The Footprints of God

“HIDE AND SEEK”
Exodus 33:12-23
Faith United
October 19, 2008


One time when I was a little kid
my parents and I went to the airport
to pick up a friend who was flying in to visit
Somehow I got separated from my parents
I was probably wandering into one of the gift shops
looking at the stuffed animals or something
I turned around and realized that my parents
were no longer right beside me
but I looked at saw the back of my father
at the magazines
and so I hurried over and put my arms around his waist
when the man turned around, it was not my father
He was very amused,
I, of course, was mortified
and went running off looking for my parents
who weren’t that faraway, but enjoying the cuteness of my mistake
From the back, the man looked just like my dad

God was finally fed up
Which is kind of weird, because this is only the second book
of the Bible,
and already, God has finally HAD IT with his people
They were ungrateful, they were bitter,
they complained, and finally, they gave up on this mysterious,
invisible God of the Mountain
and built a calf out of gold
and bowed down to worship it
They danced and sang and ate and drank
and sang praises to this golden calf
That seemed to be the last straw
God was pretty ticked off at this point

God finally says to Moses
“take your people out of here, leave this place, go on.
But I won’t go with you.”
Essentially God says to Moses that he doesn’t trust himself
that if he were to go with his people
he might just lose his temper and zap ém all
Well, that’s not what it says exactly,
but I think that’s what it means
He says, “Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey,
but I will not go among you,
or I would consume you on the way,
for you are a stiff-necked people.”
So he’s saying, he doesn’t trust himself
if he were to go among them,
he might finally have to just kill them all…
I love it, God is so much more direct in the Hebrew Testament

Well, the people were so upset
when they heard that God called them a stiff-necked people
and that therefore God was not about to go forward with them
that they grieved out loud,
they took off all their jewelry
for God also said to Moses,
“Say to the Israelites, ‘you are a stiff-necked people,
if for a single moment I should go up among you,
I would consume you
So now take off your ornaments
and I will decide what to do to you.’

Well, I’d be pretty terrified if I were them
All they saw of God to this point
was lightening on the mountain
accompanied by thunder
They saw a cloud, a mysterious cloud
that would occasionally surround Moses
and they knew, then, that God was speaking to Moses
out of this mystical cloud
God was so mysterious and powerful
and earth shaking,
they knew he was not one to be messed with
and they didn’t want to have anything to do with him
They always told Moses to go and talk to him
they begged Moses to tell God not to speak to them
they were too terrified of him
and of course, the more distant they were from God
the more outlandish their images of him became

But Moses set up a tent
called a tent of meeting
he set it up outside their campsite
and there he would go to talk to God
The mysterious cloud would be at the entrance of the tent
and out of that would come God’s voice
Meanwhile, when Moses left the campground
all the people would sit at the openings of their own tent
and watch him go
Perhaps they feared he might not come back….
but it was clear that Moses had a special relationship with God
after all that they’ve been through to this point
Moses’ relationship with God had matured a lot
from that first encounter with the burning bush
Moses was pretty comfortable with God
and pretty outspoken at times
Maybe it was just absolute frustration
but Moses pretty much said to God what was on his mind
This time was no different
Moses was mad at God
for saying that he wasn’t going to go forward with them
after everything God had promised them
after leading them out here in this wilderness
making them leave Egypt on a wing and a prayer
risking their lives, their children’s lives
after all that God had asked of them
God was going to leave them now?
When they most needed him?
Moses was mad
And he didn’t mind letting God know what he thought

He goes to speak with God who is in the cloud
and he says, hey, you’ve told me to do all this
‘You told me to bring these people up
and yet you don’t tell me who is going with us
You tell me that you know me by name
and that I’ve found favor in your sight
If you mean that, show me
Show me the way
Remember, too, that this nation belongs to YOU
If you refuse to go forward with us,
then we’re not going
How will it look if we go forward
and how will others know that we have found favor with you
if you leave us now?’

And God, I imagine, smiled
I bet God was proud of Moses
proud of his gumption, his guts, and his honesty
And God said to Moses,
ok,
‘I will do the very thing you have asked;
because you HAVE found favor with me
and I do know you by name….’
In other words, you win, Moses
and you’re right
I will go with you, I will not give up on you

Moses, in his anger, reminded God
of all that God promised these people
that no matter how stiff-necked and exasperating they were
they were still God’s people

To know someone by name in the Bible
means to know them intimately
to know who they are, deep down,
to know their hearts and souls
To know them more completely than anyone else possibly can
and God says to Moses,
“I know you by name,”
In other words, I know who you are, I made you
I know your heart,
I know your passion
and even your stubborn love for these
stiff-necked people
and of course, of course I will go with you

You’d think Moses would leave it at that
but he’s tired
he’s come a long way
he has suffered so much
and fought so many battles to get here
to simply do what God wanted him to do
and also, apparently to keep GOD from giving up on any of them
and so he makes a brazen request
an absurd, unheard-of request
He wants to see God
He wants to see the face of God
this one who he’s believed in
enough to ever begin this crazy journey
to not walk away in the middle of it
but now, he needs some reassurance
“Show me your glory, “ Moses says
Which in a way, is kind of funny
What, the parting of the Red Sea was not impressive enough for you, Moses??
The spontaneous thunder and lightening on the mountain?
The shaking earth?
The water in the desert, the manna from heaven,
not enough for you?
You want something a little more impressive than that?
And Moses would say,
“Yeah. I do.”
And again, I imagine God chuckling
Ah, dear Moses, his dear, faithful, brazen friend Moses

