The readings for this week help us to see how the Lord takes this rag-tag, really quite large group of folks travelling by foot and turns them into His people. (If we take Exodus 12:37 literally, there were 600,000 men. And since that number does not include women or children, we are talking about well over a million people!)
We know that these people are all descended from Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, thus making these folks the “Israelites.” As they journey beyond the Red Sea after having been protected by God, the Lord continues to take care of them. He provides abundant water. (Do you realize that a modest estimate of 1.5 million people would need somewhere in the neighborhood of 4.5 million gallons of water a day?) And when His people are threatened, the Lord protects them from their enemies and leads them to military victory.
When everyone turns to Moses, their leader, for help, his father-in-law, Jethro, sits Moses down and gives him some advice. Moses takes that advice, and his life becomes simpler. The people are pleased and better organized.
Then the time comes for God to shape the Israelites into His people. While they are camped at the foot of Mount Sinai, the Lord appears to them in a cloud that covers the mountain. Moses responds to God’s invitation and ascends the mountain, where the Lord gives him the Ten Commandments. Ten words, literally, in the Hebrew. Ten rules that will clearly differentiate the Israelites from all other nations—if they follow these rules.
But many of us remember the story of how the people grew fatigued waiting for Moses to come down from the mountain. They prevailed upon his brother, who then created the infamous “golden calf” for the people to bow down and worship. Enraged, Moses shatters the tablets on which the Lord had written the Ten Commandments.
Later, those tablets are replaced, and the people are instructed how to fabricate and construct the Tabernacle, their traveling place of worship—which was always in the center of the camp, helping the people understand that the worship of God is central to life.
In the only chapter of Leviticus that we study as a part of our Quest journey, we read about the Day of Atonement. Still practiced to this day, although in a much different form, this scripture lays out how serious sin is and how “other” it is to God by detailing just how the sin of the people is to be addressed, dealt with, and “cast out.” If you’ve ever heard the term “scapegoat,” this is where the term originates!
The Psalm we read this week, Psalm 14, is a perfect complement to the other readings. It reminds us that sin is a reality in this world, and that there is no hope—NO hope—without God!