Wednesday 19 November 2014

Background

While Moses was on the top of Mount Sinai for 40 days and 40nights receiving instruction on the form of worship and theequipment required (Exodus 25-31) the people of Israel becameanxious. They needed reassurance that God truly was with them inthe wilderness and would be with them in the journey ahead, andthey sought that reassurance in physical form. The irony is thatwhat they asked of Aaron - a physical structure to represent thepresence of God with them and an altar at which to worship God -was precisely what God was giving Moses instructions for on themountain-top (the tabernacle and the altar before it).

The people were not intending to reject Yahweh, they were justnot prepared to wait for Yahweh's timing. Instead of being contentto be dependent on God for their reassurance, they took mattersinto their own hands and sought to meet that need by their ownefforts. This was what incurred the wrath of Yahweh; who had justentered into a covenant with them in which Yahweh promised toprotect and take care of them and to dwell (tabernacle) with them,and almost immediately they showed a lack of faith in this promiseand an arrogantly independent (stiff-necked) attempt to protectthemselves. God is limited only by the free will that has beengiven to humans, which means that God can only save people if theylet God.

We often find it problematic to think of God 'changing his mind'(verse 14) because classical theology teaches us that because Godis perfect, God is therefore unchanging. However, although God'seternal purposes remain the same, human beings can change theirposition and attitude in relation to God. In this passage Moses asthe representative of the whole people was able to change theposition of the whole people in relation to God, just as, in theNew Testament, Jesus as the representative of humankind is able tochange the position of all of humanity in relation to God. Moses,like Jesus, restores the people to a position of humbly allowingGod to be God and therefore to save them.

To Ponder

• Do you ever feel uneasy when waiting on God? Are there anyphysical objects help you to feel close to God? What are they? Andhow/why do they help?

• What helps you to rely completely on God to meet your needs,rather than striving to be self-reliant?

• Changing our position in relation to God is an ongoing process- we constantly need to return to our reliance on God. What helpsyou to do this?