Lent 24 post 16

 Exodus 32.1-14

A brutal shock

If you'd been reading the book of Exodus up to this point, at 32.1-6 you'd feel that the story crashes to earth right here. Here are people who have experienced God's greatest act of redemption in human history (chapters 1-18), until the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ will take place. Here are people who, in the midst of earth-shaking events at Mount Sinai, have received from God their identity and mission to be God's priestly and holy people among all the nations in the whole earth (19.3-6). Here are people who have received God's gifts of grace for a redeemed community, God's law and covenant, to which they have responded by promising three times to obey all that God commanded (chapters 20-24). Here are people in whose midst the living God wants to dwell, and to whom he has given detailed instructions for the tent in which he will do so (chapters 25-31).

In these last seven chapters, you'll have been in the glorious presence of God with Moses on the mountaintop, just trying to visualise the sumptuous beauty, the intricacies of white, blue and scarlet embroidery, the glinting of gold and silver and bronze, the warm glow of oil lamps and the fragrance of incense, all to adorn the place where God wished to dwell.

The fall of Israel 

But in six verses of blatant disobedience and idolatry with a ridiculous calf made of melted gold earrings, Aaron and the people break the first three of the Ten Commandments. They explicitly reject the God who had brought them up out of Egypt (20.2-3, 32.4). They make an idol. And they abuse the name of Yahweh in a blasphemous parody of the covenant ceremony (32.5-6, 24.5,11). It's like committing adultery on your wedding night. It's like the story of the story of the fall in Genesis 3, after the beauty of Genesis 1-2. This is the fall of Israel. 

For here also are the people whom God has created and called to be the means of blessing to the nations (Genesis 12.1-3). But Israel turns out to be just as sinful as the rest of humanity, rebellious, idolatrous, immoral. The people through whom God wills to bring healing to the nations are themselves infected by the virus of sin and rebellion. We should be shocked and depressed. 

What can God do? Well, he could wipe out this bunch of stiff-necked rebels and start again with Moses instead of Abraham (.10). But in the very act of suggesting that and warning Moses to stand aside, God mysteriously pauses for a moment (after all, God could have just acted without telling Moses at all, couldn't he?). God leaves space for grace, the grace of intercession. It almost seems, don't you think, that God wants Moses to speak up. And he does. Fast.

Urgent intercession 

Moses steps into the gap and boldly argues with God, objecting vigorously to the whole idea that God could utterly destroy this people (32.11-13). His intercession is split over two days, and today we see the first vital part, the beginnings of forgiveness. Moses makes three rapid but profound appeals.

1. God's relationship with Israel (.11). Look at verse 7, where God talked to Moses about ‘your people whom you brought up out of Egypt’. But Moses robustly objects. ‘Excuse me, Lord,’ he says,  ‘but they are your people, and you brought them out of Egypt. They belong to you by your own redemption.’ It is God who started this whole covenant relationship. 

2. God's name and reputation (.12). What will the Egyptians think of Yahweh God if he takes so much trouble getting his people out of slavery and then kills them anyway? What kind of malicious or incompetent god is that? Think again, God! 

3. God’s covenant promise (.13). ‘Remember . . . Abraham.’ God could not go back on the oath he had sworn on his own life. In appealing to God to change his mind at this terrifying moment, Moses was actually appealing to God to be consistent with his ancient promise and all it would mean for Israel, and indeed for the world.