Day 21 – September 28, 2023: Exodus 33-38
September 28, 2023We repeat once again the measurements of the tabernacle, the traveling temple, and all the work that went into constructing it. Did you notice that the call went out for workers and others to help with the building of the tabernacle and filling it with those items that the Lord commanded be included? What happened once the call went out? So many people came and offered what was needed that another call had to go out that they had what they needed. Can you imagine a call that goes out in the church that we need help in the nursery, and help for people to teach Sunday School, and help with advisors for the youth and we get such an overflowing response that we have to tell people we don’t need them because we have enough? Now that would be awesome!
I do want to touch upon the face of Moses when he sees the Lord. A couple things about that. First of all, he is in the presence of God and while he is in God’s presence his face glows as a result. God gives him another set of tablets in order that the ten commandments would once again be written so that they could be with the people. That happens and this time Moses doesn’t break them. But when he comes down off the mountain, and every time that he talks with the Lord, his face shines. In the Hebrew it can also be interpreted as “he had horns”. You will see in many depictions of Moses especially in the Baroque and the Renaissance periods you have Moses with the 10 commandments and he has horns. It is very offputting, but when you go to Rome and see St. Peter’s or other statues done by Michalangelo, or Bernini, you will see Moses at times with horns. This is why, because his face was shining when he saw God, or he had horns. Fun fact for the day.
I find myself often on the fence with the formality of these passages. When we were Lutherans, I loved the formality of how my pastor treated communion and Christ the King Sunday with the processional into the church. I find myself drawn to that reverence, and the formality of the requirements in these passages, I find, feel reverent in a way that I miss sometimes. But then, as I’m rewatching The Chosen, I just finished the episode in which Jesus is with the woman at the well, and she complains of how the Jews have made worshipping so exclusive (I guess the temple was far away and on a mountain top?). But Jesus (in the show) explains that it will no longer be that way. That it will just be about the spirit now that He has come. And there is this great release that you see in her face. And I like that too.
There is nothing more mysterious and spiritually uplifting for me than to be a part of a Russian Orthodox service. While I don’t understand a word that is spoken, the reverence, the seriousness in which the service is done, is absolutely palpable. Many Roman Catholics were sorry to see the Latin Mass disappear. But there is the fine line, which at times is not very fine. When the Bible was mass produced it allowed all of us to read and interpret the Word of God. This eliminated much, if not all, of the formality that was built around just the priestly class being able to have access to God. Sometimes the formality in religion finds at its root an exclusivity built around the chosen few who have access to God. This is not appealing to me. The woman at the well is a Samaritan and they were very religiously different from Jews. They believed that Mount Gerizim is the holiest of sites as opposed to Mount Zion which is Jerusalem. That is why the mountain comes into play because they believed in different mountains as far as where God resided.