“I Believe in God, the Father Almighty.”

A Sermon Based Upon Exodus 33: 18-23

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

January 8^th, Series: Apostles Creed 2/15)

An old story tells of a Sunday School class where a child was drawing a picture. 

The teacher asked the child, “What is it that you are drawing so intently?”  

The child answered, “It’s a picture of God.”  With a startled response the teacher reasoned, “But no one knows what God looks like.”  The child says with great confidence, “They will when I get done.”

When we try to speak about belief in God, what we don’t say is just as important as what we do say.   Before we say “I believe in God the Father, Almighty”, we must also affirm the limits of our finite minds.   For no matter what we think we know about God, we would know nothing at all, had God not revealed himself.   The knowledge of God that we have, even in the Bible, is never the whole picture.   The infinite God is too big for the finite mind to fully understand.   The knowledge of God is a “gift” of faith (Eph. 2:8) that remains forever mysterious and overwhelming, even as it is being made known to us.   

In 63 BC, as a conqueror, Roman General Cornelius Pompey went to Jerusalem’s second temple, where with great curiosity, he dared to enter the Holy of Holies, that sacred place where only the Jewish High Priest was allowed to enter one day a year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.   Upon entering, the Roman historian Tacitus described what Pompey found: “The Sanctuary was empty.”  Coming from a world filled of temples, columns, pillars, shrines, statues and idols, it was a staggering discovery, that at the geographic and spiritual center of all Jewish religious experience was found nothing more than an ‘empty room.’  

(Tacitus, Histories, Book 5:11-12, http://luketwright.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-empty-room-part-1.html ).    

SHOW ME …!

How God is revealed to us in the Bible, beyond the ‘empty room’ is never all at once, and never without mystery.   Our text from Exodus illustrates this beautifully.  

It was after the Exodus; after all those miraculous plagues, after Israel had escaped Pharaoh, after the parting of the Red Sea, long after the Burning Bush, and shortly after receiving the 10 Commandments, that Moses expresses his great desire to see more of God and His glory.   This request came as Moses was being asked to lead the children of Israel out of the wilderness and into the Promise Land.   The undertaking of this huge task led to Moses’ request to God: “Show me your glory, I pray!” (Ex. 33:18).

When it comes to having to live by faith in God, we would much prefer to live by certainties, by proofs, or by the things we see, not by what we cannot see or fully know.   But strangely enough, Moses had already seen a lot, hasn’t he?  We could say that Moses had been witness to much more than most people could ever dream of seeing or knowing.  But no matter what had already happened, what had already been revealed, or what God had done to reveal himself, Moses still felt as if he needed more knowledge to move ahead.   Moses wanted to see the fullness of God’s glory.   As someone jokingly suggested, Moses sounded like he was from Missouri, just like most of us are from Missouri, ‘The Show Me state.’   When it comes to faith, we seek more than eloquent words or thoughtful persuasion.    We want to be convinced, to see and know everything we can before we dare this leap of understanding called faith.

There is an old story about boy who came to his father asking, “Daddy, what holds up the world?”  The father remembered a mythical story of his own childhood and said, “That’s simple, my son.  The world rests on the back of a very large turtle.”  The little boy was satisfied and walked away.  But a day later he returns, “But Daddy,” he asks, “What hold up the turtle?”  Staying with this myth he says, “Son, the turtle rests on the back of a very large tiger.”   Again, the boy goes away satisfied, but only a few hours later returns, asking “Daddy, what holds up the large tiger?”   This time the father answers that ‘the tiger rests on the back of a very large elephant.’  As you would guess, this time the son was back in no time, asking again, “What holds up the elephant?”  The frustrated father, having run out of big animals, replied, “Son, from there on, it’s elephants all the way down.” (From James Harnish’s sermon, “Believe in Me” 1991, p. 21).

What Moses wants God to give him is a starting place, an experience that is a ‘revelation of revelations’ something like knowing there are ‘elephants all the way down’.   Moses desires the foundation of all he would ever need to know, to see or believe about this God he has experienced, both at Mt. Sinai and in Egypt.   Moses desired to see God in all his ‘glory’.  

