Moses spoke to the people: “Don’t be afraid. God has come to test you and instill a deep and reverent awe within you so that you won’t sin.”
Moses delivers these words right after God has given the Ten Commandments to the people of Israel. It’s been three months since they left Egypt. And now God wants to make a covenant with them, God wants to enter into a special relationship with the Israelites and make them “a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.” (Exodus 19:6)
So God comes down. God draws near in a spectacular and terrifying way. Chapter 19, verses 18-20, record “Mount Sinai was all smoke because GOD had come down on it as fire. Smoke poured from it like smoke from a furnace. The whole mountain shuddered in huge spasms. The trumpet blasts grew louder and louder. Moses spoke and God answered in thunder. GOD descended to the peak of Mount Sinai.”
No wonder the Israelites were afraid, and all Moses could do was try to reassure them.
When I was a kid, our family watched the 1956 version of Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments at least once a year, and I remember how terrifying this scene was. But I think there’s something deeper going on here than the film portrays.
God is longing to be in relationship with God’s people so much so that GOD COMES DOWN to the mountain top (all caps added by me). God is trying to meet the people of Israel, the holy nation God loves desperately. There is a Celtic Christian concept known as a "thin space"— a moment in life when the distance between heaven and earth seems to narrow, and one can experience God's presence. I like to think that what God is doing in this moment in Exodus is not purposely terrifying the people of Israel into submission, but to create a thin space where the barriers between God and God’s people are less pronounced, where it’s possible for our weak imaginations to get the barest glimpse of the Mystery that is both ineffable and unimaginable.
For the people of Israel, though, it is too much. In verse 19, “They said to Moses, “You speak to us and we’ll listen, but don’t have God speak to us or we’ll die.’”
In his role as intermediary, Moses tries to comfort them. With the greatest reverence, I tend to think of this moment like God’s first date with God’s people, but it doesn’t go so well, and Moses, who knows God’s intention of fierce love, tries to smooth things over. More than a thousand years later, God will try again to meet God’s beloved people face to face, but this time in a way that acknowledges our limited understanding. God will come in human form.
I wonder how many times in our lifetimes God tries to meet us where we are, and we turn away because we can’t believe anyone could love us so fiercely and would take such great pains to come to us? Our imaginations struggle to comprehend that depth of love, which is indeed other-worldly.
