The Lord Gathers

Third-Last Sunday of the Church Year

Exodus 32:1-20; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 24:15-28

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

“When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together” (Ex. 32:1). 

That was the problem. Not that Moses delayed. God had called Moses up the mountain. God was giving Moses instructions about the worship life of Israel, how they were to live as God’s people. The problem was not that it was taking too long. The problem’s given to us right there in the first verse: “the people gathered themselves together” (Ex. 32:1). 

There’s your red flag for this whole account. Rather than being gathered together by the Lord, trusting the Lord, waiting upon the Lord, the people gathered themselves. That’s the opposite of worship. You don’t come to God on your own terms. The Lord gathers you to Himself, under His Word, to receive His gifts. That’s what you’re doing here today. The Holy Spirit has called and gathered you to worship, that is, to receive forgiveness, life, and salvation from His hand. 

So that’s the first thing to go wrong here: these people gathered themselves. And when they do, they don’t run to Aaron and beg to hear the Word of God. No. They demand, “make us gods who shall go before us” (Ex. 32:1). And the whole thing is so blatantly absurd. They say, “As for this Moses… we do not know what has become of him” (Ex. 32:1). 

Aaron knew this was wrong. But he must have felt helpless. Everyone was going along with it. He was just one voice. What could he do? He has to go along to get along, right? No. Aaron could have refused. He could have stopped them right there, “What do you mean you don’t know what has become of Moses? He went up the mountain. He’s talking with the same God who brought the plagues on Egypt, the same God who parted the Red Sea and then gave you the Ten Commandments. Did you forget?” But they didn’t forget. This is willful ignorance. And we deal with the same today. 

Not much has changed. We still have sin all around us. And we, too, feel helpless about it. We’re the minority. And it’s easier to just go along with it, easier to do what everyone else is doing, pretend we don’t see the debauchery, and the pride, and the disdain for the things of God everywhere we turn. So we tell ourselves that we don’t really have a choice. We allow the golden calves to remain in our lives and pretend it’s okay.

Which is what the Israelites were doing. We tend to think they were dimwitted or something. How could they forget the Commandments so soon? But they didn’t forget. They didn’t think they were making a new god. They were pretending that this calf was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That’s what they say right after making it, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” (Ex. 32:4). But they didn’t make a golden donkey or a golden lion? They made a calf. Because that’s how the pagans were worshiping. They didn’t try to make a new god. They were saying, we’re going to worship like the Canaanites worship. We’re going to worship in a way that’s culturally relevant. 

So God calls them “a stiff-necked people” (Ex. 32:9). That’s not merely a figure of speech. God’s not just saying they’re stubborn. He could have just called them stubborn. But He calls them “stiff-necked.” Because that word refers to an ox that refuses to be steered by the yoke. These people refuse to be guided. They refuse to wait upon the Lord, refuse to trust, refuse to be gathered by their God. And so they have become that which they worship. 

We hear about this in the psalms. We’re told that idols “have mouths but do not speak, eyes but do not see” and then it says, “Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them” (Ps. 115:6, 8). By calling them “stiff-necked” God is saying, “You’re just like that calf. Blind and deaf.” And that is what brings the darkest, most disturbing part of our text. God says to Moses, “let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you” (Ex. 32:10). 

Well, that sets up the text today, and there are three things we should point out here. The first is God’s anger. You can’t read this and think His wrath is just a test, that it’s not real. You can’t think God is merely angry with sin, and not the sinner. No, He’s angry at the sinner. He’s so enraged that the heavenly Father is ready to wipe out the very people He just saved from Egypt. He won’t even associate Himself with them. He says to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves” (Ex. 32:7). This is like when dad comes home and mom says, “You’ll never believe what your kids have done.” Except here, God is about to destroy them and start over with Moses. We dare not think of God’s anger as something minor. As if He’s not really upset that we allow the golden calves of our money, our possessions, our sports teams, our reputation, our family, the health of loved ones, our cell phones. God’s judgment is fierce. 

That’s first. Second, notice how Moses intercedes. He doesn’t make any excuses for the people. That’s what we do. We make excuses for our sin. Moses doesn’t do that. He doesn’t say, “Give them a second chance.” Your God is not the God of second chances. It doesn’t matter how many chances we get; we’d fail every time. It’s even surprising that Moses doesn’t plead for forgiveness. That’s what I would expect. But Moses doesn’t ask God to forgive. He points God to His own Word. He asks God to remember His promise. Verse 13: “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore” (Ex. 32:13). “God, you promised!”

That promise was the promise of a Messiah. Through these sinners, God swore there would come a Savior. Jesus would be born of these stiff-necked people. Jesus would go to the cross for those who want to gather themselves together and do whatever they want rather than wait upon the Lord. Jesus would die for their foolish rebellion, and yours. And that is how Jesus gathers you. Remember how He says it in John 12, “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). Jesus’ death is what gathers you unto Him. The Israelites did not deserve mercy. And neither do you. But the Lord keeps His promise. He condemns the Son in place of you. He visits your sins upon Jesus, that He might show you mercy.

So, Moses is merely holding God to that promise. And that’s why the Lord “relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people” (Ex. 32:14). The Lord keeps His promises. This is important. When you feel the guilt weighing down upon your conscience, this is what you do! Return to the promises God has made you. In your baptism, God has promised you the righteousness of Christ Jesus. God will not break that promise. He promises in the Absolution that your sins are forgiven. The sins that gnaw at you—they’re removed completely. He promises in the eating and drinking of His Body and Blood, that you have the very life of the Son of God. These are God’s promises to you, and you hold to them.

So we have 1) God’s very real anger over sin, and 2) we see the promise of His mercy in Christ. But there’s a third point we should notice from the text. And it is this: God is teaching His people.

When Moses comes down the mountain, he doesn’t say, “Don’t worry, God forgives you. Just make sure you don’t do it again.” No. It says, “[Moses] took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it” (Ex. 32:20). Now, why did he do that? He’s not punishing them. Don’t think that. It wouldn’t hurt you to drink a little gold in your water. It wouldn’t even change the taste. This is done to teach them. Their so-called “god” will be expelled from their body. If they wanted their gold back, they’d have to go find it in the latrine. And that is how the Lord is instructing them. God’s not just saying, “I’m more powerful. Your fake god is in the latrine.” Yes, that’s true, but God is using this instruction to keep them out of the latrine. God is still leading the Israelites away from Egypt. They have been saved, God has had mercy on them, but they still have much to learn about how to live as God’s people.

We have to be careful here, because sometimes we expect God to just save us, maybe answer our prayers every now and then, but we think He has nothing more to say than “You’re a sinner. But don’t worry, I forgive you.” If that were the case, we could shorten up these sermons quite a bit. The whole service could be pared down to about 10 minutes if all Christianity means is coming to Church to be forgiven. Yes, it is that in spades. Don’t get me wrong. But God would also teach you, dear saints. He would guide and instruct you how to live, how to hold on to hope in a hopeless world, how to love and serve your neighbor even when your neighbor is disagreeable because that’s how Christ treats you, how to wait upon the Lord in time of need and trust His care, how to long for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Sometimes that instruction is interesting and exciting, and sometimes it isn’t what we want to hear at all. Still, your Lord would use His Word to instruct your life in Christ and among His people, to continue to lead you away from the idols of this world and gather you to Him.

That starts here. Your Lord has gathered you today in His Church to hear His Word, to be absolved, to eat and drink your salvation in the Body and Blood of Christ, that you might learn to wait upon the Lord and trust the mercy He has for you in ☩ Jesus’ name. Amen. 

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.