THE GOD OF MOSES
Psalm 90
“Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.”
From what I can remember of Moses and his experiences of God, love, compassion, mercy would be very unlikely words he would choose to describe his God. And out of his experience leading the Jews, he would surely remember the many times they were quick to speak ill of God and disobey him. And he would remember how he needed to step in and place himself between God and his people, to placate him and to turn his wrath away.
Moses did not experience the ultimate triumph of leading God’s people into the Promised Land. His experience instead was to shape a rebellious ragtag group into a people and a community ready to receive God’s Promise. Through Moses God gave the people the Law. Through Aaron God established the rituals necessary to approach him. In the time of Moses, God educated the people about himself, and he often did so with harsh punishment.
So it is understandable that for Moses God is transcendent, eternal and full of wrath, while man is mortal, sinful, and utterly deserving of God’s wrath.
Yet in this inhospitable, almost bleak, experience as he did his best to lead his people, Moses was never seeking to get away from God’s shadow. However bad the experience may be, God is home and there is nowhere else he would be.
In this prayer we hear of his longing to really know how to live with God, how to walk with God, believing that then life would be truly sweet.
You are eternal, you are all-consuming, you are fire. We are mortal, we are blind and foolish. Be gentle with us, and teach us. Yes, it is all our fault. But please have compassion. Help us to know how to walk with you so that we will taste of your unfailing love, that your power will establish all that we do, rather than destroy us in your wrath. May we enjoy your favour so that we will have many experiences of the work of your hand upon our lives, that we can tell stories of your splendour to our children, rather than stories that frighten them.
“Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.”