Exodus 31-32: Let us make gods that shall go before us.

There's a lot happening in today's reading. I've got a lot of questions about what went down in all the gaps in the narrative. Normally, when I read through the history of Israel, the story of their failings, I can usually understand the thought processes and human tendencies that led up to each fall. I can see many of the same characteristics that lead to these failings in myself. There's some empathy for them as I read. But here, in this passage, I come to a point where I can't really understand the mindset of the Israelites: the complete fabrication of a tangible god, which I will then serve and worship.

I can relate to some of the impetus for the old idolatry, the desire for a physical god to worship, something that can be touched and seen. It's much easier and simpler to relate to, serve, and dedicate yourself to a god that can be detected by the senses.  But the Israelites had that with God! They had a pillar of fire, a cloud, a stormy burning mountain covered in great darkness. The hiddenness of God doesn't seem to be an issue at this particular time. But the Israelites still figured they needed to create their own god.

Here is where my disconnect comes into a bit of a sharper focus: they created this golden calf and worshiped it saying “This is your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” I can understand the basic desire for a tangible representation of you god. I can understand the sentiment that Moses has kicked the bucket up on the stormy fire-mountain. After all, he's been gone for 40 days. He ain't comin' back! But I can't fathom how someone creates,out of whole cloth, a god for themselves to worship. Literally, building a golden calf with their own hands and then attributing to it the deliverance from Egypt that happened before said calf was even extant! That's where I get lost. I just can't relate to that. I definitely feel like there is a lot of stuff in the gaps, some cultural thing or other, or maybe some linguistic nuance in the Hebrew, that I need to know in order for this sequence to truly make sense to me. 

But I tell you what I can relate to, is the act of substituting something else for God. The substitution of myself, my own desires for God. Homo incurvatus in se. I have curved in on myself. I have replaced God with myself as the object of worship and affections. Even when the “idol” being worshiped isn't myself directly, it always curves back to me in the end. It is making God in my own image. Worshiping the creation rather than the creator. That is the base issue in this passage, and I can relate to that all too well.

Thankfully, like the children of Israel, I have a Mediator before God. For them, it was Moses pleading with God on their behalf. For me it is Christ who has thrown Himself in front of God's righteous wrath against my insurrection. He stepped in and said “Crush Me instead.”