We come in Exodus 32 to a truly cringe-worthy chapter. When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” v 1. Moses didn’t bring them up out of Egypt and neither did the golden calf about to be made. When God first began working with Moses he was humble to the point of needing his brother Aaron to speak for him the words God gave to Moses. Why Moses and not Aaron? Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” v. 2-4. It goes on. When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.” So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry. v. 5-6. A festival to the Lord? Burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to a thing Aaron made and the people wanted? Really?

God knew exactly what the people wanted and were doing. He was ready to destroy them and start over with Moses. Does that sound harsh? The people only wanted to party and engage in revelry or was that all? They wanted to worship a god they made so they could do whatever they wanted to do. A god of their own making so they could sin freely without guilt. That sounds so foreign to me in 2022. And yet. Yesterday I got a call from our daughter wanting to tell me she loved me. She needed to say the words verbally and not in a text and to hear my love to her. All day she had been fielding calls from around the country of nurses and therapists they staff as needed, who had been victims of brutal murder or their families had been. “What is happening?” she asked. “What is going on?” She was coming face to face with the reality that the world is not secure. I did the only thing I could. I listened and lamented with her and told her to pray always. Her kids are 5 and 3 and in the world today that’s a vulnerable and dangerous age to be. And yet. God knows exactly the hurt and suffering our sins cause us and everyone else. He knows the deep wounds of pain and the need to lament that awful reality that is life without Him guiding us to a better way. He knows exactly the better way with Him and it’s not this.

Why Moses? Aaron was not a leader. Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so became a laughingstock to their enemies. So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.” And all the Levites rallied to him. v. 25-26. Moses was willing to be blotted out of the book God had written if it would save the people….Aaron was willing to throw a party.

As I prayed this morning a deep heaviness settled over me. How can you unsee what sins do? You can’t. Those families and all the other families today that have had their hearts and lives shattered from violence can’t unsee what sins do. It leaves a physical and spiritual pain. Is God unfair in hating our sins? Really?

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 139:23-24. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” Jeremiah 29:11-14. God is the only One who who can lead us out of the captivity of sin. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” John 14:1-7.

Why Moses? He was for the Lord. Why Jesus? He is the way and the truth and the life that Moses was pointing to. He is the Lord who will heal our hearts and bring us home to Him in a place prepared for us from the foundation of the world. How long, Lord? Please speed that day and prepare our hearts that we will be ready with joy and thanksgiving, rejoicing that sin will be no more.