The Golden Calf and the Friend Who Begged

For forty days Moses stayed inside the cloud on the mountain while God told him how to build the tent where he would live among his people. Down in the camp, the people got tired of waiting.

They crowded around Moses' brother, Aaron. "Make us gods to lead us!" they said. "Nobody knows what has happened to this Moses."

"Bring me your gold earrings," said Aaron.

He melted the gold, shaped it with a carving tool, and made a calf. "Israel, here are your gods who brought you out of Egypt!" the people shouted. The next morning they offered it sacrifices, then feasted and danced.

Up on the mountain, God said to Moses, "Go down. Your people have turned away from me, and so quickly! Now leave me alone, so my anger can burn against them and I can destroy them. Then I will make a great nation out of you."

Moses did not take the offer. He begged. "LORD, why be angry with the people you brought out of Egypt with your great power? Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. You promised them children as many as the stars!"

And the LORD did not destroy the people as he had said he would.

Moses came down carrying two stone tablets written by God himself. Then he heard the singing and saw the calf. Moses threw the tablets down, and they smashed at the foot of the mountain. He burned the calf, ground it to powder, scattered it on the water, and made the people drink it. (A god you can drink is not much of a god.)

"What did these people do to you," Moses asked Aaron, "that you led them into such a great sin?"

"Don't be angry, my lord," said Aaron. "They gave me their gold, I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!"

(Out it came, all by itself, already carved.)

But the sin was no joke. Moses stood at the gate of the camp and called, "Whoever is on the LORD's side, come to me!" The men of the tribe of Levi came, and they went through the camp with swords. About three thousand people were killed that day.

The next day Moses told the people, "You have sinned a great sin. I will go up to the LORD. Maybe I can pay for it." On the mountain he prayed, "These people have made a god of gold. Please forgive them. And if you won't, then blot my name out of the book you have written."

Moses was offering to be lost so they could be kept.

God said no. "Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. Now go and lead the people." Then the LORD sent a sickness on the camp because of the calf.

Moses had begged with everything he had, but begging could not pay for the calf, and he could not trade his name for theirs. He had wrongs of his own.

Priests killed lambs and goats at God's tent, season after season, and still the people turned away, and still someone had to stand between them and God.

Long after Moses, another man climbed a hill. He had never bowed to any idol. He stood between God and the people, and he begged for them. "Father, forgive them," he prayed, while soldiers nailed him to a cross. This time God did not say no. He gave up his Son to die in the people's place and wrote their names in his book for good.

The friend who begged, and then paid, was Jesus.