Exodus 33:1-6 (ESV)
The LORD said to Moses, “Depart; go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give it.’ I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.” When the people heard this disastrous word, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments. For the LORD had said to Moses, “Say to the people of Israel, ‘You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now take off your ornaments, that I may know what to do with you.’ ” Therefore the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward.
Devotional Meditation
Israel had sinned.
Even after all their God had done for them--they rebelled. He had brought them out of slavery. He had delivered them from their pursuers. He had sustained them in the wilderness. He had made a covenant with them on his Holy Mountain. He had claimed them as his people. Yet Israel threw it all away. They broke his covenant even while the proverbial ink was still drying. They flaunted their idolatry in his face. They sinned a great sin.
What would Yahweh do?
We have been trained by popular memory and Hollywood epics to think of the giving of the Ten Commandments as the climax of the Exodus story. But this is not the way that the narrative actually reads. The real tension in the Exodus story occurs here--in this moment of decision. What will God do with this sinful and stiff-necked people who have broken his covenant and disgraced the very name that he revealed to them with their blasphemy?
Here, we see one possible solution to the problem. Yahweh can simply abandon this people. He can remove his presence forever from their midst. He can send them off to fend for themselves in this hostile wilderness. He can send them into this new land--a land full of hostile enemies--all alone.
It’s certainly what Israel deserved. It’s what their sin had earned. What would Yahweh do?
There are times in the story of our own lives when our sin brings us to this very threshold of doubt and despair. Times when we become so aware of the utter depravity of our thoughts, words, and actions that we conclude that we must now be well beyond the limits of God’s patience. Well beyond the protection of God’s presence. Well beyond the promise of God’s forgiveness.
At these times, we too think “What will God do?”
That’s why Christians need to hear the gospel. I used to think that the gospel was just for “the lost.” It was just the information you needed to get your foot in the door of this thing that we call the Church. But the gospel is not a one-time word. It is a continual answer to the question that we ask when we succumb to ugliness of the sin that so easily besets us. The question “What will God do?” is always answered by the gospel, because the gospel is nothing other than what God has already done. The gospel is the word that tells us everything that God has done in Christ Jesus to restore us, forgive us, and give us the continuing gift of his presence. In moments of despair, the gospel is the promise of hope. Against the threat of abandonment, the gospel is the sure sign given to Mary by Gabriel--that Jesus is Emmanuel--God with us. Always. In his Word. In the Sacraments. Always with us. Speaking the gospel to us again, and again, and again.
The gospel is no mere second chance. It is an ongoing declaration of promise. It is the full story of what God has already done despite you, for you, and for your salvation.