[Salvation]

God of the Second Chance

Dr. Mark Giszczak

June 15, 2014
Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/061514.cfm

Sometimes we mess up. Hopefully, most of the time our errors are small, easily fixed, or even overlooked. But sometimes we mess up big, really big. The people of Israel found themselves in that kind of spot. They had seen God’s power deliver them Pharaoh and the Egyptians; they miraculously crossed the Red Sea; he appeared to them in thunder at Mt. Sinai, and yet they fail. They set up a false idol, the Golden Calf, and worship it at the base of the mountain while Moses is receiving the law from God. Oops.

Context

This Sunday’s Old Testament reading presents a scene right after God’s people have sinned against him by worshiping the Golden Calf. After that happens, Moses stalks down the mountain and smashes the two stone tablets of the law in anger. Then he intercedes before God on behalf of the people, and the Lord offers to renew the covenant and write on a new set of stone tablets. Here Moses brings two fresh tablets (clean slates!) before the Lord on Mt. Sinai and awaits a revelation.

The setting for the scene looks a lot like the giving of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 19—20, but here Moses encounters God alone. The people as a whole are not hearing his voice. Moses acts as covenant mediator. The Lord shows up in power, with the full force of his presence before Moses. The Lord repeatedly declares his holy name: YHWH.

The Holy Name

The name of the Lord, YHWH, was so holy to the ancient Hebrews that they left it unpronounced and written without vowels. To this day, when devout Jews read the words of Scripture aloud, they say Adonai (“my lord”) rather than the sacred name. In fact, just a few years ago the Vatican banned the use of the name in hymns sung during the liturgy. The name is often referred to as the “tetragrammaton” because of its four consonants. The exact meaning of the holy name of the Lord is matter for debate among scholars. It might originate from the verb “to be” in Hebrew (hayah) and mean something like “the one who is” or “the one who causes to be.” Whatever its etymology, YHWH becomes the personal name for the Lord in the Old Testament.

A God of Justice and Mercy

In the course of revealing his name to Moses once again, the Lord also reveals his character. He is “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exod 34:6 RSV). The Lectionary leaves out the more difficult verse 7: “…keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” Our God is not a hufflepuff God. He doesn’t pretend that everything is okay when sin stands between us. He is not the sort of person to pretend like nothing is the matter when a major issue separates us from him. Rather, he will confront us with our wrongdoing and seek to reestablish a relationship. If we persist in our sin, then we get to suffer the consequences. The suffering caused by sin is not individualistic, but has ramifications for our families too. In Exod 34:7, a personal sin is even said to harm one’s children and grandchildren.

However, the Lord is not only a God of justice, but a God of mercy. In fact, St. John Paul II called it “the most stupendous attribute of the Creator” (Dives in Misericordia, 13). Here in Exodus, the Lord emphasizes his mercy, his compassion. He announces his nature as slow to anger and rich in hesed (covenant love) and faithfulness. The point is that while we can trust in God’s justice, his power, his authority, his omniscience, we ought not be overwhelmed by those aspects. That is, his mercy is bigger than our faults. His forgiveness can conquer even our worst sins. His fidelity is stronger than our infidelity. He is the God who gives us a second chance (and more!)

Starting Over Again

Moses responds to his encounter with God with an attitude of humble worship and submission. He falls on his face before the Lord and worships. This is exactly the right response. He submits himself and the people to the Lord once more, asking for God’s favor and his presence. Moses again repents on behalf of the people with a confession that in fact, yes, we are “stiff-necked.” He pleads for God’s pardon and forgiveness, to be restored once more into a relationship of covenant love. I love this moment, because Moses is so brutally honest, so transparent, so humbly self-deprecating. He realizes his errors, his people’s sins, the lack of commitment that they’ve displayed. Yet he hungers for relationship with God. He wants the people to have the Lord in their midst, to live in a covenant relationship with Him.

