Moses was in need of a confidence boost.
God called Moses to lead a huge undertaking, a mighty migration of epic proportions, filled with great challenges and tribulations.
Moses was reluctant at first. Remember, at the Burning Bush, how he tried to convince God to send someone else? But Moses soon demonstrated that he was, in fact, the right man for the job.
He courageously confronted the king of Egypt, Pharaoh himself. He led God’s people out of Egypt and through the wilderness. He prepared them for life in the Promised Land.
But it was so hard. It was a struggle. Day after day, he woke up and led God’s people, but 40 years in the wilderness is a long time. Would they ever arrive in the Promised Land? Would the people ever learn to trust God completely?
Every day, some new challenge arose. Every day, there was some new headache. Every day, Moses himself had to struggle just to get out of bed and do what he had been called to do.
And some days, he got so frustrated with the people he was leading, that he just wanted to kill them. Some days, God got so frustrated with the people, that God wanted to kill them! That’s how difficult they were! But of course, neither God nor Moses, no matter how frustrated they were with the people, would actually kill them. Perhaps it was just an expression, one we’ve all used. After all, both Moses and God cared deeply for the people, showing them great love and compassion.
Still, Moses needed some support. He needed to vent. He needed some reassurance. He needed a confidence boost. So one day, he said to God, “Look: you’ve been telling me, ‘Lead these people forward.’ Well, I’ve been trying. I can’t do this alone! You’ve given me your approval; you’ve said to me, ‘I know you by name and think highly of you.’ But I need something more…”
God replied, “I’ll go with you. I’ll help you.”
But that wasn’t enough for Moses. Moses said, “I need to know…. So that I know you really are with us, that you really are with me, and that you will stay with me and help me, I ask that you please show me your glorious presence. Let me just see, with my eyes, your presence.”
Moses wanted proof. God is always elusive, mysterious, just out of reach. Is it really God that you are hearing? Is it really God that called you and summoned you? How can you be sure?
When the ghost of Jacob Marley confronted Ebenezer Scrooge, Scrooge wasn’t sure it was really him. Maybe it was a hallucination, caused by spoiled food. “You may be an undigested bit of beef,” Scrooge said, “a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”
How could Moses know for sure that this voice, this presence that had summoned him and guided him, really was God, and not a hallucination caused by an upset stomach?
Maybe Moses wanted to believe, for a moment at least, that it wasn’t God. Maybe Moses, like Scrooge, was hoping that it was all in his head. Then he could dismiss it all, and go back to watching sheep for his father-in-law Jethro and live in peace. These people he was leading - so frustrating! What was he really leading them for?
“If it’s really you, God, show me; show me your glorious presence, so that I can know. I’m about ready to quit. I’m about ready to throw in the towel, unless I know that it is really, really you that has been calling me.”
God listened to Moses. God heard what Moses was saying. And, for a moment, God sat there, stroking his chin, stroking his beard, thinking.
You can laugh at that, by the way. Any anthropomorphic description of God is, when you think about it, kind of funny. We can imagine God however we want: with a long white beard, perhaps pacing back and forth as God does in the Garden of Eden, whatever… but, like Moses, we cannot see the true nature and glory of God. If God were to come and stand right here in our sanctuary, what would God look like? If God were to stand here in our sanctuary and you were to take a picture of God, what would that look like?
It’s kind of a crazy question, which I’ll come back to shortly…
So Moses asked to see God, to see God’s glory, and God thought about it and said, “I’ll make all my goodness pass in front of you, and I’ll proclaim before you the name, ‘The Lord.’ I will be kind to whomever I wish to be kind, and I will have compassion to whomever I wish to be compassionate.
“But,” the Lord said, “you can’t see my face because no one can see me and live.” The Lord said, “Here is a place near me where you will stand beside the rock. As my glorious presence passes by, I’ll set you in a gap in the rock, and I’ll cover you with my hand until I’ve passed by. Then I’ll take away my hand, and you will see my back - just my back - but my face won’t be visible.”
So Moses got to see God… but not really. Moses got a glimpse of God. Moses got a glimpse of God from the rear. Anthropomorphically speaking, Moses got a glimpse of God’s…what? God’s backside? Was God mooning Moses? That’s what some scholars - serious scholars - think.
You can laugh at that, by the way.
One scholar said that God was mooning Moses, because Moses’ request to see God was a bit too - wait for it - cheeky.
Moses gets to see God… but not directly. It’s a partial view, an obscured view. Apparently, God can be seen, but God is holy and other and is not seen easily or clearly.
