A Sufficient Founding
Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. - Matthew 7:24-27
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. - John 15:4
Flashes of lightning split the morning sky; peals of thunder shiver the air; tremors and aftershocks roll and boil in the earth beneath and trouble the slopes above; the mountain, clad in dark, fiery clouds, glowers ominously at the multitudes cowering at its feet. It is indeed a fearful spectacle, and the people tremble in terror at the awesome display of limitless power unleashed. An awful, deafening voice like that of a thunderous trumpet blast hails from the summit, “I am the Lord, your God.”
The people, fearing for their very lives, scramble to put as much distance as possible between them and the fearful, solemn splendor of the Most High. The compulsory sense of awe, respect, reverence, and fear supersedes anything they have ever known. God, Who provided the long-anticipated freedom from slavery, Who had shown His hand to be irresistible by foes, Who had provided food and water when they were faint and parched, was now revealing Himself more powerfully than anything their wildest imagination could conjure.
Forty days later, these same people danced and worshiped around a molded calf, hailing it as their god. All it took was forty days in an unfamiliar place without their leader for them to replace the God who had displayed His power so tangibly that they physically quaked in fear.
It was not in the heat of a great battle that they gave up. It was not in the aftermath of a great tragedy that they stumbled. It was not a lack of material provision that clouded their eyes. A spirit of discontent in the absence of spiritual direction and a few small ripples on the water of time induced them to choose a shiny statue of a calf over the spell-binding display of an all-powerful God. So easily, they lost sight of their destined promised land and the God Who was leading them to it.
This gross misconduct by the Israelites was despicably wicked, and God punished them severely for their actions. However, their behavior was not as anomalous as we may wish to think.
Admittedly, the Israelites were in a tough place. They had only recently come out of the land of Egypt, a heathen culture that fully embraced a poly-theistic worldview. Although the Israelites had seen God put His superiority on display at various times as He dominated the gods embraced by the Egyptians, the absence of Moses as their spiritual leader and mediator left a religious vacuum that they sought to fill with something familiar. The calf made by Aaron fit well into the religious paradigm that had surrounded them in Egypt. In their longing for something solid, they grasped at the familiar, failing to recognize until later how foolish was their attempt to supplant God’s place in the God-given longings for social, religious and spiritual fulfillment. Maybe it was the separation of time and distance that generated within them a nostalgic desire for the return of an over-romanticized past that never was.
For Moses, who was forty years removed from Egyptian culture, the allure of pagan rituals and deities seems to have been much weaker; his spiritual grounding was firm. As such, his leadership was strong and the people participated in this strength as they looked to him for spiritual leadership and guidance. Aaron, though he was Moses’ brother as well as God’s chosen and anointed high priest, had lived under the same heathen influences as his compatriots for his entire life until only very recently, and he seems to have had but little spiritual fortitude, especially when faced by the increasingly discontented crowd of impatient Israelites.
Under strong spiritual leadership, the children of Israel were strong. Without this leadership, their vision and commitment wobbled and waned with astonishing rapidity. Let us not deceive ourselves by thinking that we are immune to the same tendencies. We, too, are fallible humans and are only as stable as that from which our strength derives. The children of Israel were strong as they looked to Moses for direction (though even then, they foundered at times). With neither him nor a strong interim leader to give them constant spiritual admonition, the people lost all sight of the high purpose to which they had been called as God’s special possession.
The church today has the invaluable presence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers, but even so, we forget quickly and need constant reminders of the high calling it is to be the children of God. Our spiritual life will never be stronger than the connection we are willing to forge and maintain with our heavenly Father. I daresay this spiritual bond is extant only through two things: committed, intentional communion with God by abiding in Him through His revelation to us, and intentional, sacrificial love to the people around us and especially to Christ’s bride, the Church.
Under the New Covenant, sealed by the blood of Christ and empowered by the unmitigated continuance of His resurrection, we are called to live through and in full accordance with the power afforded us through the abiding nature of God in our lives. Whereas the Israelites had Moses, one man, to provide their spiritual heading, we have available to us both the written Word of God in our hands and the living Word and Spirit of God in our hearts to grant us Christo-centric wisdom, unfeigned knowledge of the Holy, and transcendent moral virtue.
The children of Israel in the wilderness, though under Moses’ excellent spiritual leadership, seem to have been religiously moored primarily through means phenomenal and anthropic. Their commitment was based superficially on the present and tangible realities which their senses could perceive, rather than being anchored in the spiritual realities that may yet have been veiled from their eyes. Though their senses were extremely perceptive to the potent and tangible revelation of God, they lacked the solidity even to withstand boredom for a short time. When we rely too heavily on tangible, impressive works of God, rooting our perception of Him in what He does for us, rather than Who He is, we expose ourselves to the same vulnerability.
Let us strive to found and anchor our lives on the only Rock that will not give way. Let us persevere to continually abide in the love of Christ and in a spirit of love with His chosen people. Let us refrain from relying over-much on superficial tangibilities by which our emotional responses eclipse our spiritual understanding and true identity in Christ. We should endeavor each day to become ever more united in essence with the True Vine, that we may more fully come “to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that [we] might be filled with all the fullness of God.”