The Lord doesn’t ignore Moses’ request, but responds in mercy, forgiveness and even covenant renewal. Immediately after this passage, the Lord reinitiates his relationship with the people of Israel and so powerfully blesses Moses that his face shines with the reflected glory of God. He answers Moses’ humble petition.

The power of this story lies in the second chance the Lord offers. When we mess up, it is easy to get discouraged, to lose hope, to fall into despair away from God. Yet he invites us back. He offers us a second chance. He is “slow to anger” and rich in mercy. He wants us more than we want him and he holds his hand out to us. Our job isn’t to wallow in our faults or to clean ourselves up before we seek Him, but to come to him in our brokenness, acknowledge our failings and ask for his help. Then perhaps he will consent to “go in the midst of us” after all.

[Salvation]

Scripture Speaks: Trinity Sunday

Gayle Somers

On this first Sunday after Pentecost, the Church calls us to remember the Most Holy Trinity. Why is this perfect timing?

Gospel (Read Jn 3:16-18)

Today’s Gospel is different from any we have seen during the long seasons of Lent and Easter. On Sunday after Sunday, the Gospels have reported actions of Jesus. They have been passages full of conversations and events that moved His story along, culminating in His Ascension into Heaven and His promise to send the Holy Spirit. Today, however, St. John gives us a kind of summary of this. It is simple, but what a sweep it has! Read the first verse carefully so as not to miss its impact through familiarity: “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life.” If we understand the scope of this statement, we will know why it is perfectly fitting that today is Trinity Sunday.

“God so loved the world” inevitably takes us all the way back to Creation, where we first meet “God” and “the world.” Why does God love the world so much? We can’t fully answer this without figuring out why He made the world in the first place. As we read through the first few chapters of Genesis, the one thing we immediately grasp is that the physical world exists as a home for the crown of creation: man and woman. In a brief but remarkably important verse, we see God’s intention for mankind: “Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness” (Gen 1:26). Surely this doesn’t tell us everything we’d like to know about our creation, but it tells us what we most need to know. God, the “Us” in this verse, wants man to be like Him. First, notice the paradox. There is plurality in the language of singularity. There is only one God creating the universe, but this God is “Us.” Mysterious! It will take a very long time for the meaning of this paradox to be made clear. Next, implicit in this statement is an invitation.

Why make man in “Our” image and likeness if not to welcome him into the communion and fellowship of “Us”? This is vital information. If man is made in the image of the God Who is “Us,” then man is made for communion with the “Us” of God. In addition, we find in the next chapter of Genesis that “it is not good” that man should be alone (Gen 2:18). This was the only thing in creation pronounced “not good” by God. It makes perfect sense, however. If we are like the God Who is “Us,” then we are meant for communion with other beings like us. This would be a true reflection of being in God’s image.

As we read on in Genesis, we find that God’s plan was seriously interrupted by man’s disobedience. Adam and Eve’s willfulness broke their communion with God and with each other. They incurred God’s just punishment, but because “God so loved the world,” He made them a promise. A “woman” and her “seed” would someday do battle with the Enemy who seduced them into rebellion. In the meantime, they were expelled from the Garden, but it was not destroyed. That hinted at the possibility of a return.

So, very early on, the stage is set for the drama of salvation that needs the rest of history to unfold. We began to explore that history in Advent, when we discovered that a young girl in Nazareth was “the woman” promised by God, and her “seed” was Jesus, God’s own Son, Who existed from the beginning but became a Man in the Incarnation. The “Us” of Genesis is beginning to take shape. Lent and Easter rehearsed the truly unimaginable history of God’s Son dying in our place to lift the punishment pronounced on us (as children of Adam) in the Garden. He experienced God’s just judgment for us, and in His Resurrection, He defeated Satan, sin, and death in one fell swoop. Then, in a move no one could have predicted, when He ascended into Heaven, King Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to complete the long-standing intention of God at Creation. It is the Holy Spirit, God’s own life in us, Who makes it possible for man to step into the fellowship for which he was made, not only with the “Us” of God, now fully revealed to be God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but also with one another. Wow!

