- Sermon - Mickey Anders

Text: Exodus 33:12-23

Moses had every reason to give up. He was worn out with moving this ragtag band of ex-slaves toward the Promised Land. He was ready to take early retirement rather than hassle with these people any more. Just a few weeks before, Moses had come down from Mount Sinai, where he had received the tablets of stone, only to find his people wallowing in orgies before a golden calf.

God was still angry with the people of Israel. Last week, we read in chapter 32:9-10 that God said to Moses, "I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them..." It had taken all Moses' negotiating skills to talk God out of obliterating these people on the spot.

In the verses between last week's text and this week's text, Moses interceded for the people by putting his life on the line, "Alas, this people has sinned a great sin; they have made for themselves gods of gold. But now, if you will only forgive their sin - but if not, blot me out of the book that you have written."

Then in the beginning of chapter 33, God instructed the people to go the Promised Land. In verse 3, we read, "Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, or I would consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people." Obviously, God was still angry with the people. God decided to send them on their way, but God was not going with them.

Moses immediately realized that the people could not make it without God's special presence. So Moses once again bargains with God. In this important passage, I find several key ideas that can help us in our relationship with God as well.

1) God knows us by name

First, I want you to notice that God knows Moses by name. In verse 12, Moses says to the Lord, "… you have said, 'I know you by name…" Then in verse 17, the Lord confirms what Moses has already said. Here, the Lord said to Moses, "I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name."

This is a remarkable truth about God. God knows our name. I usually think of this as a New Testament concept, but here we find it in the earliest pages of the Bible.

In Matthew 10:29-31, Jesus says, "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows."

My former pastor Dr. John McClanahan used to love to tell the story of a young family who lived in New Haven, Connecticut so that the father could attend Yale University. One night, their small daughter said the nightly prayer, and as often happens she got the Lord's Prayer a little mixed up when she said, "Our Father, who art in New Haven. How did you know my name?"

She may have confused the words, but she got the message just right. God is in our city, and God knows us by name.

2) We need the presence of God

The second remarkable aspect of Moses' conversation with God is found in verses 15 & 16 when Moses says to the Lord, "If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth."

Moses simply was unwilling to go on without the presence of God. When we read between the lines, we can see that Moses has had a terrible burden on him for a long time. Leading the children of Israel turned out to be much more difficult than he ever imagined. Now he is running on empty. He is running on fumes. He's overworked, overextended, and stressed out. He is about to drop.

Did you ever feel that way? Sure you have! You probably feel that way most of the time. Ours is a hurried world, with information overload, with rush hour traffic, with family responsibilities, and with heavy burdens at work. Sometimes we feel like we have gone as far as we can go on our own power, and if God is not going with us, then we might as well sit down and not go anymore. That's the way Moses felt.

At least Moses was aware of his real need. He needed the presence of God. We would do well to recognize that need for God's presence in our fast-paced world.

Moses then asks the key question: "If you aren't with us, what's going to distinguish us from the world?" After all, it was God's presence in his life, in the life of the community that has distinguished him and them from others. Without God's presence there is no difference.

What distinguishes you and me from the rest of the world? We are certainly no brighter and no better looking. What is there about the folks who gather in this room and in the churches across our world that distinguishes us from the folks who are home in their pajamas on Sunday morning? Just one thing - the presence of God. And that makes all the difference.

In 1995, twin girls had been born 12 weeks premature in the Medical Center Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts. They weighed in at about two pounds each, and had been placed in separate bassinets. One started to do just fine - the other began slowly to fade. Her heart-beat was rapid, she was visibly anxious, and nothing the nurses could do seemed to be able to stop what they saw as her inevitable death. Then one nurse remembered something she had read about treatment of premature infants elsewhere in the world. As a last resort the nurses put little Brielle, the weaker twin, right into the bassinet with Kyrie, her "big sister." (Kyrie was 3 ounces bigger!) In the words of one of the nurses on duty, the results were both immediate and dramatic. Little Brielle snuggled up to her sister, and her heart rate immediately slowed to normal. Her color came back. The baby visibly relaxed, almost it seemed with a sigh of relief. She accepted nourishment. The crisis was over. She would survive.

We are like that little baby. Deeper than words, back behind all conscious thought, we know what we really need - a sense of the special presence of God. Even when we cannot express or fully understand our hunger for God, that hunger remains. When we don't have that presence, our lives waste away. We are made for God, and we are made for fellowship with each other. When we are isolated and alone we are in trouble, serious trouble, like tiny two-pound Brielle. We need to be close to God and close to others who love us. Deep down within us, we have a need to be a part of the family of God.

Jesus said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you." Seeking God's presence is our number one job.

3) We only see the back of God

There is one last fascinating aspect of this episode between Moses and God that also rings true of our relationship with God. Moses says, "Show me your glory..."

Verse 11 says, "Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend."

Obviously, verse 11 was metaphorical, "The Lord used to speak to Moses face to face…" Just nine verses later, the Bible makes clear that one cannot see the true face of God and live.

God replies, "I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, 'The LORD'... But," he said, "you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live."

Intimate - immanent vs wholly other, transcendent

God goes on, "See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock. While my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen."

Isn't that the way we experience God? I know it is for me. I have this incredible desire to see God face to face, but it seldom happens that way. More often than not, it is only the backside of God that I see.

To me, this story speaks of the ineffable nature of God, the mystery of God's presence. We love to sing that great old hymn, "In the Garden," where it says, "He walks with me and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own." I truly wish my relationship with God were as straight-forward as that. But I usually only get a glimpse of God out of the corner of my eye.

Someone has said that faith is what you do between the last time you experienced God and the next time you experience God. Those who are honest about their faith admit that they are like Moses, seeing only the backside of God.

When Rudolf Otto considered the incomprehensible yet magnetic pull of mystery and holiness in our lives he coined a term from the Latin, mysterium tremendum, which in English would be the tremendous mystery.

In his Testament of Devotion, Thomas Kelly describes the presence of God this way: "Over the margins of life comes a whisper, a faint call, a premonition of richer living which we know we are passing by."

Shhh! Listen! There's that whisper, that faint call. Only those who really listen can hear it. Only those who really look can see it. For people of faith, it's the glory, the presence of God passing by. Can you hear it?