Beasts, Bow Ties, and Balloons

Just when I think that things can’t get any better, the sky above me opens up. I am met with love beyond my comprehension and an avalanche of blessing. God is so, so good to me.

I am deeply in love with the sighs of the cool spring evening and with the gentle perfume of the orange blossoms.  Most of all, I am in love with the man who crafted them.

Crafting a Golden Calf

Exodus 32 is great. It tells of the sins of the Israelites when God gives them the 10 commandments. Moses comes down from Mt. Sinai. He’s been up there for a while and the people are getting restless. He makes it to the bottom of the mountain and finds the Hebrews worshipping a golden calf instead of the Lord who brought them out of Egypt.

Aaron’s account of these events is humorous. When questioned, he tells Moses that he threw gold into the fire and that the calf just materialized. Aaron is caught in a poorly thought out lie worthy of a three-year-old.

But I see something there in Aaron that I too often find in myself. His actions here tell us a lot about sin and how we view it. Aaron claims that the calf made itself. He wasn’t responsible for it. It just happened. In the same way, we claim that our sins “just happen.” We say, “Well, that’s just the way that I am,” and “I was born this way,” and “I can’t control this.” We say, “I threw [gold] into the fire and out came this calf.”

The truth is though, for Aaron and for us, the calf didn’t just materialize in the fire. The biblical text is clear - “he received gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf.” Aaron willingly and skillfully forms the calf. He forms it, putting in both time and effort. In the same way, we form our sin. We tell ourselves that we’re victims of sin, but we craft every wicked act carefully. We have on our hands the calluses from the tools we have skillfully and regularly wielded. They mark the work that we have done to construct a monument and a pillar to our iniquity. We desire to worship what is corrupt and place it at the forefront of our lives.

The Israelites could not keep the covenant that they had just affirmed with God. He hadn’t even finished laying out the covenant terms and promises, and the Israelites had already breached the agreement. The calluses were fresh on their hands as evidence of the sin that they had worked to construct.

And God knew that the day would come when he would send his son to scar his own hands to redeem the callused hands of both Jew and Gentile.

Though Christ has redeemed us and redeemed Israel, the evidence of Hebrew syncretism still endures. Found with other archaeological evidences of the biblical civilization are many graven images of stone and metal. The household gods of the Israelites endured for over two thousand years of weathering and decay. Though they were the people through which God redeemed all people, their sin is apparent, causing anthropologists to believe that there was a disconnect between private and public religion in the Hebrew culture. Redemption is more powerful than the sins of the people, but still their sin lasts and is evident to us today. If redemption, then, is more powerful than sin, how much greater will its impact be? How long will the evidence of redemption endure?

Always.

So what seeds of sin are you sowing today? What calf are you crafting? Most importantly, let God redeem you and craft his tabernacle instead of that calf.

I love people who still make an effort to write things down using pen and paper.  Though it’s not my media of choice, I wholeheartedly appreciate it.  It doesn’t allow me to write quickly enough.  My mind flows faster than my pen.

All that is gold does not glitter,
     Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
     Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
     A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
     The crownless again shall be king.

There is nothing more utterly satisfying than watching friends of yours grow into the beautiful, strong people that you know they’re meant to be.