This history helps us more fully understand St. John’s summary statement about God’s love. We know the great heights from which man fell in the Garden and the dramatic response from God—sending His only Son—to restore us. Jesus came to save, not condemn. The condemnation on sin already rested on man from the Garden. It didn’t appear in man’s history at the Incarnation. Believing in Jesus will save man from sin’s judgment. That is why St. John says, “Whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the Name of the only Son of God.”

“God so loved the world” that He did everything necessary for us to know and love Him back, a work accomplished, at various times in human history, by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now that the story is complete, it is the perfect time to say, “Blessed be the Most Holy Trinity today!”

Possible response: Blessed Trinity, thank You for all You have done to welcome me into Your fellowship for eternity. I was made for this.

First Reading (Read Ex 34:4b-6, 8-9)

Having reviewed the scope of salvation in our Gospel reading, we can now examine one piece of the vast history that led St. John to write, “God so loved the world.” Here we find ourselves on Mt. Sinai, as Moses returns to the LORD’s presence after Israel’s apostasy with the golden calf. In his fury at seeing for himself the orgiastic rebellion of God’s people, Moses threw the first set of the tablets of God’s Law down, shattering them in a prophetic demonstration of what the people had done by their disobedience. Moses interceded on their behalf, however, and God accepted his mediation. Now, Moses takes another set of tablets into the LORD’s presence so that He can write His Law on them a second time for His people.

Not included in today’s reading is Moses’ request that God do more than re-write the tablets: “Moses said, ‘I pray Thee, show me Thy glory” (Ex 33:18). Even with Moses’ long friendship with God, his heart’s desire was for “more,” as it should be for us, too. God grants his request, passing by him as he was protected in the cleft of a rock. In a very rare self-description, God identifies Himself as mercy, grace, patience, kindness, and faithfulness. Notice in this encounter the shadowy suggestion of the Trinity: “Having come down in a cloud, the LORD stood with Moses.” God in Heaven (the Father) comes down in a cloud (the Spirit), and stands, passing by like a man (the Son). When Moses experiences this, he “bowed down to the ground in worship,” as we are called to do on Trinity Sunday. Look carefully at Moses’ request for God’s wayward people: “…do come along in our company. This is indeed a stiff-necked people; yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and receive us as Your own.” What is he asking?

Moses wants communion, nearness, physical proximity for God and Israel, the very thing for which we were made. He acknowledges the problem caused by sin (resolved by Jesus, hundreds of years later), and longs for Israel to be God’s own children (accomplished by the Holy Spirit on Pentecost). Not even Moses, who knew God so well, could have imagined how this prayer would ultimately be answered. Because we do, we have yet another reason to say, “Blessed be the Most Holy Trinity today!”

Possible response: Blessed Trinity, I ask of You, for myself and the Church, what Moses asked on Sinai: “Do come along in our company” this day.

Psalm (Read Dan 3:52-55)

If our readings are getting us cranked up to bless the Holy Trinity today, this hymn of praise from the Book of Daniel gives us perfect words to do it. Its lines contain an increasing intensification of what we know God’s love for the world should call forth from us: “Glory and praise forever!”

Possible response: Blessed Trinity, I can feel in these words the ecstasy of Your reign over all creation. Help me keep this vision! It dims for me sometimes.

Second Reading (Read 2 Cor 13:11-13)

This epistle reading, with amazing brevity, helps us to see the practical application of the work of the Holy Trinity on our behalf. Imagine if we asked of St. Paul, “What difference does the doctrine of the Trinity make to my daily life?” Good question! Here is his answer. Let us savor every simple phrase: Brothers and sisters, rejoice (the only appropriate response to the work of the Trinity). Mend your ways (Jesus has conquered sin and given us His Spirit; live in that victory). Encourage… agree… live in peace…greet each other with a holy kiss (live the unity won for us by the Trinity). The God of love and peace will be with you (Moses’ request for God’s presence among His people has been accomplished by the Trinity). The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (Blessed be the Most Holy Trinity today!).

Possible response: Read the epistle again—it IS our response.