ALL MY GOODNESS…

Before we get to what Moses did experience, consider how this text relates to the first part of the Apostle’s Creed.  When this “Christian” statement of faith developed in the fourth century, it arose out of preparing new Christians for living the Christian life in faith.  This creedal statement was not dreamed up, but it was a concise, brief summary of the revelation of God’s glory in the whole Bible, Old and New Testaments, especially as it was given through the first Apostles (Remember, there were no Bibles in print at that time).  Interestingly, the very first line, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty” reflects back the vision of truth God gave Moses, pointing us to a consistent, reliable, and solid faith, like having ‘elephants all the way down.’  

Notice that when Moses asked God to ‘show’ his ‘glory,’ God answers that he will ‘make all my goodness pass before (him) and will call out the name, the LORD’ (v.19).  I find this a very peculiar answer to Moses’ request.  God reveals his ‘goodness’, but Moses never actually gets to see God directly for himself.   The same is true for us.  Indeed we can experience God and his goodness, but we can’t see God.  When Russian cosmonauts, trained to promote atheistic communism, arrived back from traveling in space for the very first time, they sarcastically declared, “We saw no God sitting on a cloud.”  Of course they didn’t see God, because the true God can only be revealed through his ‘goodness’ that passes before us in this life.   All this ‘goodness’ is what the Christian faith means when it names God, ‘father’, as Jesus himself taught us to say.

In every gospel, particularly in the very Jewish gospel of Matthew, Jesus uses the name “Father” to teach his disciples about the ‘goodness’ and ‘graciousness’ of God.    Jesus taught them to pray “Our Father….” but preceded his great lesson on prayer by saying, “The Father knows what you need, before you ask…” (Mt. 6.8-9).   Later in Matthew, Jesus teaches again,  “If you…. how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask… (Mt. 7:11).   This, of course, is the fullness of God’s glory, as revealed by Jesus, that God is like a ‘good’ father, who gives good gifts to his children.    

In that same gospel of Matthew, when Jesus spoke of the ‘the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory’ (Mat. 24:30) he did not mean we wait to see Jesus floating on a cloud, but he speaks of ‘all’ the ‘goodness’ of God already revealed in that ‘generation’ (Mt. 24.34) and for ours, through the death and resurrection of God’s son, Jesus Christ.  Exactly the same goodness that was revealed to Moses is what God also revealed in an even greater way through Jesus:  God wills to be ‘gracious’ and to show his ‘mercy’ (Ex. 33.19) to his people.   This is the exactly what a good father does too.  He gives ‘good gifts’ to his children.  And what better gift is there from any Father, than to give their child the gifts of ‘grace’ and ‘forgiveness’ that grants them ‘power’ to be his children; ‘the children of God’ (John 1.12)?     

Once, a British theology teacher was giving a lecture to some pastors. At the end, one of them asked, “Professor, do you believe in God?   The professor gave an academic, if not defensive answer, to which the pastor clarified his question:  “No, no, I just want to know whether or not you really believe what you have been teaching.”   Then the Professor rephrased his answer, saying, “I believe that at the heart of reality is One who reigns, who loves, and who forgives.” 

Isn’t this exactly the kind of answer Moses received when God allows his ‘goodness’ to pass by revealing that at center of everything God is, is this God who ‘will be gracious’ and who will have mercy ‘upon whom (He) will have mercy?   And we already know ‘who’ will be the recipient of God’s grace and mercy, don’t we?  “Everyone who calls upon the name of the LORD, shall be saved”(Rom. 10:13).

This is the ‘glory’ of God—his goodness, his grace, and his mercy, or as another New Testament letter affirms God’s goodness, saying, “The Lord is not slow concerning his promise…but He is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).  The core revelation of God, is a God who is ‘Our Father in Heaven’,  who loves, who cares, who instructs, and who gives us ‘the power to become children of God to as many as will receive him” (John 1:12) and his goodness.  What could be more glorious than to know that at the center of all reality, is not some impersonal, brute process that has no meaning, but it a loving God who is good and gracious?

YOU CANNOT SEE MY FACE AND LIVE

God is revealed to us in his goodness, but God is also revealed in his greatness.   When a child learns to pray the simply blessing: “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food,” that child rightly acknowledges that there will always be more to God than any of us can possibly know.  

