began at the end
My greatest moment of freedom began at my end of many long years of hiding, on September 14, 1980, the day I started seminary at Lutheran Theological Seminary, Gettysburg. It was my forty-fifth birthday. Something, a feeling, of surrendering to one’s destiny. Giving in. Of letting loose, letting go. Some, not necessarily I, might say letting go and letting God. That day was like putting on my name, and realizing it was who I had always been and now I was real. Maybe like the velveteen rabbit.
That seems, but for me actually is not, a stretch for a start to this morning’s thought process about our OT lesson for day after tomorrow, this coming Sunday morning. We’re still in Exodus. Moses is asking to know better יְהוָ֔ה whom, at great risk, Moses has been trusting. I remember the first quiz in my Old Testament class at LTSG: in each of a series of questions, we were given a word or two to identify. One question was “God’s behind.” Which seemed to me, a totally beginning novice at fooling around with God, blasphemous. That we could contemplate in human terms, and even humorously, the body parts of The Holy One, God’s privates. Thirty-seven years later I’m nearly okay with it, still a little edgy, but I’ll take the risk of going too far. In fact, I sometimes manage to do that in our Sunday School class, sort of beyond the penultimate double-dog dare of my youth, the triple-dog dare that got Flick’s tongue frozen to the flagpole in “A Christmas Story” with Ralphie, the Old Man, and his 1937 Oldsmobile. I too was "an Oldsmobile man" in more cars and ways than one, from my middle thirties right through my forties.
At any event, below, preceded by our Collect for the Day, is the good old time Bible story. It’s about God’s glory, isn’t it, God’s glory, a moving, shifting, changing notion. As the Collect avers, In the NT and for us Gentiles, God’s glory is Jesus. But with Moses and for the Israelites, on this occasion at least, God’s glory is the Full Moon, אֲחֹרָ֑י - -
the hind side, back part, afterward, away, back, backs, backward, behind, hereafter, hindquarters, rear, rear parts
The Collect
Almighty and everlasting God, in Christ you have revealed your glory among the nations: Preserve the works of your mercy, that your Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Old Testament Exodus 33:12-23
Moses said to יְהוָ֔ה 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 favor in my sight.’ 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.”
He יְהוָ֔ה said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And Moses said to יְהוָ֔ה him, “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. 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.”
The Lord יְהוָ֔ה said to Moses, “I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” Moses said, “Show me your glory, I pray.”
And יְהוָ֔ה he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, יְהוָ֔ה ‘The Lord’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he יְהוָ֔ה said, “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.” And יְהוָ֔ה the Lord continued, “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; 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; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my behind; but my face shall not be seen.”
DThos+ at risk
That seems, but for me actually is not, a stretch for a start to this morning’s thought process about our OT lesson for day after tomorrow, this coming Sunday morning. We’re still in Exodus. Moses is asking to know better יְהוָ֔ה whom, at great risk, Moses has been trusting. I remember the first quiz in my Old Testament class at LTSG: in each of a series of questions, we were given a word or two to identify. One question was “God’s behind.” Which seemed to me, a totally beginning novice at fooling around with God, blasphemous. That we could contemplate in human terms, and even humorously, the body parts of The Holy One, God’s privates. Thirty-seven years later I’m nearly okay with it, still a little edgy, but I’ll take the risk of going too far. In fact, I sometimes manage to do that in our Sunday School class, sort of beyond the penultimate double-dog dare of my youth, the triple-dog dare that got Flick’s tongue frozen to the flagpole in “A Christmas Story” with Ralphie, the Old Man, and his 1937 Oldsmobile. I too was "an Oldsmobile man" in more cars and ways than one, from my middle thirties right through my forties.
At any event, below, preceded by our Collect for the Day, is the good old time Bible story. It’s about God’s glory, isn’t it, God’s glory, a moving, shifting, changing notion. As the Collect avers, In the NT and for us Gentiles, God’s glory is Jesus. But with Moses and for the Israelites, on this occasion at least, God’s glory is the Full Moon, אֲחֹרָ֑י - -
the hind side, back part, afterward, away, back, backs, backward, behind, hereafter, hindquarters, rear, rear parts
The Collect
Almighty and everlasting God, in Christ you have revealed your glory among the nations: Preserve the works of your mercy, that your Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Old Testament Exodus 33:12-23
Moses said to יְהוָ֔ה 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 favor in my sight.’ 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.”
He יְהוָ֔ה said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And Moses said to יְהוָ֔ה him, “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. 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.”
The Lord יְהוָ֔ה said to Moses, “I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” Moses said, “Show me your glory, I pray.”
And יְהוָ֔ה he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, יְהוָ֔ה ‘The Lord’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he יְהוָ֔ה said, “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.” And יְהוָ֔ה the Lord continued, “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; 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; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my behind; but my face shall not be seen.”
DThos+ at risk