Bryan Richardson

Smash

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 32:1-19, 30-33; 33:12-17; 34:1-7 (day three)

“His anger burned…” Moses saw the Israelites living the life they had learned over the last four centuries in Egypt: If your God is bigger than your own desires, your God is too big. Moses knew that to give up on God is to give up on reality, and death follows soon thereafter. Egypt itself was already dead; God had shattered that culture and taken the children of Israel out into the wilderness to rebuild a new culture powered by a new worldview—one based in reality, not in false perceptions of the universe. Now, the children of Israel had returned to a dead culture in all but geography. Moses’s anger called them back. They listened, and they returned. Are there Christian mentors or elders or leaders in your life tablet-smashingly troubled over your spiritual direction? Are you listening?

Gaze

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 25:1-11, 17-18, 23-24, 31-32; 26:1-2, 7-8; 27:1-2; 29:43-46 (day three)

“Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God.”

Someone once said about a famously charismatic politician: “He always made you feel as if he were lucky to be with you.” Contrast that with a situation in which you attempt to talk in a public space with someone who repeatedly looks past you to other people in the room. Nothing says “You don’t matter” quite like a distracted gaze. The Israelites—whose display of gratitude for God’s presence was genuine, and not merely political charisma—told the Lord by their intents and their actions that they needed to live with him. They gave themselves wholly to the creation of sacred space to make such a life possible for themselves. Are you looking past God, or creating sacred space with him?

Climb

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 24 (day three)

“But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.” In order to see God, the Israelite elders had to come with Moses some distance up the mountain. We make much of God’s coming to us, and we are right to do so. Indeed he did come to us—but he did not pander to us. Indeed he did come to us—but he did not give us the answers we demand. There is some distance we must climb to him, but not because God is grudging in his self-revelation. When you really want to find something, you will not wait for it to appear in your hand; you will seek it earnestly. Anything else is just lip service. God knows it, and you know it.

Extras

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 21:1-2, 7-17, 22-27; 22:21-31; 23:1-12 (day three)

“These are the laws you are to set before them.” In a movie, the people who fill the background are called “extras”. No movie critic ever rates the performance of the extras; you don’t know their names; no one in the theater cares about them. In real life, though, each person matters to God. Therefore, consider the way you approach people at a lower station in life than you are, the way you use your authority over others, the way you live with foreigners. In each of these realms of life, you are responsible to honor the sacredness of the person with whom you come into contact. Each of the persons we encounter everyday is one whom God has determined should receive kindness, fairness, and love–from you.

Score

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 20:1-17 (day three)

“And God spoke all these words.” These Ten Commandments call us to a whole life; they cannot be separated from one another and mean the same thing that they mean together. The man who will not observe the Sabbath will surely believe that the world will not function without him, and therefore will place himself as a god before the Lord. The one who refuses to honor his parents will desecrate family ties and is therefore only a step away from destroying another family through adultery. God spoke “all these words” not some of these words. Separated, they just become an occasion for measuring our lives up against others, and when we do that, we covet everything our neighbor has. God calls us to a life, not to a score.

Almighty

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 19:1-12, 16-22 (day three)

“Whoever touches the mountain is to be put to death.” Here are three things that are true: First, God–and only God–has the original authority to determine who may continue to live; second, human beings will always–always–harm one another when they act according to what is right in their own eyes; and third, we will know God’s goodness when–and only when–we believe his words.

Deal

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 15:22-27; 16:1-18 (day three)

“You are not grumbling against us, but against the Lord.” Perhaps there were times that the Israelites had legitimate complaints against Moses. He was not perfect, after all. But this was not one of those times. The Israelites weren’t chafing against some plan that Moses had drawn up; they were calling into question the total resettlement initiative—and that was God’s project. The Lord was breaking them free from not only forced servitude, but from the entire Egyptian worldview. He was forming them into a people who could think straight. Their grumbling gave evidence that they had not grasped that radical reality. But the words Moses spoke to them called their attention to God’s activity in the midst of these circumstances. The time will come when we all have to deal with God—and Moses tells them that time is now.

Do

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 14:1-4, 10-31; 15:1-2, 20-21 (day three)

“Why are you crying out to me?” Throughout the Bible, we read that God leads men to become the kind of people who do what God would do if God were the one living their lives. God will do many things for us, but there are things he will most certainly not do for us. If they are to get done, we must do them. We see this kind of leadership in the life of Jesus: “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?”; “When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers”; “Whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing.” The Lord is our redeemer, not our enabler. He intends that our obedience grow us up, not perpetuate our inabilities. This is hard, but it is possible: Be doers, not hearers only.

Pillar

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 12:1-14, 24-27, 13:8-9 (day three)

“This observance will be for you like a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead…” You can lead a people out of 430 years of forced servitude, but they forget in the morning. You can stumble through words of wisdom you didn’t know you had in you to guide a foolish child, but you won’t remember that saving grace next week. God knows that we’re prone to such lapses in our thinking and in our living. “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,” says one of the most honest hymns ever written. When we forget God’s provision, we get in trouble. God says to remind one another: Set up a pillar, make a feast, commemorate a day so you will not forget. How are you marking God’s saving activity in your life?

Identity

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 5:1-2; 6:1-8; 7:1-5, 14-18; 8:1-3, 16, 20-21; 9:1-4, 8-9, 13-18, 25-26; 10:3-11, 21-22, 28-29; 11:1-5 (day three)

“I am the LORD.” This little phrase of self-identification frames much of what God says to Moses at the outset of the confrontation with Pharaoh. The question of identity was an important one to Pharaoh. When Moses demanded freedom, Pharaoh wanted to know the identity of the one behind the demand. Pharaoh placed no credence in the name of the LORD, but God’s repetition of his identity to Moses was more about shaping a people called by his name than introducing himself to Pharaoh. Israel’s Egyptian masters resisted the LORD’s identity, and they would die by that name. The LORD made short work of that. The longer question was this: Would the children of Israel live by that name? And so the question comes to us.