1st Saturday of the Omer

1st Saturday of the Omer

The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him [Moses] there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands [of generations], forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.  (Ex 34:5-8)

This passage has been one of my favorites for a long time.  In it, Moses is blessed with the clearest picture of God that anyone will have until the Mount of Transfiguration.  Moses has talked with God before in the tent of meeting (Ex 33:7ff), and he had a powerful encounter with Him even earlier on the first Shavuot, when the Law was given.  Until this point, though, there has been distance between the presence of God and His people.  Moses asks to be brought nearer than ever before when he asks to see God's glory in the last part of chapter 33.  He's heard God's voice.  He's received God's law.  He's been within the cloud on the mountain and in the tent, but he wants to go deeper.  God allows it, to a point.  He allows Moses a greater access to his presence than ever before and lets the lawgiver see the "backside" of God--better understood to be the afterglow-- as He passes by.  As awesome as that would have been, Moses doesn't record the moment of seeing the afterglow at all.  We don't have any record of what it looked like.  What struck Moses more than whatever it is that he saw was what he heard.  God declared His goodness, proclaimed his name and His attributes as He passed by.   This is what stuck with Moses and what he recorded for us.

Have you ever been to a social function where you were given one of those, "Hi, my name is..." stickers?  If God had shown up, this paragraph is what would have to be written (in very small letters) in that space.  This is God.  He brings Moses closer than anyone has ever been (or ever will be again for another 2,500 years) and declares His goodness to Moses.  It's interesting, isn't it, that everything recorded in this paragraph is described by God at the end of chapter 33 as His "goodness"?  I think that we'd all agree that a God merciful, slow to anger, gracious, and forgiving sin is a good thing, but would you put the rest under that category?  God declares that he will not clear the guilty and that the sins of one man will impact the lives of his great-grandchildren. Really?  That's good too?

The first time I taught this passage, I did all kinds of gymnastics trying to not really have it mean what the language clearly states.  It bothered me that the same God who forgives transgression, iniquity, and sin would visit the sins of a man to his progeny.  Five years after the first time I taught this, I understand more of what that means.  First of all, it doesn't mean that I will go to hell because my great-grandfather rejected Christ.  Read Ezek 18 to put that fear to rest.  What it does mean is that God is Holy, and while He does forgive sin, He does not dismiss it.

I'll say that again.  While God does forgive sin, He does not dismiss it.

You see, sin is real, and it's a serious problem.  I think those of us in the Christian faith frequently run the risk of receiving grace as a "free gift" and think that it means "cheap."  Sin is a massive problem.  It is the insurmountable barrier between a fallen world and our creator.  It is inside each of us at birth, dominates our lives' activities, is the natural inclination of every heart, and cannot be put away on our own strength.  Sin is that bad.  It's so bad, in fact, that the only way for it to be dealt with, for it to be conquered once and for all, was for Jesus to take on flesh (a MASSIVE condescension and miracle in itself), live a perfect life (another AMAZING thing), and then die in our place. There was no other way.  Jesus asked His Father for plan B in the garden before He was arrested, and He resolved that there wasn't one.  That's how massive a problem sin is.  Jesus had to die to get it out of the way. God died.  Don't read that too quickly.

So God is willing to forgive sin, but it has to be on His terms--His methodology is all that there is.  He won't wink at your failings.  He won't turn a blind eye to your depravity.  You won't get into heaven on your charm, your looks, or your salesmanship.  God "will not clear the guilty."  It doesn't matter how much money you give your church, the homeless shelter, or the Republican presidential fund.  You can adopt orphans and kittens all day long.  You can pay your taxes on time, be elected to the city council, and run the boyscout troop in your home town and still go the hell when you die if you haven't dealt with your sin according to God's plan.

Passover and Easter are both beautiful portraits of both sides of God's nature as revealed in Exodus 34.  At Passover, God shed his grace and mercy broadly upon the children of Israel and freed them from bondage and oppression.  They left the land of slavery and set out for the land of promise.  God showered them with his enduring steadfast love, and they celebrate that moment every year in remembrance.   At the same time, though, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians died.  Most of them children.  How does that make you feel?  God showered one group of people with love and mercy, and on another He rained down death.  The same God did both.  How did people escape the one reality and flee into the other?  Through the sacrifice of a Lamb and the sprinkling of blood.  That was God's way.  If you followed it, you were spared.  If not, people died.

Easter is this same formula broadcast on a larger screen, with higher stakes.  Instead of merely dying physically, what we're talking about here is eternal spiritual existence in torment.  Instead of a promised physical land that someone may or may not enjoy for 60 to 80 years, God is offering an eternity in His presence and His paradise.  Instead of the death of thousands of lambs, God's way is more focused.  He will sacrifice One.  That Lamb will be His Son, Jesus, the Eternal Living Word, the Perfect Lamb of God, whose slaughter was declared from before the foundation of the world.  This is His way.  There is no other.

God is too Holy, to "good" to dismiss your sin, but He is willing to forgive it.  You just have to play by His rules and do it His way.  Are you willing?