5/6/2020
A verse for me:
“Behold, I am sending an angel before you, to guide you on the way, and to bring you into the place that I have prepared. Watch for him and listen to his voice. Do not rebel against him because he will not pardon your transgressions, for My Name is in him. But if you will listen closely to his voice, and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.” Ex 23: 20-22.
I feel such a need for guidance. My life is changing and many prospects for my future are frightening; much seems uncertain, as my world is changing in unpredicted and unpredictable ways. So I respond to this passage, “Yes! I want that angel! But I am so flawed. “Watch for him, listen to his voice” – how? I know for sure that I will mess it up. I’m sure to get it wrong. OK, I’ll watch, but how will I “see” him, and how will I “hear” his voice?
Of course, this statement was not given to me; it was given to the runaway slaves from Egypt who were now relatively lost in the desert. In the Exodus story they had just received the awesome and mysterious commandments brought down from the mount of Sinai by Moses. The text then enumerates a series of “laws.” Now, abruptly, the laws are interrupted by a promise, which reveals that the God who delivered them has given them new regulations to live by and has further plans for them beyond what they had envisioned. They are going to a new land, one that is to be allocated to them, and the vehicle for their finding it and appropriating it – it’s going to entail conflict! – is an “angel.” They are in fact unready for all that that will entail, so God is giving them someone — a person, not a principle or a regulation — who will lead them through the trials that lie ahead as they advance into the land of promise.
Only by analogy can I claim this passage for myself. What I can say, though, is that this story tells me that Yahweh, the Hebrew God, is a Person who has designs and protections for the people who belong to him. Seeing here that he is such a Person, I come to him and beg for a similar mercy: Lord, please grant me the kind of guidance and protection you provided the ancient Hebrew runaways that the book of Exodus tells me about. Yes, I don’t deserve your kindness; but I see that neither did they.
So by analogy and by the hubris of faith, I appeal to the God of the Hebrews to give me help for my life, my times, just as he did for them in their times. Like them I am confronting situations for which I am unready and unequipped. I want to be guided, I want to be led through the frightening, uncertain times ahead. And without his guidance I will surely get it wrong. So I appeal for his merciful presence and guidance like that provided to the Hebrews in the wilderness.