In a very similar way, not only does the ancient creed name God as the father who is good because He is ‘gracious’ and ‘merciful’ (33:19),  but it also names God as ‘the Father Almighty’ who in his own greatness, reserves the power to will and decide who receives his goodness.  ‘(He) will be gracious to whom (He) will be gracious.’ (33:19).    More fully explained in the next chapter of Exodus, God’s word declares, the “LORD”, as ‘a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, YET BY NO MEANS CLEARING THE GUILTY, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and fourth generation” (Ex. 34: 6-7).  By naming God “the Father Almighty” we name God who we are not.  We name God the one who is eternal, with the power to accomplish his will ‘on earth, as it is in heaven’ (Mat. 6:10), even though it may seem it takes God an eternity to accomplish it (That ‘long arc of justice’ Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about).   Of course, this is a ‘time’ that God has, owns, and possesses, but we do not.   

When we name God ‘the almighty’ (Hebrew, El Shaddai), interestingly, this is a name for God that was NEVER USED BY JESUS in the gospels.  Even though the “Father and I (Son) are One” (John 10:30), and the “Father loves the Son and shows Him all that he is doing” (John 5:20), we are never told that that ‘the Father’ revealed EVERYTHING he was or is ‘doing’ through the son.   We can be sure, however, that nothing the Father Almighty does will contradict anything that has been revealed in Jesus or is still revealed through the Holy Spirit, (5:26-30; 16:13).  

Naming God ‘the Almighty’ means also that the ‘power’ and ‘truth’ God gives to us is for our transformation and not simply our information.    Through Jesus, God gave us enough ‘power to become sons’ (and daughters) of God’ (John 1.12), and this is a kind of ‘power’ only God can give.  The human ‘limits’ that keep us from knowing everything about God is as important to comprehend for our earthly salvation, as it is to know what we can understand of God for our heavenly salvation.    All we know of God must remain on God’s terms, not ours.  I read recently that when Adolf Hitler referred to “God” in his speeches—a rhetoric that deceived a majority of the German people (but not all)--- Hitler most exclusively referred to God as ‘the Almighty’.   But as we must know, be it Adolf Hitler, or anyone who would dare use or misuse God’s name, ‘the Father Almighty’ will only be revealed on God’s terms, not ours (Karl Barth).   

God’s terms have been made clear to us through Jesus Christ and the ‘power of the cross’ (1 Cor. 1.17).  This is the ‘power’ and ‘glory’ perceived as ‘weakness’ and ‘foolishness’ by the world, even though God’s weakness will prove to be stronger than human strength, and God’s foolishness will prove wiser than human wisdom (1 Cor. 1.24).   By naming Jesus Christ and His Cross, as the fullest revelation of God the ‘Father Almighty’, we find God’s power revealed and released to us through the most unexpected and redeeming way, through Jesus’ sacrifice and humiliating death.   This is how the right kind of ‘power’---the power of love will always be revealed.  It is a power belonging exclusively to God, who raised Jesus from the dead. 

So, again, when God doesn’t allow Moses to see God’s ‘face’, God wasn’t withholding Himself for God’s own sake.  Moses isn’t allowed to see God’s face so that Moses can live.   And spiritually, it’s the same way with us, who are called to live ‘in Christ’.  The great apostle Paul put it this way, “The mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations …. has now been revealed ...  To them God chose to make known, how great...are the riches of the glory of this mystery, WHICH IS CHRIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLORY (Col. 1:26-27 NRS). 

Do you catch the full implication of what Paul was saying?  We see God when we allow Jesus Christ to be alive in our own lives.  Having  “Christ in you” and living through you is still the hope of seeing God’s goodness and greatness fully revealed in this world.  As Edgar Guest once wrote:                              I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day:

I'd rather one would walk with me than merely tell the way….

The best of all the preachers are (people) who live their creed,

For to see good put into action, is what everyone needs.”     (http://webpages.charter.net/kyarbrough/poemrather.htm)

  

One of the best lines from the acclaimed musical Les Misérables is the sentence: "To love another person is to see the face of God."  This line was probably based on that Scripture, where Jacob told his estranged brother Esau that ‘seeing his face, was like seeing the face of God (Gen. 33:10).  In this world and in this life, the greatest ‘truth’ comes to us through the life and words of another person, even the truth of God’s word once came this way and still comes this way.  God’s  goodness and greatness is best known and believed through those who will allow Christ to live ‘in us.’   Amen.