Exodus 33:12-23
Moses is stubborn. He’s also a bit brash. In this pericope we see Moses arguing with God and calling God out. Moses is not okay with what God has said, so Moses stands his ground and goes toe-to-toe with God.
In the beginning of this chapter we see that Moses and the Israelites are told to go and leave the place where they are. God promises to send an angel before them. We then skip down to our pericope for this week. Moses is not okay with God only sending an angel before them. No, Moses holds God to a higher standard than that for God’s people. Eugene Peterson in The Message phrases part of the text like this:
Moses said to God, “Look, you tell me, ‘Lead this people,’ but you don’t let me know whom you’re going to send with me. You tell me, ‘I know you well and you are special to me.’ If I am so special to you, let me in on your plans. That way, I will continue being special to you. Don’t forget, this is your people, your responsibility.”
Moses wants God to do more than just send an angel, Moses knows that the people of God need God. We’ve already seen they cannot handle themselves by themselves (Golden Calf, anyone?), so Moses puts his foot down and tells God that God needs to join in with God’s people. You can see this as Moses states “this nation is YOUR people.”
God begins to work with Moses. God says “fine, I’ll go.” (The NRSV adds “with you,” but there is a grammatical issue, it is not there in the text). You’d think Moses be happy that he has won God over. Nope.
“Unless you go with us!’ Moses is adamant about this. God needs to be with God’s people. God needs to not just send angels or go before them, no, God needs to be with them. God agreed. “I will do the very thing you have asked.” Should be the end of the conversation, right? Wrong.
Moses takes it a step further. “Show me your glory I pray.” So God decides to show Moses the glory of God. I’ll come back to this idea of God revealing God’s glory in a moment, but for now, let’s talk about what we can learn from Moses here.
In Exodus 33:12-23, Moses modeled for us what it means to be faithful in prayer. Moses knew what God has promised, so Moses held God to it. Moses was not going to let God get by with anything less than the full faithfulness that was promised to the people of God. This is how we are to pray. We are to be unafraid of holding God to the promises that have been made. We are to be unafraid to remind God that the love of God is to be made manifest among the people of God. We are to pray “Yes God, you might get dirty if you hang out among us, but you promised!” To which God, of course, responds with a “you’re right.” God promises to not leave us alone. We can hold God to that promise through our prayers. We see this prayer answered fully when God got real dirty and was born in a stable filled with animals and their waste in the incarnation of Christ Jesus.
There’s a more to Moses’ prayer, though. He prays for God to show him the glory of God. How does God respond? I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The LORD’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” Moses could not, however, see the face of the Lord. I think what’s important to notice here is how God first responds to revealing God’s glory. “Show me your glory, God!” “I will be grace-filled and merciful to those whom I will be grace-filled and merciful.” You want to see the glory of God. There it is – grace and mercy. It’s not some grand lightning bolt and thunder coming from the sky. It’s God’s grace and mercy.
The face of God was not revealed to Moses. I think there may be two reasons for this. First, Moses only got a glimpse of God because until Christ no one had ever really seen the fullness of God. Before Christ came no one had ever truly seen God, at least not the full revelation of who God was, is, and is to be. The second reason is only a guess and I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am. I think a second reason is that the glory of God is like the backside of God. It’s not what we expected. When we hear of the glory of God we think of this grand picture of lights and sounds and all sorts of loud and exciting things like God coming down as fire and showing off a shimmering glowing face to Moses, but instead, we see a simple backside. The glory of God is simple – grace and mercy. The glory of God is shocking in its simplicity. Grace and mercy.
As we pray for the glory of God to be revealed among us, let’s look to where it will be found – in acts of grace and mercy. When we pray for the glory of God to fall among, let’s not look for the grand showmanship of lightning and thunder, but instead let us look to see how God is moving among the people of God through acts of grace and mercy.
“Want to see my glory? Look for grace and mercy, that’s where it’s to be found.”