Key Verse: “And the
Lord said, ‘I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will
proclaim my name, The LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But,’ He
said, ‘you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.’"
Exodus 33:19-20
How Holy the Lord God is! How unholy we sinners are! Even someone, who walked as closely as Moses
did with God Himself, could not look upon his dear friend's face and live. So often, we do not realize just how much our
sin separates us from God. Adam and Eve
in the garden used to be able to look at God’s face.
Through this encounter, we begin to understand why God could
not simply come, as He is, to live with us. We can begin to understand why He chose to
enter this world as a baby. There is
nothing harmful or threatening about a baby. As a baby, God could be approached and
touched. He could be related to in a
way that we could understand. Who
doesn't enjoy holding a baby, hearing its laugh and enjoying its presence while
it sleeps securely in your arms?
By contrast, here on the mountain, we are caused to consider
the fullness of God's glory. It is immense
and overwhelming. It is so overpowering
that when Moses came away from being near it, his face shone from the afterglow.
It is so intense, that to look at his
face would mean instant death, even for the most righteous of us. Yet, somehow, all of this glory and grandeur
was hidden in the body of an approachable infant and brought forth in the
darkness of a stable. I'm frustrated at
finding the right words to convey the wonder of the miracle that took place. I've thought about stuffing a down sleeping bag
into one of those tiny sacks, but even that doesn't do this miracle justice.
Maybe, by comparing the glory here with the baby in the
manger, we begin to understand, just a little, how much God left behind to
redeem us. Perhaps, we can begin to
understand the depth of His sacrifice for us. How truly amazing is God's love! And one more thing. Most scholars believe that the “stable” in
which Jesus was born was actually a small cave, either natural or carved out of
a rock face. This would mean that in
being born as a human, God switched things around. He put himself in the cleft of the rock, and
invited humble shepherds to draw near and “pass by.”
Isaac Watts puts it this way: "Veiled in flesh, the God
Head see. Hail the incarnate Deity. Pleased as man, with men to dwell, Jesus, our
Emmanuel." He may have been a baby
to us, but to God the Father, He was still all that glory. He may have become a man to us, but He still
contained all that glory. He may have
been hung on a cross, but it was still all that glory that Moses couldn't look
upon hanging on that cross for us as well. What we see with our eyes isn't all that there
is to see. Jesus’ flesh shielded and
protected us from God's glory just as God protected Moses on the mountain. What a wonderful Savior He is. Amen.
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