In the next chapter of Exodus, Moses gets to see God a little differently, a little more clearly, yet it still isn’t quite what one would expect. God is visibly present, yet at the same time, God remains hidden...
It all reminds me of the story of the blind men who encountered an elephant, and tried to describe it… In case you haven’t heard that story, it goes like this:
Once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, "Hey, there is an elephant in the village today."
The six blind men had no idea what an elephant is. They decided, "Even though we would not be able to see it, let us go and feel it anyway." All of them went where the elephant was. Everyone of them touched the elephant.
"Hey, the elephant is a pillar," said the first man who touched his leg.
"Oh, no! it is like a rope," said the second man who touched the tail.
"Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree," said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant.
"It is like a big hand fan" said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant.
"It is like a huge wall," said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant.
"It is like a solid pipe," Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.
They began to argue about the elephant and everyone of them insisted that he was right. It looked like they were getting agitated.
A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped and asked them, "What is the matter?"
They said, "We cannot agree to what the elephant is like." Each one of them told what he thought the elephant was like.
The wise man calmly explained to them, "All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently is because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features that you all said."
"Oh!" everyone said. There was no more fight. They felt happy that they were all right.
The moral of the story is that there may be some truth to what someone says. Sometimes we can see that truth and sometimes not because they may have different perspective which we may not agree too. So, rather than arguing like the blind men, we should say, "Maybe you have your reasons." This way we don’t get in arguments, and we can live in harmony with the people of different thinking.
How do you know God is real? Wouldn’t you like proof? Wouldn’t you like to see God face-to-face? We just catch a glimpse of his backside, and we wonder: was that God? I didn’t get a good look. I can’t tell…
If only we could see God. That’s what Moses wanted. To see God. That’s what we want: to see God. To see God, and know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God is real, that God is with us, just as God promised. To see God, standing here in front of us, in person...To see God walk down the aisle, shake our hands, or give us a reassuring hug.
Imagine the instagram photos we could share! “Look, a selfie with me and God!” That would probably help us attract more members, anyway...
It’s what Moses wanted. It’s what we want. It’s what so many people want: to see God. To know God.
So many people are praying that God might intervene in their life. Maybe they are struggling. Maybe they just need a friend, or even a smile, and they pray to God for a reason to live, a reason to smile.
Maybe you can be that reason to smile. Maybe you can give them hope. Maybe you can give them just enough of a glimpse of God that they decide to live another day. After all, God’s image is in you. A person can’t know all there is to know about God, but they might learn something. Just a morsel of information. From you. And maybe it will be enough.
You are the image of God. What does that mean? It means that God is present in and through you.
Ancient kings wanted their people to know that the kings were always present among their people, always watching, always looking out for them, always controlling them. So they put their image everywhere: they had statues built of their image. They had coins minted with their image. The people would see the king’s image everywhere, and know that the king was always present.
God didn’t put God’s image on statues or coins. God put God’s image in you. Which means that the only way people are going to see God is if they can see God in you.
So… if God were to come and stand right here in our sanctuary, would God look like an old white man with a long beard? No. God would look like you. You are created in the image of God.
And… God would look like your neighbor. We know God through Jesus. The Bible says that those who have seen the son have seen the Father. But Jesus himself says that you will see him when you look into the face of the one who is hungry, the one who is thirsty, the one who is naked, the one who is sick, the one who is a stranger.
The most holy thing of all, the thing that makes God the most visible, is when the image of God in you recognizes and responds to the image of God in your neighbor. Because even though the image of God is in you, it is incomplete. It’s only part of the elephant. And even though the image of God is in your neighbor, it is incomplete. It’s only part of the elephant.
The image is incomplete until the image of God in you recognizes the image of God in your neighbor, and you respond with love, and you respond with kindness. We are called to love our neighbor because the image of God is in our neighbor. And, as the story of the Good Samaritan shows, it doesn’t matter who our neighbor is, how old she is, what race he is, what religion, what country they are from, how rich or poor they are...Every person you meet is a neighbor.
After the crucifixion, two of Jesus's disciples were walking to Emmaus. They were joined, part way through their journey, by a stranger. The three of them journeyed, and when they reached Emmaus, they treated this stranger as a neighbor. They showed great hospitality, inviting him to dine and stay with them.
They showed love and kindness to this stranger, which then allowed them to see Christ in this stranger. In this stranger, they recognized Jesus. In this stranger, they saw God.
That's how it works.
Do you want to see God? Then find a way to make a connection. Find a way to help a stranger. Find a way to show kindness. Find a way to show love to a stranger, an enemy.
And God will be revealed to you.
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