God says to him,
“I will make all my goodness pass before you,
and will proclaim before you
the name, Yahweh….”
In other words, God would declare his own name
the name that declared who God is
the name that sums God up
Yahweh
I will tell you who I am, God is saying, in other words
I will speak my name to you
And, God says,
“I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious,
and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy,
But,” God adds,
“you cannot see my face;
for no one shall see me and live…”
Why is that?
I confess I first learned that
when as a teenager I saw the movie
“Raiders of the Lost Ark,”
near the end, when Indiana Jones and Marion
are tied to a stake
watching the Nazis get ready to open the ark of the covenant
Weird things started happening
and Indiana Jones yells at Marion
to close her eyes,
no matter what, he says, keep your eyes closed
And of course,
we see why
When the ark is opened,
all the Nazis are vividly, grotesquely destroyed
Some of them melted,
some of them exploded
some of them suffered a lot before they died
but before the ark’s lid came down again
all those who dared to look
were killed
and I remember asking my parents what that was all about
and learning the tradition that one does not look upon God and live
and it was believed back then,
that the ark of the covenant contained the very presence of God
Well, of course, that was Hollywood
and they really did it up
But what did God mean?
No one shall look upon me and live…
Did God mean what Steven Spielberg thought he meant?
That God would wipe out and annihilate
even MELT anyone who dared to look upon his presence?
I doubt that, but it made for a good movie

But God said to Moses,
“There is a place near me in the rock
where you will stand
and while my glory passes by
I will put you in the 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…”
What’s that all about?
What’s with the mystery and the hiding?
Why CAN’T we see God face to face?

Well, I think we can get a little TOO comfortable with God sometimes
I mean, seriously, some people give you the impression
that they know God so well
they could draw you a picture
or show you a picture that God signed himself
but I think when it comes right down to it,
we have to ask
how does the finite, the human being
relate to God who is Infinite?
I think it’s like looking straight into the sun
after awhile, it would burn our eyes
if we got physically too close to the sun, of course
we’d be cremated
the heat would be too intense for us to stand

I think God is too much for us
God is so much more than we can ever imagine
Our language doesn’t contain words
that can adequately sum up who and what God is
We are limited by language
and the images that we can create with our minds
God is always beyond our reach
because we are, in fact, finite human beings
with our feet in the dirt of this earth
How can one trapped in time
imagine someone who is eternal and timeless?
We can only stand glimpses
and often, even when we get those glimpses
it is hard for us to explain
Jesus, we believe, is the incarnation of God
but even then, Jesus is not the total picture of God
Jesus is the image of God we can deal with
and even then, we wrestle with all that Jesus is
and all that he taught
Shoot, if we wrestle this much with Jesus
how much more overwhelming would it be
to experience the fullness of God?
I think we’d be incinerated!

God is too much for our human minds and hearts
to take in
So we only see the shadows of God
the reflections of God in our world
in the eyes of other human beings
‘Now we see in a mirror dimly,’ Paul writes in Corinthians,
but then, in eternity, we shall see face to face
Now we know only in part
but then we will know fully, even as we are fully known’

We see and know now,
only what our rational minds can handle
and even then, we back off
Sometimes even with what God has given us
we don’t want it all
we only want as much as we can handle
Don’t confuse us, or challenge us
or give us anything that will turn our way of thinking
completely upside down
Often we can’t handle even the shadows of God
that God has given us
And so God gives us about as much as we can stand
But still, we want assurance
Wouldn’t it be nice
if God would just write some answers in the sky for us?
Even just now and then, write in the clouds,
“I do exist, I am here…”

Sometimes, we’re like Moses,
if we have the nerve, we tell God what we think,
“why? why are you doing this?
why aren’t you doing THAT?
what are you doing to us? Why are you abandoning us?”
and God can take it
He took it from Moses
and in no way, was his love for Moses diminished
because he knew that Moses was just a man
a faithful, committed, determined, and good-hearted human
but just a man, just a human, after all
He couldn’t see the whole picture
like God does
he couldn’t see the future and the past and the present
all in one
Moses was bound by time
and so God had mercy on him
knowing that his perspective was limited
as a human being
but finally, after the shadows passed
after the presence of God passed by
and after God sheltered Moses with his hand
and allowed Moses to see God’s back
they went forward
they went forward together
because Moses finally said, “I will not go forward
I will not even go toward the Promised Land
if you don’t go with me….”
Moses saw the back of God
I like to think of it as Moses seeing not where God is going
because we can’t comprehend that
but Moses saw where God had already been
Hindsight is 20/20, they say

In a sense, Moses saw the footprints of God
and that was enough for him to go forward
We can also see God’s footprints
if we look carefully
we can see where God has already been
where God is present, even if only in shadows and light
we can sense God’s presence, even though we can’t see it
and we can know, too, that God knows each of us by name
knows who we are, good and bad
faithful and terrified
broken and made whole
and so we can trust that God won’t leave us
No matter what happens in the future
God goes with us,
and we can look back and see where God has gone with us before
Go forward,
God said to Moses, and God says to us
Go forward, though the way often looks treacherous
sometimes dark, sometimes overwhelming,
go forward toward the Promised Land
and we’ll get there together….