Creekside Church Sermon of November 17, 1996 "Getting a Glimpse of God" Exodus 33:12-23	Rev. David Bibbee
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To look into another's face is to see more than the color of the eyes and contour of the nose. Faces are windows to the soul. To really communicate, we need to read another space, and look at them eye to eye. We all know how it feels when we're trying to saying something to someone and they turn their face and won't look at us.

When a face is hidden, we want to know who is behind it. Growing up I wanted to know what the lone ranger looked like behind his mask. In that old T.V. show, The Millionaire, I wanted to see the millionaire instead of the camera's view of what the millionaire saw from behind his huge desk. In the program Home Improvement, don't you wish you could see the face of Tim's neighbor, Wilson, instead of his back, his eyes, and the top of his head?

We want to know if the person behind the face is the same as the one in front. Behind the great, fearful, and magnificent Wizard of Oz was just a man at a microphone pulling levers and pushing buttons. It all brings me to the question, would you want to see God? When I was a boy my Grandmother told me she had a picture of God in her scrapbook. Actually, it was a picture of a painting made by a man who saw a cloud formation in which he imagined he saw God. I was disappointed because I was anticipating something more majestic, instead of a God who looked like a sad guy with a beard in a bathrobe.

To see God. That's what Moses requested in our passage. In the Temple the prophet Isaiah said he saw the Lord high and lifted up. Jesus said the pure in heart would see God. In John, he said, "Once you've seen me, you've seen the father." So then it's not unreasonable to ask for a glimpse of God. Yet the same book says, "Blessed are those who don't see but believe." Hebrews says, "Faith is the evidence of things not seen." Paul said we live by faith, not sight.

For a moment, let's suppose God has a face. What would you see in that face? A smile which says, "You are my beloved child."? A frown and a falling tear for the hatred and warfare which tears apart the human family and world which God so lovingly fashioned? Would God appear totally disinterested by all the natural disasters which brings so much suffering and death? Would God seem as caring as the clerk at the Driver's License branch? Would God's forehead be furrowed and eyes blazing in anger over all we've done or left undone? I'm not so sure I would want to look God in the face, would you?

Ever since the day Moses climbed Mt. Sinai and found God in the burning bush, the two had an intimate relationship. After the Israelites had been led from slavery in Egypt, God summoned Moses for another mountaintop chat. But down below the people were growing impatient. "Why should Moses get all the attention? Is it asking too much for God to make an appearance down here--toss a few lightening bolts and say "I am" like Charlton Heston? Why have a distant, invisible God on a mountaintop when we can have a tangible one here? And, as you know, it didn't take long for them to make a holy cow around which they prayed and pranced and danced.

God was not amused. God told Moses that since the Hebrews had broken their part of the covenant, they were on their own. "Tell those stiff-necks I'm so mad that if I did go with them, I'd fry them like bacon." Somehow the thought of slavery in Egypt seemed more appealing to them than the prospect of being in the wilderness without God or as much as a compass to lead them. And while the people were wailing, Moses said, "Let me see what I can do."

Moses goes to God and says, "You know...it wasn't exactly my idea to bring Israel out here in the first place. I didn't volunteer for this job. You told me I had to do it. You also promised me some extra leadership that I haven't seen. Not even a map to know where to go. Look, God. I know you're angry, but it seems to me you're giving up on your own plan." Moses would have made a great attorney, wouldn't he? A combination of F. Lee Bailey and Johnny Cochran pleading before the bench of the most high. God looked down. God repented and said, "I guess I can't give you up now. I will go with you."

But look at what Moses does next..."As long as we're talking, Lord, I would like to see your glory. I've heard your voice. I've seen the evidence of your guiding presence-- now let me see your face." I recall some old lines that go, "But my face, I don't mind it, for I am behind it; it's the people in front get the jar." "To see my face," God said, "would overwhelm you; would jar you to death. You will not see my face, but I will make my goodness pass before you, and on the coattails of goodness will come graciousness and mercy." So God took Moses in the cleft in the Rock of Ages, covered him, and goodness passed him by.

I have been guided by and touched by God. I have been spoken to through dreams, but I never have had a vision of God. We've all had that fleeting desire to see God's glory...to come to church and see more than a pastor in navy blue and all the familiar faces in the pews which are familiar as your own. If only for a moment we have all wished to be caught up in some transcendent experience and know for certain that God is. Just one glimpse. But God said, "Not glory, but goodness will I show you." "I ask no dreams, no prophet's ecstacies," the hymn goes.

