Exodus Musings

I've been reading in Exodus lately. Most of the time, when I think about Exodus, I think about the Israelites escaping Egypt and heading to the promised land. Turns out that there's a lot more to this book. The last few days I've been reading in the middle of the book where several chapters tell about the design and making of the tabernacle--the portable temple that the Israelites worshipped in until Solomon built the Temple. Must have met in that thing for 100 years or so, and we9those of us who've been part of a church plant that is) complain about setting up chairs in a school for a few years.
Anyway, reading all this stuff about how many cubits long and wide and tall the altar and the table and the tent were, I actually had a few thoughts that were helpful. First of all, it's amazing to me that most of these chapters (19-35) are made up of God talking to Moses and Moses talking to God. Wow! Exodus 33:11 tells us that God spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with a friend, and Exodus 34:29-35 that Moses was glowing after he talked with God. Awesome! In the midst of this I found a prayer--"Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people."(Ex. 33:13) I want that to be my prayer; that the sign of God's favor in my life would be that I would grow in my relationship with God.
The last phrase is interesting also--"Consider too that this nation is your people too." I wonder if this has to do with the early part of chapter 32. Moses is up on the mountain and the people decide that he's been gone so long that maybe he's not coming back, so they talk Aaron into making them a golden calf to worship. (I think this must have been the thing to do culturally back then.) Needless to say, God is not to happy about this and look at what God says to Moses in Exodus 32:7 "Go down at once! Your people whom I brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely..." Kind of reminds you when a parent gets upset with the kids and suddenly they're YOUR kids. I just thought that was kind of funny myself. Personally, I have a prayer for these kinds of moments: "It's a good thing God loves you, because I'm having a hard time. Lord help me!"
These chapters also impressed me with the holiness of God. The tabernacle, which Israel thought of as God's home on earth was unique, it was extravagant, it was set apart from the everyday. The idea of "set apartness" or separateness is part of what holiness means. God's holiness is what sets God apart from creation. These chapters, honestly, are strange. They remind me that God is different from me, from us; that God's ways are not our ways, as Isaiah 55:9 says. And yet creation shares some of God's holiness, especially humanity. We are created in the image of God and one of the central themes of scripture, of the activity of God among us throughout history, has been to call us back to holiness, back to the one in whose image we were created.
Lord, speak to me as you spoke to Moses. Teach me your ways, so I can know you more and love you more deeply. So be it.