God Is

One of my favorite passages in the Bible is found in Exodus 33: 18-23. In this passage, Moses has a most intimate encounter with God. He asks God to show him his glory and the Almighty God does just that. What an amazing and wonderful passage. Here it is as found in the NIV translation:

18 Then Moses said, "Now show me your glory."
19 And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 20 But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live."
21 Then the LORD said, "There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. 22 When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen."

I like reading this passage every so often because it reminds me of the kind of relationship that we have with the Father in Christ Jesus. That through Christ's blood, we can come face to face with our God and meet him intimately every day.

I was reading this passage the other day. But this time, something new struck me. The second half of verse 19 stuck out as kind of a non sequitur. Why does God say "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion"? What's that all about. I mean, Moses just asked to be shown God's glory. What does that have to do with showing mercy and compassion?

It struck me then, that God's glory is inseparable from the one quality that divides creator from creation: sovereignty. God is the prime mover. Nothing moves him other than his will. That's vastly different from anything you or I have or will ever experience. In the same vein, when Moses asks how he should answer the question of what is God's name, God's answer is "I am who I am". What an amazing and great and deep answer. God simply is. Nothing else in creation can say that. And as I think about the many qualities of God (love, mercy, justice, omnipotence), I realize that the way God chose to reveal himself and his glory is sovereignty. He chooses what he will do, what will happen, and it's all up to him. Nothing influences God other than his divine pleasure.

I think in light of this, it makes God's revelation of himself in the incarnate Christ even more amazing. Here is God declaring that he is who he is, mighty in his sovereignty, coming meekly to this earth to die a criminal's death. What a contrast, the God who is, choosing to die for us. And yet it's because of that declaration of sovereignty that the sacrifice is even more amazing--and worthy. For no one and nothing moved him to do such a thing other than his divine will. Mercy and grace given freely to those undeserving.

Open My Lips

It's been quite a while since I last wrote here. How much things have changed. I'm sitting here in Tokyo, in a tiny service apartment. This morning as I was reading through a prayer devotional that my old college roommate gave me, I came across a passage that really hit me. It's from Psalm 51. This psalm is a heart wrenching confession by David to God after he is outed by Nathan for sleeping with Bathsheba and killing Uriah. I've read this psalm many times, but what struck me this time is verse 15. It reads: "O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise." David's declaration reminded me of how corrupt and wayward we are. We are incapable, in our fallen state, of even praising our God, our Lord and Creator. David's supplication to have his lips opened so that he can sing praises to God are a stark reminder that God enables all things in us, even our ability to praise him for his goodness. And in acknowledging that on his own he cannot even praise his God, David writes verse 17: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." As we cannot have any merit on our own, what God wants of us is to be broken in spirit, to acknowledge before God that we cannot on our own reach him. But that only through Christ and his sacrifice we are able to meet him face to face.