There is a man out east who is a professional tracker. Having learned the art from a renowned Indian guide, he is often called upon for his incredible ability to find lost people in the most remote areas of the world. From a footprint he can tell how much a person weighs, when they had their last meal, how tired they are or where they are likely to go. His senses are so refined that he can track where a mouse has traveled across a gravel road. Where God has been, there is also a trail--one that leaves evidence which is not too hard to see.

I found God's trail last Friday night in a hospital room of a dying woman where three people from this church had just been to pray, to care, and console. I've seen glimpses of God's goodness when hands were held at hospital bedsides, when the aches of heavy hearts were heard and healed, when people have fallen short of their promises, yet experienced forgiveness...these are the glimpses of God we are given.

"No Moses, you can't see my face and live. But I'll let my goodness pass." Moses didn't see God's face, what he saw was the east end view of a westbound God. "You shall see my back," God said. The Hebrew word for back means "hind parts," or "behind." Now here's a picture for you. Moses didn't see God's face, he saw God's behind. Remember, we're not talking about anatomy here. This was a poetic way of establishing a bigger truth. In verse fourteen God says, "My presence will go with you." However in the Hebrew, "with you" doesn't appear. It simply says, "my presence will go." But where is God's presence going?

That's the question, isn't it? At the point where we want to set up house, God is on the move. God won't stay put, be boxed in, settle down, be domesticated, or put into our back pockets to be pulled out in case of an emergency. If you want to know this God, you've got to go where God goes. You can't make God stay still long enough to see His face. You will die if you do. But why? If God has a face, would it be so awesome we would melt before it? Maybe we would die not so much from seeing it, as from what might happen afterward.

We would likely erect a shrine on the holy site. Millions would make pilgrimages there. The face of God would be mass produced on black velvet paintings or sweatshirts. There would be God figurines for your dashboard. We would end up making another golden calf...we would have not God, but a graven image to be contained and controlled. Focus your attention on any substitute for God and the result is always the same. No one who tries to domesticate God will live to tell about it. What we end up with is a lifeless idol to take wherever we want. But God bids us follow wherever God wants. "My presence will go."

You remember Jesus' words to Mary on Easter morn. "Don't be afraid. Tell the disciples I go to Galilee...there they will see me." Galilee stands for the world. Get the picture? God and Son won't stay put. A tomb couldn't hold him. No temple could contain him. He is on the move. Out in the world, into life. But if you look carefully, you'll catch glimpses of God. God maintains a healthy distance between God's self and us, not to keep us away, but to draw us on. He shows the way by marking it with steadfast love and goodness and acts of grace in people's lives.

But there's just one more thing you need to know. We don't see glory, we see goodness. God won't stay put, God moves us on. But all the while you are being followed, tracked down, pursued by a powerful duo. Their names are goodness and mercy. You know...the guys from the twenty-third psalm who follow us all the days of our lives.

I read about a mean, bitter old man in a hospital somewhere down south. Some said he had a right to be bitter. The wife he dearly loved died giving birth to their only child. Soon afterward the child died. He made no real friendships after that. He talked to no one. He refused to darken the doors of a church. Now, late in years he was taken from his apartment to the hospital to die, and during his last days he received not one card, not one flower, one visit or phone call. But there was a student nurse...

Being new, she had not learned to become detached, so she decided to befriend him. But he didn't want befriended and didn't know how to react to her kindness. "Stop bothering me! Get out of here!" he would say. But she was as persistent as he was resistant. She would coax him to eat and tuck him into bed even as he protested, "I don't need nobody to help me." But as he grew weaker, so did his resistance to her kindness. When her eleven p.m. shift was over she would pull up a chair beside his bed, take his gnarled, skeletal hand and sing to him. He looked at her in the soft light and wondered if she would be like his daughter if she had become an adult. She leaned over and kissed him and his eyes became two little puddles. Then he said words it had been fifty years since he had spoken last. "God bless you."

Minutes later he died, but not before the two friends caught up with him and ushered him to where one doesn't have to look dimly through a dark glass to see another's depth; but where we see others and finally see God, face to face. God promised Moses his presence would accompany Israel after all. But would they follow? It's our question now. The hind parts of God go before us through many a twisted and sometimes tortured road. God's loving, forgiving acts mark the way. And though sometimes unsure of where we are or where we are headed, we can trust that God is guarding the rear with those two old friends, goodness and mercy, who will follow us all the days of our lives.

[Thanks to William Willimon for suggesting the approach to this sermon.]

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