28
February 2007 St. Athanasius Lutheran Church
Lent
1 Midweek
Vienna, VA
Jesu Juva
“Seeing
God from Behind”
Text: Exodus 33:12-23; John 9:1-7
Show me! Moses said. Show me, Lord, so I will know you will
be with us. So I can be sure you
will be with us. Show me your
ways, Moses said. Show me
. . . your glory!
One has to wonder why
Moses was so unsure . . . and so demanding.
After all, what had God done to make Moses doubt Him?
First, God had called
Moses into His service from a burning bush, and had revealed His name to him
there. He was, if you want to think of
it this way, on a first name basis with Moses!
Then, when God sent Moses
down into Egypt to rescue His people, He kept His promise to Moses and was with
him in Egypt, performing great signs and wonders in bringing the people of
Israel out in the Exodus. And then
protecting them from the pursuing Egyptian army. And then providing water and manna to
eat and drink in the wilderness.
And just now, Moses had spent 40
days and 40 nights with God on Mt. Sinai.
One-on-one, face-to-face, receiving the Law and the instructions for the
building and worship of the Tabernacle.
What had God not done
that would call His faithfulness into doubt?
What made Moses so uncertain and unsure that God would be with them now?
Well, it’s not what God
had done . . . it’s what the people had done. It was the golden calf. When the people replaced God’s Divine Service
with their own bovine service. Idolatry
101. And faced with this spectre of sin
and rebellion, Moses wondered. Moses
doubted. Moses wavered. Because of this, will God still be
with us? Will He still be faithful
to such faithless people?
So show me! Moses
said. Show me! Prove it!
Convince me! I need to
know.
It is a demand that
sounds very much like us today, does it not?
And we want to know too! For we
are sinful, and live amongst a sinful people and a sinful world. So show me, God, that you are with me
and love me. Show me! Prove it!
Convince me! I need to know. Show me by answering my prayer. Show me by healing me. Show me by making things go my way. Show me by making me healthy, wealthy, and wise. I know what you have said, but . . . show me!
Show me your ways! Show
me your glory!
But God wouldn’t do
it for Moses, and He won’t do it for us.
Instead, God does
this strange thing of letting Moses see Him from behind. Now, a great deal of ink has been spilled
across the centuries trying to determine what exactly it was that Moses saw
there – what it means to see God’s “back.”
But one thing’s for sure – it’s not what Moses wanted. It wasn’t the fool-proof, fail-safe,
rock-solid, no more doubts and fears assurance that Moses asked for! Because, Moses, your assurance will never be
in what you can see, in God’s visible glory – but in His promise,
in His hidden glory.
For, in fact, Moses
had already seen God’s glory – in the burning bush, in His mighty and
miraculous acts, in His booming voice on Mt. Sinai – and still He
doubted. Another glimpse of God’s glory
wasn’t gonna do it for Moses! Oh, maybe
it would for a short time . . . until sin entered the picture again. Until sin would again make Moses unsure.
And for us too. Glory will never do it. For maybe we see God’s glory in the greatness
and majesty of creation, or in some great event of deliverance and rescue in
our lives, or in how our lives are improving.
OK. But what then happens, when
sin enters the picture for us? What
happens to our faith when the glory of creation turns violent in hurricanes and
floods and tsunamis? What happens if we
are not delivered from a tragedy in our lives? What happens when our lives do not
improve, but struggles and suffering descend on us instead? And when my sin again rears its ugly
head! When I fall into
idolatry, selfishness, and other great shame and vice. . . . How then can I know if God is still
with me? That God still loves me? How can I be sure?
You see, this theology
of glory, this founding your faith on knowing, on seeing, on proof, will always
leave you, in the end, empty-handed. Grasping
for answers. Groping for security. Searching for assurance with an appetite that
can never be satisfied.
But – for Moses and
for us – there is a “side” of God that can be seen. That side that He wants us to see. Not the side of glory and greatness,
power and majesty – but His back side . . . the opposite side . .
. the side of His humility, grace, service, and love. The side that He showed Moses, to assure him
that the sin of Israel would not cause Him to disown them and leave
them, but that He would have mercy on them and forgive them. It is the side of God we see on the
cross.
For as the apostle
John wrote: “No one has ever seen God; the only-begotten God, who is at
the Father's side, he has made him known.” (John 1:18) And as St. Paul would write: “For God,
who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ – a great and glorious
thing to be sure! – has shone in our hearts to give the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor 4:6)
And so the answer to
our “Show Me’s,” the side of God that God wants us to see, is Jesus. And it is the cross where Jesus shows us
the hidden glory of God. For the
cross is where we see, most surely and truly:
God’s love, in coming to be
with us in our flesh;
God’s mercy, in not rejecting
us, but coming to die, for us, in our stead;
God’s faithfulness, in keeping His
promise to save us;
God’s steadfastness, in that He would
let nothing stop Him; and
God’s forgiveness, that because our
sins are upon Jesus on the cross, they are no longer on us.
And what greater
thing could we see than that?
Miracles leave us perplexed and the naked power and glory of God leaves
us in awe – but it is the cross that leaves us assured and secure. Assured and secure that God does not
and has not left us in our sin, but has come to us to bear our sin and
be our Saviour.
And so it is only in
the light of Christ and His cross that we see the glory of God. As like the man born blind, we are washed in
His water and given the eyes of faith to see.
To see God on the cross for me.
Suffering for me and dying for me, that He might also rise for me. That I may be His own. That I can be sure, with an assurance greater
that what I can see – with the assurance of faith. The assurance that my sins are forgiven. The
assurance that my God is not only with me, but for me.
Show me your
ways! Show me your glory! Moses asked, and we
ask. And God has. Look at the
cross, and see!
In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.