Dear Friends,
We hope this week's devotional will encourage you in your spiritual walk. We give thanks to Rev. Dr Linda Stargel, Academic Dean and Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies and Biblical Language, for writing this devotional.
Exodus 33:12-23
Moses’s Intercession
12 Moses said to the Lord, “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favour in my sight.’ 13 Now if I have found favour in your sight, please show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favour in your sight. Consider, too, that this nation is your people.” 14 He said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15 And he said to him, “If your presence will not go, do not bring us up from here. 16 For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.”
17 The Lord said to Moses, “I will also do this thing that you have asked, for you have found favour in my sight, and I know you by name.” 18 Moses[a] said, “Please show me your glory.” 19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The Lord,’[b] and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one shall see me and live.” 21 And the Lord continued, “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, 22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; 23 then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”
Devotional
Israel had betrayed God (This is narrated in the previous chapter, Exodus 32—the Golden Calf story).
Moses interceded, Israel mourned and repented. God forgave and, in faithfulness to past promises, announced that Israel would be permitted to go on to the promised land. God announced, however, that an angel, but NOT GOD, would accompany Israel (Exodus 33:1-3)! Israel’s intimacy with God had been shattered.
Could a post-calf people find restoration with God? This would depend on whether there was one who would dare to intercede between God and the people. Moses meets with God in a tent outside the camp and boldly stands in the gap, pleading for more of God—more of God’s presence, grace, and favour. Moses knows that Israel’s well-being and distinct identity depends on God’s presence with them. So he—their priest—insists on more of God. And God graciously grants Moses’s pleas to the extent that the otherness and mystery of God permits. God reverses the decision and promises to go with Israel. God promises goodness, graciousness, and mercy.
Like Moses, we are called to stand in the gap for “post-calf” people, interceding for them. In Christ, all believers are called to be “priests” in this ministry of reconciliation. Not only can we pray that God’s prevenient, saving, and sanctifying grace be made evident to our “tribe,” but we are called to be the means of this grace and of God’s presence. We may feel unprepared and inadequate but God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, has entrusted us with this ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:18-20)!
Prayer
God, helps us to be your means of grace and Christ’s agents of reconciliation in the places to which you have called us. Give us more of your presence, grace, and mercy when we feel inadequate in this space. AMEN
Linda M. Stargel
Academic Dean
Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies and Biblical Language