland Raiders. He was a huge man, with huge hands, and he was sitting on
the edge of my parents’ bed with my dad, learning to do play by play for
football games. (My father trained coaches and former athletes to do play by
play. Madden was one of his first clients!) Somehow the whole neighborhood
heard that Madden was in our house. When I looked out the window I noticed a
crowd had gathered in our yard. They wanted an autograph, they wanted to see
him face-to-face, to shake his massive hand, to see his glory if you will. I
was in awe; I felt woefully inadequate. And at the same time, I felt uniquely
privileged beyond all my neighbors.
A funny
thing happened to me after that event. My dad got very famous as a sportscaster
for the major San Francisco news channel (in those days we didn’t have ESPN and
local news people were famous). Everywhere we would go people would stop us and
ask for his autograph, try to talk to him. And, as a result of his sports show,
I got a chance to meet all kinds of famous people: Joe Montana, Jose Canseco,
Mark McGuire, Ricky Henderson, Dwight Clark, Chris Mullen, John Elway, Jerry
Rice, Bill Walsh, to name a few. But after one or two invitations to meet these
famous people, I began refusing the offers. Why? Because it had become so
ordinary, so familiar. I had other things to do. I was around famous
people so much that it didn’t feel unique, special, or awe-inspiring.
It’s a
crude analogy, but it is not far off: sometimes we can get that way with God.
We can become so familiar with God, so used to meeting with Him, so used to
talking with Him and about Him, that we forget who we are dealing with. In
fact, we can often domesticate God, turning him into a predictable God that we
grow complacent with. Our text this morning from Exodus 34 is part of a
larger unit, Exodus 32-34, in which we are reminded of who we are dealing with
when we regularly meet with God. It’s really important for us to be reminded of
this encounter that God had with Moses and Israel, in part because it keeps us
from domesticating God, turning him into our pet comforter.
Exodus
32-34 presents a complex and in some regards a paradoxical picture of God. One
the one hand, God is a terrifying, consuming fire. He warns Moses to keep the
people and even the animals clear of Him as He visits Moses on the
mountain--lest they be consumed with fire. The people themselves are afraid of
Him, so they ask Moses to speak to Him on their behalf. God is dangerous. And
there is a sense in which He is so dangerous that precautions must be made
before one meets with Him. We also learn in Exodus 32 that God’s love is
expressed as wrath when it meets with sin and rebellion. The wider story of
Exodus and Leviticus, however, paint a picture of a holy, consuming God
making it possible for a sinful people to have fellowship with Him--lest they
be destroyed.
But,
Exodus 33-34 also present a complementary picture of God, one that describes
God’s goodness as so overpowering that if one were to fully encounter it, it
would leave you overwhelmed--it would also destroy you. For YHWH says to Moses,
“I will make my goodness pass before you...but you cannot see my face, for man
shall not see me and live (Exod 33.19-20).
It is
important to remember that God has not changed. We gather this morning to
worship this same God, as familiar as He may be to us. Our text this morning, Exodus
34.1-9, is one of our first introductions into what we now often take for
granted: grace. Yes, grace is not a new idea that Jesus and Paul
introduce us to in the New Testament. Grace is rooted in the very character of
God from the beginning. The Gospel of John reminds of this: “For from [Jesus’]
fullness we have all received grace upon grace. The law was given through Moses
[the first act of grace]; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has
ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him
known.” (John 1.16-18) The point that John is making is that the grace we learn
about in God’s interactions with Moses has been extended and amplified in
Jesus.
This
encounter that Moses has with God in Exodus 34 is the culmination of a
conversation that the two have been carrying on. Moses and the people that he
has brought out of Egypt are in no-man’s land. They are in the wilderness--a
dangerous and precarious place. They are faced with two dangers: the God who
has delivered them, and the place in which they now abide--a world of chaos,
fear, scarcity, and unknown terrors lurking in the shadows. Moses pleads with
God: “go with me. I need, we need, Your presence and Your favor. Show me your
ways, show me your glory, or else leave us here to die.” (Exod 33.14-16).
God
promises Moses that He will indeed go with him, and will give him the rest they
are looking for (Exod 33.14). But before he moves them along, He reveals
Himself in a manner that becomes foundational for the rest of the Scriptures.
The Lord passes by Moses and proclaims who He is: “merciful, gracious, slow to
anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love
to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but
who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the the iniquity of the fathers
on the children and the children’s children to the third and fourth generation
(Exod 34.6-7).”
