Waiting on God

The ancient Hebrews – much like the Church today – suffered from chronic memory loss. In Egypt, God had intervened powerfully on the behalf of this oppressed people, sending forth ten extraordinary plagues against pharaoh and the Egyptians in what can only be described as a demonstration of raw divine power. The tenth and final plague – the death of the firstborn son – all but forced pharaoh’s hand, facilitating the release of the captive Hebrews into the Egyptian wilderness where they could serve God as he deserved.

By the time the Hebrew refugees reached Mt. Sinai in Exodus 19, it had been mere months since God had stretched forth his hand to deliver them. But as Moses went up the mountain to commune with God, the people down below slipped into a collective amnesia, forgetting the mighty deliverance wrought by Yahweh’s hand. Impatient with the length of Moses’ sojourn atop the mountain, the people crafted a calf of gold and proclaimed, “Behold your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!” They exchanged the glory of the invisible God for the image of a grass-eating beast, to quote the psalm. A case of amnesia, indeed.

As readers of the biblical story, it is all too easy to condemn this behavior. How could a people be so collectively forgetful of what God has done for them? Haven’t they seen with their own eyes the saving power of God? Have they simply chosen to forget? And yet as we utter these condemnations, we unwittingly implicate ourselves; have not we, too, forgotten God’s mighty power to save, to transform lives? This memory loss is endemic to God’s people, past and present – we, too, forget the works of God and erect calves of gold. So what is the cause of this forgetfulness, and what is the remedy?

The golden calf incident provides us with an answer both to the question of why we tend to forget God’s saving power and how we might better remember it. The root of our forgetting God’s salvation can often be traced to a problem of impatience. The Hebrews grew impatient when Moses remained atop the mountain longer than expected. In their desire to see God now, they created a god for themselves, one that they could manipulate on a whim. Instead of waiting for the revelation of the Lord – which was coming – they created their own revelation in the form of a golden calf. We, too, grow impatient in waiting for God and create our own gods that better serve our purposes in the present moment. And yet there is but one God who acts in history, who is always on time, who stretches forth a mighty hand just when it is needed; he is the God of the Hebrews, the God of Jesus Christ, the God of the Church.

As we near holy week, we remember that God does demand our patience as we await his revelation and deliverance. He calls us to enter into the pain of Good Friday and the silence of Holy Saturday before we attain to the joy of Easter Sunday. So as we approach the end of this Lenten season, we do so remembering the history of God’s saving power and patiently waiting for him to stretch forth his hand in our lives today.

Author: Meigs Turgeon, Theology Department