Show Me Your Glory

The golden calf was gone, but the trouble it had made was still there.

Then God gave his orders. "Go on to the land I promised you. I will send an angel ahead of you. But I will not go up among you. You are a stubborn people, and I might destroy you on the road."

The people cried when they heard it. Nobody wore earrings or bracelets that day. (You do not dress up for a day like that.)

Moses had a tent outside the camp, called the tent of meeting. When he walked out to it, a tall pillar of cloud came down and stood at the entrance, and all the people bowed in their doorways. Inside, the LORD spoke with Moses face to face, the way a man talks with his friend. (That means up close, the way friends talk. Moses had still never seen God's face.)

One day in that tent, Moses spoke up.

"You tell me to lead these people," he said. "You say you know me by name. Then show me your ways. And remember, this nation is your people."

"My presence will go with you," God answered, "and I will give you rest."

Moses was not finished. "If you do not go with us, do not send us up from here! How will anyone know you are pleased with us, unless you go with us?"

Moses would rather sit in the sand with God than live in a land of milk and honey without him.

"I will do the very thing you asked," said the LORD, "because I am pleased with you, and I know you by name."

Then Moses asked for one thing more. "Please," he said, "show me your glory."

God said yes, and God said no.

"I will make all my goodness pass in front of you," said the LORD, "and I will call out my name, the LORD. But you cannot see my face, for no one can see me and live. Stand here on the rock. When my glory goes by, I will put you in a crack in the rock and cover you with my hand. Then I will take my hand away, and you will see my back."

So early one morning Moses climbed the mountain again, carrying two new stone tablets to replace the ones he had smashed. The LORD came down in the cloud and passed by, calling out, "The LORD, the LORD! A God who is kind and gracious, slow to get angry, overflowing with steady love and faithfulness!" Moses bowed to the ground.

When he came back down, his face was shining so brightly that Aaron and the people were afraid to come near him. Moses had no idea. (There are no mirrors on a mountain.)

All Moses ever saw was God's back. Even the shine on his face faded. For more than a thousand years God's people prayed, "Let your face shine on us," and waited.

Then God's goodness walked down a dusty road in a body like ours, and when beggars called out, it stopped for them. He had a face that children ran up to. On the night before he died, his friend Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father. That is all we need." "Anyone who has seen me," he answered, "has seen the Father."

Moses saw God's back from a crack in a rock. Philip was looking at God's face across a supper table, and it was the face of Jesus.