Close But No Cigar

Mar. 14: Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Today’s readings are about coming up short. The Israelites who escaped Egypt, the Jews of Jesus’ time, and, of course, us today.

All we can do is keep trying to move forward and improve. Today, we can be better than yesterday, and be even better tomorrow still, with the grace of God. But we’ll never be “done.” And that’s why we need Lent every year.

Personal Note

Sorry I haven’t written in a few days! I was sick over the weekend, and then Kirrily was sick. We managed to keep Amelia healthy, thankfully!

We’re all okay now, though, and I’m catching up on everything. :)

Reading 1

Ex 32:7-14

The LORD said to Moses, "Go down at once to your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, for they have become depraved. They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them, making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it, sacrificing to it and crying out, 'This is your God, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt!' The LORD said to Moses, "I see how stiff-necked this people is. Let me alone, then, that my wrath may blaze up against them to consume them. Then I will make of you a great nation."

But Moses implored the LORD, his God, saying, "Why, O LORD, should your wrath blaze up against your own people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with such great power and with so strong a hand? Why should the Egyptians say, 'With evil intent he brought them out, that he might kill them in the mountains and exterminate them from the face of the earth'? Let your blazing wrath die down; relent in punishing your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, and how you swore to them by your own self, saying, 'I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky; and all this land that I promised, I will give your descendants as their perpetual heritage.'" So the LORD relented in the punishment he had threatened to inflict on his people.

It’s an article of faith that God is eternal and unchanging, so passages like this are often challenging. Did God change His mind? Did a mere human being convince God to change His mind?

Obviously not. So what is going on here?

God doesn’t change, but our understanding of God does. Humans first conceived of God as an impersonal natural force. Then we started creating mythologies about anthropomorphic gods, who had personalities and great power, but also human frailties.

God revealed to the Israelites that He is, in fact, one God, who is like a person who wants to have a personal relationship with us, but is not motived by human desires. Figuring this out took thousands of years. The Old Testament wasn’t written by people who knew the end conclusion, much less the Christian revelations of the Trinity and stuff like that.

So, the writer of Exodus¹ is writing about God with an incomplete vision, because of the limits of his time.² But then, what is actually happening between Moses and God?

God wants to provoke a reaction in Moses. It’s a kind of temptation— “How’d you like to be the father of a great nation?”

But Moses shows his faith in God. He remembers God’s promises, and re-states them back at God. He’s not “reminding” God; he’s reminding himself, reaffirming his faith in God’s fidelity.

And that’s what we do every time we pray intercessory prayer. God knows what we want, what we need. But praying to God for our needs is an act of faith in itself.

Responsorial Psalm 

Ps 106:19-20, 21-22, 23

R.  Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
Our fathers made a calf in Horeb
and adored a molten image;
They exchanged their glory
for the image of a grass-eating bullock.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
They forgot the God who had saved them,
who had done great deeds in Egypt,
Wondrous deeds in the land of Ham,
terrible things at the Red Sea.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
Then he spoke of exterminating them,
but Moses, his chosen one,
Withstood him in the breach
to turn back his destructive wrath.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.

The Golden Calf was never meant to be a different God; the Israelites knew the statue didn’t literally take them out of Egypt. They saw the statue being made! But it was an image of God, which is inherently limited.

A calf can’t defeat the Egyptian army, part the Red Sea. It’s a sad, incomplete image.

Unlike the writer of of Exodus, who’s limited understanding of God led him to write that God “relented,” the Israelites should’ve known better. That’s the difference between blasphemy and simply developing doctrine over the centuries.

When Jesus speaks of God as “the Father,” it’s not meant to limit our understand, but to help increase our understanding. God is like a father, only infinitely more living and caring. It’s a starting point for our understanding, not an end.

Verse Before the Gospel

Jn 3:16

God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life.

He sent His only Son, who told us that God was our Father, too. How about that?

Gospel

Jn 5:31-47

Jesus said to the Jews: "If I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is not true. But there is another who testifies on my behalf, and I know that the testimony he gives on my behalf is true. You sent emissaries to John, and he testified to the truth. I do not accept human testimony, but I say this so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and for a while you were content to rejoice in his light. But I have testimony greater than John's. The works that the Father gave me to accomplish, these works that I perform testify on my behalf
that the Father has sent me. Moreover, the Father who sent me has testified on my behalf. But you have never heard his voice nor seen his form, and you do not have his word remaining in you, because you do not believe in the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures, because you think you have eternal life through them; even they testify on my behalf. But you do not want to come to me to have life.

"I do not accept human praise; moreover, I know that you do not have the love of God in you. I came in the name of my Father, but you do not accept me; yet if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe, when you accept praise from one another and do not seek the praise that comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father: the one who will accuse you is Moses, in whom you have placed your hope. For if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me, because he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?"

Jesus tells us that His own self-testimony shouldn’t be enough to convince us. After all, there are a lot of crazy people claiming to be God. Some people believed in Jesus because John the Baptist said to, but Jesus tells us even that’s not good enough. John is also just a human.

He wants us to read the scriptures, many of which were attributed to Moses, inspired by God, to see that Jesus is who He says He is.

But, of course, the Jews of Moses’ time and of Jesus’ time (not to mention the Christians of our time) didn’t fully comprehend or follow Moses’ writing. We try, and fail, to follow even the simplest commandments.

1. Traditionally, the author is considered Moses, but that seems unlikely.

2. Of course, we have a limited understanding, but in a different way. The similarity is, we also don’t know what our limit is.