Steadfast Love

 

    Well, here we are! The first quarter of 2022 has been flying by. How are we feeling about it? A lot sure has changed since the last time I wrote. 

    I suppose every generation feels like this at one time or another, but - the world seems to be moving far faster than the hearts and minds of its inhabitants can follow. 

In my "Open Letter to 2022"  I tried to touch on the hope we have as believers, regardless of anything happening around us. This hope we possess is often like a strong tree branch hanging over turbulent rapids. It's an assurance that, if we take hold, we will never be swept downstream. 

It's a broken analogy, and doesn't quite capture the full emotion I want to convey, especially since if it were to be taken literally it would imply that we are the ones holding on to the tree branch in our own power. In fact, it's quite the opposite! Part of that same hope is the fact that the Lord is the one who holds. The Lord who says in Deuteronomy 31:6, "He will never leave you nor forsake you." and in Zephaniah 3:17, "The LORD your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” 

This God holds us fast. 

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Which brings me to something I've been chewing on lately! For the first time, I'm joining my church family in reading through the Bible chronologically in one year. It's only March, but I can't describe how richly it has invigorated my soul. I've always struggled with self discipline about regular Scripture reading, often neglecting it altogether. This bothered me, but nothing I had tried ever worked. I'd hang in there for a time and eventually fall behind, feel ashamed constantly, then give up. But this is different. Partly because there is outside accountability calling me higher, and partly because taking the Word as a whole book instead of a volume containing many little books is such a natural approach, I'm finally growing in this discipline. Right now, we're making our way through the Pentateuch. 

There are so many moments I could fixate on for this post, but one in particular stands out as being especially timely with all of the upheaval taking place here and around the world. Ready to dive in with me?

Our destination: Mount Sinai, circa 1446 or 1280 BC

I want you to imagine the scene with me. God's people have been riding a serious high. They have experienced freedom from slavery, the rescue at the Red Sea, miraculous guidance by a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night, they've heard God's voice booming out as He descended to Mount Sinai, and 70 elders have even seen God! (Or His feet, rather. This was something I had no idea happened and would command an entire blog post all on its own.) But everything starts to slide downhill. FAST. 

Moses has gone up the mountain at God's invitation to receive the Law, and it's taking way longer than anyone anticipated. God is laying out His plan to literally dwell with His chosen people, and the sin standing like an elephant in the room has to be dealt with. A holy God cannot live with an unholy people, and back down in the valley, the Israelites are proving exactly why in the basest ways possible. 

God knows what His people are doing, and he is enraged. I don't think we as humans have the ability to describe what sin feels like to the Most High. In His righteous anger, God tells Moses in Exodus 32: 10, "Now therefore, let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you."  

Whoa.

God is ready to wipe out the whole camp and start over with Moses' descendants. But, Moses begs forgiveness and mercy for a truly wretched people, calling on God to remember His covenant to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The covenant guaranteeing that He would multiply their offspring like the stars of heaven, and give them a land as their inheritance forever. Now, could God have kept that promise by wiping these Israelites out and starting a new breed of them through Moses? Technically, yes. That promise wasn't made to Jacob's twelve sons specifically, only that Jacob's line would be multiplied. Moses was a descendant of Levi, the son of Jacob. But He chooses to forbear with these wicked people, some of whom literally got to see Him and still rebelled, at Moses' request. (Please hang on to that moment, it's going to come into play later.)

Moses comes down the mountain, sees the debauchery the Israelites are engaging in, and the Scripture says in 32:19: "And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it." There are further judgements and events that occur immediately after, but for time's sake let's keep going.

God gives the marching order for the people to leave the area around Mt. Sinai and follow His leading further into the wilderness. But before they go, the Lord and Moses have a deeply intimate conversation. In it, God confirms His favor on Moses, and promises to go with Moses and give him rest. Then in Exodus 33:18, Moses, in response to God's deep kindness, asks: 

"...'Please, show me your glory.' And He said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a 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.”

Fair warning, the next passage is long for an excerpt, but the rest of this post won't make sense without it. 

"The Lord said to Moses, “Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. No one shall come up with you, and let no one be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds graze opposite that mountain.” So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone. The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him 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, 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. And he said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, please let the Lord go in the midst of us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.” And He said, “Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord, for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you." -Exodus 34:1-10 (emphasis added)

"The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands..." This, dear reader, is the God we serve.  I can't say it any better than that. He didn't have to preserve this people, He doesn't have to preserve you and me. And yet, He does. 

About that phrase, "keeping steadfast love for thousands": He doesn't mean thousands of individuals, he means to the thousandth generation. Reader, you and I  are included in that promise.  

Back to that moment I asked you to hold on to: this mercy was shown to people who were completely laid bare to God's just wrath. Not even a single lamb had yet been sacrificed on their behalf. And yet, out of His great goodness, He shows mercy. 

Here is where the similarity between us and the Israelites ends: we are not laid bare. We are fully covered. The Lamb was slain on our behalf. Jesus, took the 'wrath that burned hot' for you and me. He drank the bitter, idol-infused cup for the sins of the whole world. This, dear reader, is steadfast love. 

That Love, like it did for Moses, puts me flat on my face in awe-filled worship.

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So, how do we apply this to the turmoil going on in and around us? Well, we can join Paul in saying, 

"What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

    we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." 

-Romans 8:31-39

It's not the most elegant way to say this, but, 'nuf said! Dear one, you and I can walk these days full of hope.