Have you ever been caught in a situation where you know that you did something wrong? Where your mom, dad, best friend, husband, wife, sister, boss, whoever is looking at you and asking a question and you know that the answer that you have will disappoint or place the blame squarely on your shoulders? Have you ever hedged your story? Changed details, or left things out because it would cast you in an unflattering light? Do you realize that you can't lie to an Omnipotent and Omnipresent God?
Exodus 32:23-24 "For they said to me, "Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." So I said to them, "Let any who have gold take it off." So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf"
The Israelites have just been delivered by God in power numerous times. They have stood at the base of the mountain and God has spoken to them. They have agreed to a covenant that expressly says you shall have no other gods. Aaron, his sons, and the elders of Israel have all had a personal encounter with God! And here they are, a few chapters later (forty days later) worshiping a golden calf. Now, I don't know if the calf was made to represent the god that they felt had delivered them, or whether they were creating a god out of whole cloth, but regardless they were breaking the commandment.
So, God sees this (because, oh I don't know, he's all-seeing and all-knowing) and Moses comes down the mountain and he and God are angry. Righteously indignant. Here Moses was receiving commandments from God, and they weren't even obeying the first one! So he confronts Aaron. Aaron blames the people first saying they made him. Then, he says the golden calf just "came out" of the fire.
His details seem a little bit fuzzy. Like maybe he left out a few to make himself look better to Moses. It was peer pressure! I didn't mean to! It just happened! They made me do it! If I hadn't done it something worse could have happened!
These sound vaguely familiar, like something I would tell myself or others to justify my actions or to defend myself, or even to cover something that I don't want fully revealed. In our society, we call them 'white lies' or 'lies of omission'. But that doesn't change what they are. Moses's solution was to make them eat the golden calf. They literally bore their sin inside of them. What do we call it when we get caught in a lie? Putting our foot in our mouth?
I think that we all recognize when we are at fault, when we need to own up, confess our sins and ask for forgiveness. Let's stop passing the blame and start taking responsibility for our own sin in front of God and others. We have already broken his commandments, all we have left to fall on is his grace.
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