It’s a
complex picture, and one that has been misunderstood. Yes, God’s primary mode
of being is that of grace and mercy; of giving people what they do not deserve,
of not giving people what they do deserve. And yet, we learn in Exodus 34 that
God is just. He will punish sin. But even in this there is a great
disproportion. God visits his grace and mercy on the thousdandth generation.
But his judgement for sin only reaches to the third and fourth generation. It
is a picture that prepares us for our reality--there will be rebellion,
disobedience, and sin. But in spite of that God will remain faithful to his
promise, he will not break off a relationship with us because of our rebellion
and sin. This is what “steadfast love” or chesed means. God extends
mercy even when the relationship He has set for us has been broken.
But this
mercy is not to be presumed upon. You see, way before Paul ever wrote Romans 6,
people have been tempted to ask, “shall we sin so that grace or steadfast love
may abound?” Far before Paul, God’s grace was treated as an excuse to continue
in sin. But we learn here, that the gracious and merciful one does and will
judge sin and punish rebellion: “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious,
and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy (Exod 33.19).”
It is
important to note the context in which God reveals Himself in this way--in the
midst of Israel’s rebellion! God offers to go with Moses and the people in the
midst of their sin. God acknowledges that the people are a “stiff-necked” lot,
but nevertheless promises to go with them. In other words, in the narrative,
God chooses to go with Moses and the people precisely because they are
who they are--sinners, rebellious, stiff-necked!
Moses’
response is important, and it should be ours. Worship. “Moses quickly bowed his
head toward the earth and worshipped (Exodus 34.8).” This terrifying,
awful (in the original sense of the word), dangerous God is also wonderfully
full of mercy and grace. And He has extended this grace to Moses and the
people, and has promised to go with them. The only fitting response is awe and
wonder; gratitude and humility. We are in the presence of greatness. His
presence not only makes us feel woefully and supremely inadequate, but also
uniquely privileged. That’s what His favor does for us.
I say us,
because, as we know, this grace and favor has been extended to us. We stand
before the same God. Moses prayed, “take us for your inheritance”. And in Jesus
Christ and by the Spirit, this is what God has extended to us. Paul says it like
this in our charter text, Ephesians: “In [Jesus], you also, when you heard the
word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed
with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of His inheritance of us
until He acquires possession of it, to the praise of His glory (Eph
1.13-14).” Our English translations of Ephesians 1.11-14 don’t always
draw this out as they should, but the point that Paul is making here is that we
have been incorporated into God’s favor, we have joined Israel as God’s
inheritance. And the sign of this is the Holy Spirit, who marks us out and by
which God says “You are mine!” And this is His glory! For we too are a
stiff-necked people, a people full of sin and rebellion, a people prone to make
up our own idols too, only now they are more sophisticated: wealth, fame,
comfort, self-determination, independence, pleasure, nationalism, sexual
identity, ethnic identity to name but a few. It is precisely because this is
who we are that God goes with us and shows favor towards us. To save us. And to
manifest yet again that He is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and
abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness”.
Eucharist
But this
comes at a cost, as the Table reminds us. This Table not only communicates to
us that God desires to fellowship with us, but also that sin must be punished,
atoned for. For this merciful and gracious God, who abounds in steadfast love
and faithfulness, must deal with our sin and rebellion. At the Table, he is
both just and the one who justifies (or makes right). He does this through
Jesus Christ--the ultimate sign of His steadfast love and faithfulness. For God
put forth Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement for us all--so that those who
pledge their allegiance to Jesus do not receive the punishment they deserve.
The punishment that we all deserve has fallen instead on Jesus: this is the
great exchange.
And what
is our fitting response? Worship. Worship expressed in awe, gratitude, and
humility. Worship expressed in the taking of these elements, this gifts of God,
with awe, humility, and gratitude, so that we may share in fellowship with this
God that has been revealed to us in Exodus 34. So let’s take of the body and
blood of Jesus Christ; let us worship this God of abounding steadfast love and
faithfulness. For not even our sin and rebellion can keep this God from showing
His favor to us, nor can it keep us from His presence.
Reflection
and Discussion Questions
- Are there ways
in our own life in which God becomes overly familiar and
predictable?
- Does familiarity
with God breed complacency in you?
- How might the
picture of God presented to us in Exodus 34.1-9 protect us from
domesticating God?
- How does Exodus
34.1-9, read in light of Jesus, lead us to worship?
Benediction
Blessed
is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is
the one against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is
no deceit.
Psalm 32.1-2
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