I have finished the book of Exodus and have begun Leviticus this past week. The book of Exodus is so full of miraculous and bloody events, by the end of the book I had begun to wonder why all the blood was necessary. And all of the tiny little rules. It occurred to me that, yes, this bloody book is overwhelming, these stories are incredible and atrocious at once, but they were not meant to be taken alone. Moses wrote both Genesis and Exodus, they are books in a series written by the same person who has a personal history with God. These books are an extension of the experience of Moses and the Israelites with God in their time of adolescence as a people, and as such I ought to read and consider Exodus within the context of the history described in Genesis. The tones of the two books are quite different, but I think subtext is the same: God loves you and will do anything to bring His people to Him should they choose to follow. It helps me to think of God as The Father in these two books, trying to rear a people from spiritual infancy to spiritual adulthood, from instant gratification and assurance to people who will follow Him based on faith and love rather than assurance and reward.
This thinking came to a head for me in Exodus 31-34 when Moses goes up Mount Sinai to receive the word of God and the Tablets of the Covenant. In this story, God is gently giving His word to his beloved grumbling people through His messenger Moses and all the while they are creating golden idols below to worship. Moses comes down from the mountain and sees the idolatry, one of the most hurtful sins to God and gets so upset he smashes the tablets. Moses then has the sons of Levi slaughter 3000 of their brothers, friends and neighbours in an afternoon, after having talked God out of eliminating all of the Israelites by His "wrath burning hot against them". Moses ascends the mountain again and inscribes a second set of tablets from the Lord. So, after I had read about the plagues of Egypt, the swallowing of Egypt by the Red Sea as they pursued the Israelites, all in all thousands of deaths to prove the omnipotence of God, here is a slaughter of God's own children. Three thousand in an afternoon in a relatively small nation would be a horrific loss and an incredibly bloody event. I couldn't wrap my head around why God should want this to happen. Thinking back to the story of Noah in the book of Genesis, again the Lord was heartbroken at what his people were doing and how they were living. He was angry and had decided to wipe out the human race, but Noah gave him hope. So he spared Noah and sent down the floods with the promise of a rainbow never to wipe out the human race again. In his faithfulness, perhaps God is frustrated in Exodus. Will His people NEVER learn? He has to stay true to the promise of the rainbow, but what can be done to show the Israelites the error of their ways? How can they be shown what a loss it is to God to have His people turn away from Him? Perhaps the deaths of 3000 brothers and neighbours would begin to convey the depth of loss He feels. I see a Father at a loss for what to do with a petulant teenager that will not listen and will not see reason. And still He keeps His promise and still He is faithful in protecting human free will.
Exodus 34, Moses goes back up the mountain with new tablets to again receive the word and covenant of the Lord. Here, Moses talks of God being merciful, forgiving and slow to anger; all the evidence of exodus speaks to the contrary… or does it? Is God really so bloodthirsty, or are the sins of the Israelites and the Egyptians so grave? Perhaps it seems that God is vengeful only because the idolatry and denial of God were grave. God explains in a more human way how grave idolatry is to Moses in the new covenant; he describes himself as jealous, (I think) so that the Israelites will finally understand what he means. Jealousy is a human way of describing the tragedy of putting something before God.
Exodus 37 Bezalel made the ark of the covenant. This is interesting that it is called an Ark also. The covenant the Lord made with Noah was also through an Ark carrying “redemption” of humans and all creatures, separating the holy people of Noah from the sinful world because of the hope, love and trust the Lord had in Noah. This is analogous to what is happening with Moses. The Lord cannot wipe out the rest of the people because of the promise of the rainbow, but he can separate his children from the sinful masses with a new ark and hope that the world will follow their lead.
Leviticus 1-4, this book was written by Moses after the laws were given to him once the Lord descended upon the tabernacle in smoke and fire and the glory of the Lord was in the tabernacle. There are so many rules about how to make burnt offerings, grain offerings, peace offerings, sin offerings. Because we, as Christians, don’t offer sacrifices of flesh and blood to God, all of these rules seem a bit much. However, these rules in Leviticus are nothing short of miraculous. The Lord is sending down ways in which the people can participate in their own salvation and in the salvation of their loved ones. God is giving the Israelites opportunities to recognize their sins against Him and repent, was to be closer to God. The beauty of these laws is that God knows his grumbling children and knows they will use their free will to sin against Him; He accepts this and like a loving father allows them to turn back toward Him through significant acts on the physical plane. I imagine that knowing all of the rules and, on top of the time it takes to know the rules, sacrificing bulls, pigeons and sheep to atone for sins may be God’s way of helping human beings understand how He is hurt each time one of His children sins against Him. The loss of property, security and food for a human being may be God’s way of saying, “the loss of this animal is a small fraction of the loss I feel when you turn away”. Again, this is God gently urging us back to Him.
Perhaps also guiding His people to practice things in a particular way will allow them freedom in the end. To be dependent on God for everything is freedom. Strictly defined practice is a way to add significance to things, that his people may learn the value of His grace. Like asking a petulant teenager to get a job to pay for half of his own car to know the value of it. The Israelites here are perhaps an adolescent people, they so quickly forgot the commandments against idolatry when Moses was up the mountain, they are adolescent perhaps in that they need instant gratification and reassurance rather than being content to know the value of practice for the practice.
In Leviticus 10, Moses explains why the priests must eat of the sin offering in his anger that it was accidentally burnt. The priests take on the sins of the people in eating the sin offering and make atonement on their behalf. I thought this was interesting in that my initial impression was that the aim of the eating of the offerings was to sustain the priests physically, but it is also to help people atone for sins and turn back toward God.
Oh my, that was a long one.
May we turn toward the glory of God through thought and action, May He receive us as his loving children and May we feel the warmth of forgiveness and fullness of community as we journey toward Him together. Amen.
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