October 19 2008 Lectionary Reading: Exodus 33

Text: “If You are pleased with me, teach me Your ways” Exodus 33.13 (NIV)

There was a top level meeting in Washington, a few days back, in which President Sarkozy, along with European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, supported by European colleagues came to insist on an overhaul of the financial system of the entire world. Both President Sarkozy and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper are now calling for an international summit by the end of this year to try and get the nations of the world working together to try and find a way out of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

In a speech in Canada to a summit meeting of the French-speaking nations of the world President Sarkozy said.

"We need to reflect on what happened, the consequences, how we arrived here, and who is responsible - and we must draw lessons from it. The world must change !"

To read through the Book of Exodus from its beginning is to read of a deep, profound change - not a financial change, but a change of quite a different kind altogether.

This is a story of sin and, to use an old fashioned word, redemption.

A story of sin and redemption.

Change. At the beginning of the book of Exodus, you see when the people were slaves, oppressed, imprisoned in Egypt, the Lord said to them: I have seen how cruelly my people are being treated in Egypt; I have heard them cry out to be rescued from their slave-drivers. I know all about their sufferings !

But how things have changed, now we read in Exodus 33,

The Lord says “ I will not go with you myself, because you are a stubborn people, and I might destroy you on the way.

What has happened to make this change ? To bring about this drastic transformation ?

Here is the Lord, who had once said “I know all about their sufferings”, who now declares “ I will not go with you” What has happened ?

Has the Lord changed His mind ?

Once, the Lord heard the cries of the people, and came to their rescue, as a redeeming God. Now has He finished with them ? Is God finished with His people ? Is it the Lord who has, in His majesty and power, changed His mind ? No. It is not that !

No ! they have left Him

We read of it in chapter 32,

Even while Moses was on the mountain in God’s presence, receiving the tablets of the law, the guidelines for the people’s life and future, even while Moses was there in the presence of the Lord, at the foot of the mountain, the people, impatient, wanting immediate action of some kind, had persuaded, forced, Aaron, the priest, to make them a golden bull. He gave them instructions to collect all the gold earrings in the camp, and melting these down Aaron made a gold bull. They would now be just like every other nation round about, just like everybody else with an idol, the Philistines had Dagon, the people of Ammon had Molech, Israel now had a bull. This, said the people, is our god who led us out of Egypt !and This was to be the focus of their worship.

This people created by God, shaped by God, redeemed by God from dreadful oppression in Egypt, guided and protected across trackless wastes by God, their source of life, protector, guide, Shepherd. This people turn their back on Him, in their sin.

So, immediately catastrophe threatens. They have turned their back on life.

And God, will longer accompany them.

Why not ? It is because He is the Holy One.

Exodus 19 tells us of what happened at Mt. Sinai.

As the people waited at the foot of the mountain, the crashing noise and the trembling of the mountain spoke of God’s Holy Presence – is inexpressible power, majesty and Holiness.

The living God is the Lord of holiness, a holiness which cannot live with the presence of sin, or evil. The living God is the Lord of righteousness, a righteousness which will not compromise with any iniquity at all, but meets it like a consuming fire.

In fact, we see this all through Israel’s history. At the same time as God comes closer to His people - at the same time we see the rejection and resistance to God that is so deeply embedded in the human heart.

Why the very word Yisrael…… means – the One who struggles with God

In the Holy presence of the living God, there can be no shades or degrees of sin, only the power, majesty of His Holiness.

This is why God will no longer accompany a people like this.....

Now, Exodus 33 records - The people now realise how desperate their situation is. Their critical situation is beginning to sink through to them. That deep, profound glorious relationship with the living God has gone, and with it life itself. Now, Moses makes his way through the silent camp, and out to the Tent placed between the camp and the wide open desert. The place where he meets with the Lord, where he rests in the Lord’s presence, where he prays. And in the power of prayer, Moses the one faithful man in the midst of this people, prays to the living God on behalf of all the people. Just as Abraham prayed to the living God outside on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah, that desperate place of sinfulness, prayed for those in the city, just as the prophet Jeremiah prayed on behalf of his own people threatened with destruction, just as the prophet Amos cries out for forgiveness for his people in their desperate situation, so Moses prays.

And asks the living Holy God might stay with them.

Moses: says:

If Your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. What else will distinguish me and Your people from all the other people on the face of the earth ?

And here is the Lord’s reply:

The Lord says to Moses: I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you... and I know you by name. And so the relationship between the Lord and His people is restored. Moses, the faithful man, who prays for his people.

Moses does not hide, does not deny the sinfulness of the people,

but throws himself and his people completely on the love of God,

Who is ‘merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness... forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin............’ and in the living God finds grace.........

The New Testament speaks of Jesus as the most righteous man of all.

As Moses of old, prayed for the sinful people of Israel, so the letter to the Hebrews declares that the Lord Jesus comes before God and prays for us. This is a great and deep mystery. But the letter to the Hebrews declares that Jesus Christ brings our situation, our condition, what we have made of this earth, what we have made of our own lives, and what we have done to others, our sin before God.

And from the living God who is ‘merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness... forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin............’

there flows living, healing, life creating grace......... for you and me.

We are nearly at a close. But before we leave these fascinating chapters, however, let us recognise this. That in this story of the people’s sin, and God’s loving grace already here in the Book of Exodus..........is the very heart of the gospel..... the gospel message of sin and forgiveness

Look again at Exodus, here we see

that the defiance, the disobedience of Israel shatters the relationship

with the living God. That’s exactly what Paul is saying in Ephesians 2.12

exactly his theme, “you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope, without God in the world.”

Just like Israel of old that is our situation.

The relationship with the holy God is broken by our sin.

But here is the remedy:

“Now”, declares Paul, “in Christ Jesus, you who were

far away have been brought near by the death of Christ”

The gospel message declares that God has acted decisively to redeem us,
at the Cross. At the Cross, our sin was laid on Jesus Christ, He has taken

the sin of the world upon Himself, and has taken it away once and for all.

There at the Cross the sin and guilt that burdens our hearts, and keeps us separated from God, is dealt with once and for all. Through the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, our sins included, we are forgiven, and brought into the presence of the Holy God

So, like Israel of old, we come to know the joy of reconciliation with the Father and the peace of forgiveness, healing, peace-giving comfort wells up into the depths of our souls, cleansing in its power, relieving our deepest burdens. Like Israel of old, we hear the Lord’s voice declare to us

I will go with you, and I will give you victory

AMEN.