David Bahn – Reflections

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These devotions are part of the Follow the Word Bible reading program at St. John Lutheran Church in Cypress, Texas. This year we are reading through the Scriptures together, listening for how God speaks through his Word day by day. I hope you will join me on this journey.

Today’s readings are Exodus 32-34; Psalm 54.

Exodus 32:7-14

And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. ⁸ They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” ⁹ And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. ¹⁰ Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”

¹¹ But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? ¹² Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. ¹³ Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’” ¹⁴ And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.

I once visited an AA Open Meeting. I was very impressed with the clear admissions I heard around the table: I’m Joe, and I’m an alcoholic. I’m Rober, and I’m an alcoholic. I’m Tom, and I’m an alcoholic. On and on it went for the 20 or so men around the tables in the meeting room. When my turn came, I said, “I’m David, and I’m not an alcoholic, but I am impressed.” And I was very impressed.

Then came the talk. The man who spoke said that you have to turn your life over to a higher power as you understood it, if you were to stay sober. “I don’t care if it’s that light bulb up there. If that’s your higher power, turn your life over to it!”

Well then I was impressed in a different way. I guess he had a point. But I can’t accept the idea that just any god will do. Just any god won’t do. And this section of the Exodus account makes that point so clearly.

God is about to wipe out the Israelites in the middle of the wilderness, and start over with Moses and make him a great nation. But Moses intercedes. “Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people,” he says. Moses gives several reasons God should not do this:

God had brought them out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand

The Egyptians would have cause to impugn God’s character if he wiped them out in the desert.

God had sworn that he would multiply the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel.

God had promised them offspring who would inherit the land.

Why Moses had to intervene, I don’t know. Was God simply testing him to strengthen him for his role in leading God’s people? Whatever the case, Moses reminded God of his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Israel). And God does relent.

Not just any god would do this. Not just any god would rescue a group of people from slavery in Egypt. Not just any god would make a promise to make a nation from so few people and keep it. Not just any god would put up with a rabble like Israel and their leader, Moses, who also had his share of shortcomings.

Not just any god would redeem his people at the cost of his very own Son. But this is our God: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God who sent his Son to save us; the God who hears our prayers, comforts us in our sorrows, heals our diseases, and sustains us through life and death. Not just any god will do – only the God who promises things purely out of his fatherly divine goodness and mercy – totally apart from any goodness or worthiness in us.

He is the God who has done great things, and whose name is greatly to be praised!