Faith's Underbelly - Living God's Presence

Preached on Sunday, August 27, 2017

Scripture readings: Exodus 33:12-34:9; Matthew 28:16-20

Photos taken around Imperial Beach and San Diego, CA
June 2017

When I was a student in seminary, there was another student named Gordon. One day, at lunch, Gordon shared a conviction of his that people could never properly understand the Bible, unless they knew Hebrew and Greek.

Gordon was a pretty scholarly guy, and I knew that he had more Hebrew and Greek in him than I did; so, naturally, I disagreed with him. I told him to the effect that if you read the Bible sincerely, and prayerfully, and humbly, that the Holy Spirit will help you to understand and to learn whatever you need to know.

Gordon disagreed with me. He and I argued about this for a while, and neither of us changed the other’s mind. I still haven’t changed my mind.

As I think back to that incident, I find myself wondering where on earth Gordon was coming from. For me, one of the primary realities of God is the constant effectiveness of God’s presence. God’s presence is constant and infinite. God’s presence is constantly effective, constantly working: meaning that the Lord’s presence is constantly available to those who seek it, and the Lord’s presence constantly works to give them the help they need.

The Lord’s presence enables us to understand his message in the Bible, according to our need. The Lord’s presence also enables us to do even greater things, and much harder and seemingly relentless things.

Moses and his people had all seen the power of God’s presence. In spite of this, God’s people, and even Moses, show a lack of faith in the constant, continual nature of God’s presence. And, although they knew how powerful God’s presence was, they lacked faith in its effectiveness.

The people were afraid that their problems were too big for God to handle. Moses was afraid that his people were too much for God to handle.

Was God truly stronger than their weaknesses and their sins? There are people who fear that their weakness and their sins may prove stronger than God effective presence. To live life in all its potential and fullness we need God’s presence to work effective within us. We need God to have his own way, and to not leave us to our own ways. “Lord, teach me your ways!”

Growing up, I had some weaknesses that my parents tried to cure, but I outlasted them. Were those weaknesses stronger than my parents’ love? Families deal with such things all the time.

God’s people had a knack for blowing their relationship with God. Since God, himself, claims to be “slow to anger” I think we can assume that we know only a fraction of the times his people got it wrong every day. Was their knack for betrayal and dysfunction stronger than God’s knack for being slow to anger? Did the anger of God that we so often read about really build up slowly?

Moses keeps bringing up the matter of God’s real constant and effective presence. Moses is clearly worried. Under many variations, he asks the Lord: “Teach me your ways. Show me your glory.”

Moses wanted to see, or to know, God clearly enough so that he, and his people, could securely rely on God not giving up on them until his will was done. Would the Lord truly promise to be with them always, and no matter what? Could Moses meet with the Lord in such a way, and with such intimacy and clarity, that he could truly and finally know for sure?

Do you want to know for sure?

So, what does Moses ask to see and know? And what do we read that he saw?

My knowledge of Hebrew has shrunk to a pitiful state, but maybe it would be good for me to give you an idea of the strangeness of what we are thinking about. The Lord told Moses, “You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” (33:20) Earlier, in verse fourteen, the Lord told Moses, “My presence will go with you.” (33:14) The interesting thing, here, is that the English word “presence” translates the Hebrew word “face”. “My face will go with you.” But it is a face that cannot be seen. The thing is, here, that the Hebrew word for “face” doesn’t stress the anatomical face with its measurable and physical features: eyes, nose, mouth. The word “face” means being close, and in contact, and directly present. A husband and wife can be face to face together in their room, in the darkness of night.

The word “glory” doesn’t mean appearance. It means heaviness. It means being heavy and weighty. How much weight you carry doesn’t mean what the scale says when you stand on it, or how much weight you can press or lift. The weight you carry sort of means how much push or pull you have in the world around you. God’s glory is a weight like that, and that glory is all powerful. God has infinite push and pull.

In the Bible, God’s glory looks like light. If you saw glory, you would see light. But God’s weight is made of something. The Lord tells us what it is that gives him so much weight, in chapter thirty-four, verses six and seven: compassion, grace, slowness to anger, abundant love, abundant faithfulness or truth, keeping love to thousands of generations (which is what the Hebrew means), forgiving wickedness rebellion and sin, punishing as long as four generations; but that’s comparatively short next to his love lasting for thousands of generations. That last phrase is interesting, isn’t it?

