When the people realized that Moses was taking forever in coming down off the mountain, they rallied around Aaron and said, ‘Do something. Make gods for us who will lead us. That Moses, the man who got us out of Egypt—who knows what’s happened to him?’” Exodus 36:1
I read this passage this week in the Daily Message (We discovered, incidentally, that the mobile-app version of the Daily Message finishes the year of reading 16 days earlier than the paperback version. In case you’re wondering why I read Exodus 36 this past week). But, this hit me. At some level, it’s a passage about impatience. It’s more than the feeling of not getting stuff when we want it. It’s a passage about this – WHAT WE DO when we don’t get what we want when we think we deserve to have it.
To recap: God’s people have been miraculously rescued from captivity in Egypt. They’ve walked through the Red Sea. They’ve followed a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of cloud by day. They’re standing at the foot of a mountain where God’s full pyrotechnic array has been on display. Moses has gone up to meet with God. And… he’s taking too long. God’s people reason, not only that God had abandoned them, but that they need something else — something that will capture their hearts. Clearly, God-who-rescues isn’t around anymore.
So, they create something to worship, something to which they can dedicate themselves: “gods…who will lead us.”
This is us. This is me. I suppose none of us have actually melted our jewelry into molten liquid so that it can be reshaped into a literal idol for worship. But, we do get impatient. When God isn’t operating on my schedule, when He’s decided my need for traffic abatement isn’t His priority, or that my need to have that thing everyone else has isn’t something I ought to have, I bow down to other some lesser gods who promise to deliver much more quickly. I kneel before the idols of my own desires. I bow to the gods of my own self-gratification. I lay down before the statues of my own ego — the ones I’ve built with my own hands.
For us, when our needs (so often confused for our desires) aren’t met the instant we can think of them, we find the most troubling thing about God — He tends to take way too long. Clearly, He must be confused, not only about our time table, but about what actually constitutes real need. We run to the lesser gods who give us everything, no matter the damage to our souls. We run to the gods who leave us emptier and hungrier than we’ve ever been. We keep building idols, hoping that the next one will fill us. It is in those idols that we lose our true humanity. We self-sabotage. We sabotage others.
We need a re-rescue from God. We need a rescue from the mess we continue to create for ourselves. We need a rescue from the mess we create for others. We believe God can and wants to restore brokenness. We’ll continue to look at this God who rebuilds and restores and re-rescues this Sunday morning as we continue in our relationship series: BEAUTIFUL MESS.
See you Sunday,
Jeff
