Exodus 33:12-23
The longer I’ve been a pastor, the more I have felt able to understand Moses. I’ve always been fascinated by the stories in Exodus and the people’s experiences of being freed from slavery in Egypt and their journey to the Promised Land. Of course, part of my fascination came from watching the movie “The Ten Commandments” every Easter time when it came on TV. The special effects were pretty amazing for the time in which it was made. And the screen presence of Charlton Heston playing the part of Moses was palpable.
But as the years have passed and I have found myself in some difficult times and hard situations as a pastor, I have come to read the story of Moses in a much more personal way. I have been appointed to churches that didn’t want a woman minister and who made every day of my time with them challenging and uncomfortable. I have been appointed to churches that were divided, often over the pastor I was sent to replace, and significant venting and healing needed to take place. I have served churches that were facing the reality that they were no longer able to support a full-time pastor and trying to figure out what they would look like going forward. It is often stressful, frequently frustrating, sometimes seemingly impossible, incredibly challenging, at times tedious, and the most wonderful work in the world.
I can relate to this story about Moses out there by Mount Sinai. He was stressed out, too. He had been up on the mountain meeting with God to receive the covenant law, but the people had grown impatient because he was gone so long. So they talked Aaron into making them an idol to worship, a golden calf. When Moses came down from the mountain carrying the stone tablets on which God had carved the Ten Commandments, he found the people enthusiastically bowing down to and celebrating and worshiping this idol. He was so angry that he threw the tablets down on the ground and they broke into pieces. After punishing the people for their sinfulness, God told Moses to get them started again on their journey towards the Promised Land. But from now on, God said, he would not accompany them in person; instead, he would send an angel to go with them and protect them.
Moses was not at all satisfied with this arrangement. He knew that it was going to be incredibly difficult to lead this group of stiff-necked, stubborn, impatient people on the rest of their journey to the land God had promised them. Moses also knew that the only way to make it work was if God would go with them, in person. He wanted some kind of reassurance from God and he begged God to go with them. Finally God agreed that his Presence would be with the people, and Moses replied that if God’s Presence didn’t go with them, then the people should not move forward at all. And God repeated his promise to go with the people.
Then Moses asked for a more demonstrative kind of reassurance. Moses asked God, “Show me your glory.” Moses knew that without God, he could do nothing on his own. And he wanted an experience of God that would give him the courage and strength and spiritual energy he needed in order to complete his mission. “Show me your glory.” What he was really asking was, “Let me see you, God. Let me be sure that you’re really there. Prove to me that you are who you say you are.”
I’m sure that none of us has ever asked God for something like that! Of course, we have! I think that everybody, at one time or another, has wanted, needed, evidence that God is real and that what we believe about him is true. We want God to show himself to us. We need to see for ourselves that God is God. Sometimes it feels like we need to see in order to believe. And so we ask God to show us his glory, to show us himself.
The past few years have been difficult in so many ways, more than I can even count. Events and situations have been disturbing, frightening, challenging, and frustrating. We have been angry, sad, confused, afraid, isolated, and stunned. The world we see now is not the world we thought we understood. Our faith has been tested. We have asked big questions and often gotten unsatisfactory answers. Maybe because there are no answers that would satisfy us. We have wished for things to get back to normal, the way they were before the pandemic, before the racial unrest, before the country was so divided. But things are never going back to normal; instead, we find ourselves in a new normal. How do we cope with all the change and challenge? We say to God, “Show me your glory. Let me see you. Let me know that you are really here with me.”
Moses asked, “Show me your glory.” And God agreed to that request. He said that Moses would be allowed to see him, but there would be certain restrictions in place. Moses would be allowed to see God’s glory, but not God’s face. No one could look on the face of God and live. And so God would hide Moses in the cleft of a rock while his glory passed by, and he would cover Moses with his hand, and then allow Moses to look at his back. Presumably, that was enough for Moses.
Can you even imagine such a thing? Can you picture God’s glory? Can you imagine seeing God, even if it is just his back? It’s hard to do. What would God look like? Could we even take it all in?
But then, maybe we have seen God’s glory, just not in the ways we might have expected. I saw God’s glory on the face of a little African-American boy hugging a white police officer. I saw God’s glory in the nurses and doctors and other medical personnel who tended to the sick and dying during the worst of the COVID pandemic. I saw God’s glory in the actions of those who reached out to their neighbors who were displaced by wildfires and floods and storms. I saw God’s glory in your faces when we were finally able to worship in person again after being apart for so long. I see God’s glory in the bright autumn leaves and the clear, starry sky. I hear God’s glory in music and laughter. I feel God’s glory in the hand of a friend holding mine. God’s glory is there for us to see, we just need to look for it.
Moses asked for an experience of God, and God gave it to him. And Moses was then able to go ahead and do the things that God asked him to do. He led the people to the Promised Land.
When we experience God’s presence in powerful ways, we find that we are then able to go ahead and do the things that God calls us to do. Don’t be afraid to ask God to show himself to you. And remember that God does that in many ways. It may be in the beauty of an autumn afternoon, or in the words of a hymn, or in the voice of a loved one.
“Show me your glory.” I thank God that he answered that prayer for Moses, and for me, and for many of his children. I thank God for letting us know that he is there.