These represent the nature of God. They represent who and what God is, and they describe God’s glory. These are the anatomy of God that describes why God has all-powerful weight, and push, and pull. In God’s universe, God’s creation, these are the energy of God: God’s weight, God’s glory. These are God’s ways: how God operates and even how God expects us to operate.

These are God’s presence. These are what God looks like. It’s what Moses asked to see, and God showed it to him. God made all his goodness to pass before Moses, and that’s what Moses saw. (Exodus 33:19)

Moses’ face got lit up like a light bulb from catching these rays. God’s glory got put on Moses’ face and the people were scared by what they saw, in that light, when Moses came down the mountain.

Why would compassion be scary? Maybe God’s compassion is so much bolder and stronger than ours that it can be terrifying. We would all, perhaps, claim that we would like to see more compassion in this world, but what if that compassion scared us, once we really saw it for what it was?

Think about this on a human level. And this isn’t even a Christian example. In rebel held areas of Syria, there are civilian volunteers called “White Helmets” who are committed to saving and helping other civilians who get trapped and injured by bombings and other violence of war. The White Helmets stand for compassion for those in dire need, even though the White Helmets have a one-in-six chance of being injured or killed in the process of their saving the lives of others. That is some scary compassion.

What if you were called upon to supply some kind of scary compassion? God’s own compassion is scary in exactly the same way. Jesus says, “I will be with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20) When Jesus is with you, it means that a crucified person is with you. Of course, it also means that a resurrected person is with you, but is that any less scary, when you think about it?

Jesus was tortured to death for the sins of the world, and for your sins, and for mine. Think what it means to be guided through life by a person who was unjustly killed for you, as if he were the bad one, and that he got himself into that mess simply in order to die as a sacrifice for all the evil in the world.

He willingly became a bloody mess for everyone, and while Jesus waited in the garden for that to happen, and while he prayed in agony over it, he sweated blood. (Luke 22:44) Jesus found his own compassion to be that scary. That compassion is his glory, and he wants to share that glory with us and make it ours.

Moses prayed, “Teach me your ways.” It’s the same as asking “Show me your glory.” Jesus really says to make disciples by teaching the nations his ways, which means showing the nations his glory: “Teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:20)

Jesus says, “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:44-45) Jesus prayed for his enemies while they were killing him on the cross, “Father, forgive them.” (Luke 23:34” Jesus is sharing his glory with us by showing us his ways and telling us to follow. “If anyone would come after me he must deny himself and take us his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24) If we do that, we will shine with the glory of Jesus and his Father.

Moses prayed, “Teach me your ways so that I may know you and continue to find favor with you.” (33:13) Moses wanted to learn God’s ways, for himself and for his people, for two reasons. One reason was simply to know God more deeply (meaning to grow in his love and trust for God). The second reason was so that he and his people could continue to find favor with the Lord, by learning God’s ways and obeying them, making his ways into their ways.

Finding favor (as a whole concept in Hebrew) means giving pleasure, but it also means finding grace, and mercy, and the power to do the Lord’s will, by living the Lord’s ways in their own lives. Then the glory of the Lord would shine out from them, just as the glory of the Lord would shine out from Moses’ face.

The Lord’s compassion is to be our compassion. The Lord’s graciousness is to be our graciousness. The Lord’s slowness to anger should be our same slowness. And the Lord’s forgiveness being bigger than any anger should be true of us, as well.

Maybe God’s glory appears as light because our own world is often so dark.

Sometimes it’s said that seeing God’s back but not seeing God’s face means seeing what God has done, but not yet what God will do. Moses didn’t see what God would do in Christ. Moses saw that God’s love reached thousands of generations (well, for at least four hundred years of slavery in Egypt). Moses saw that God’s anger would only go for three or four.

God’s love was bigger than his anger, and this is exactly what God’s face was going to show in Jesus. The victory and the glory of the cross and the resurrection are more lasting, truer, more powerful, and more effectively present with us now, and for all time, than our own weakness, and our wrongs, and the whole world’s evil.

That is the presence of the Lord. That is God’s way. That is God’s glory, and God wants to make his glory your own.