The God You Can't See

The Unseen God

Fourth after Trinity

Collect of the Day: O God, the protector of all who trust in thee, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy; Increase and multiply upon us thy mercy; that, thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal. Grant this, O heavenly Father, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Homily Text:. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments (Exodus 20:4-6).

If only we could see God. Wouldn’t it be easier it to worship if we could see God?  Any doubts we’ve had about his existence would be resolved. Unbelieving scoffers might be silenced. There seem to be so many advantages if only we could see God.

This desire to see the God we worship is strong in human nature. Throughout history people have carved or shaped images out of stones, wood, and metal and associated them with their gods. Then they direct their worship toward that image.

But the God who spoke to his redeemed people at Mt. Sinai, said, “You shall not make for yourself a graven (or carved) image of anything that is the heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or  in the water under the under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them.” The LORD also gave a reason: “For I the LORD you God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children unto the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to those who love me and keep my commandments.”

1.Israel’s Calf

1.1. After the Lord spoke the 10 Commandments accompanied by power-displaying and fear-inducing signs, the people asked that the LORD would not speak to them directly, but speak to Moses who would then speak to them for God. So Moses approached the mountain, entered the thick darkness, and then climbed the mountain. The first word from the LORD to Moses was:

“Thus you shall say to the people of Israel: ‘You have seen for yourselves that I have talked with you from heaven. You shall not make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold (Exodus 20:22,23).

That is significant given what would soon br happening in the camp at the foot of the mountain. Moses was on the mountain 40 ways. The people got anxious and said, “As for this man Moses…we do not know what has become of him” (Exodus 32:1). They had escaped slavery in Egypt, but now what? They were alone in the wilderness, and their leader was gone. They were afraid, and wanted to know the LORD was with them and would lead them, so they went to Aaron and said, “Up make us gods who shall go before us.” They fell back on what they had seen of worship among the Egyptians.

1.2. What were they asking?

Perhaps they were asking to have several gods, like Egyptians had.

But it is also clear they wanted to worship the LORD who had delivered them from Egypt and led them into the wilderness. They wanted some visible form of the LORD who had delivered them from Egypt and to Mt. Sinai – a form of the LORD to put their trust in and before which they could worship.

Aaron, the priest, told them to take off all their gold earrings and bring them to him. Aaron used a graving tool and made a golden calf. It likely was a young bull, an image used by other religions to represent a god of “power without purity” (Packer).

When the people saw it, they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

When Aaron heard what they were saying, he built an altar before the calf and issued a proclamation: “Tomorrow shall be a feast unto the LORD.” Aaron wanted to make sure they were not becoming polytheists but worshipers of the LORD. He wanted them to see the calf as a representation of the Lord who had led them to Sinai. The the calf is identified with the LORD. In the calf they see the God who had redeemed and delivered his people from slavery.

The Bible tells the next morning the people got up early and sacrificed offerings on the altar. They then sat down to enjoy a feast – a fellowship meal with their god and one another. After that they “rose up to play.”  They had not only adopted the pagan practice of making an image of their god, but also almost immediately adopted pagan ways of worship. They included a religious orgy as part of their worship. How quickly their religion degenerated from making an image of their god to worshiping their god immorally.

1.3. Forty years later when Moses was preparing the people to enter the Promised Land and knew he would not be going with them, Moses reminded the people of the experience at Mt. Sinai:

Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice. 

Moses knows he will soon die, and he is trying keep the people from making the same mistake they made at Sinai. He reminds them, “You heard the LORD and saw the signs of his presence, but you did not see the LORD. God is so great, so infinite, so holy that there is no form at all that can represent him. Any form you make will dishonor him and conceal his glory.

1.4. Lest we think this is only Moses’ and  an Old Testament emphasis, hear the Apostle Paul writing to Timothy:

God… is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen 1 Timothy 1:15,16).

We cannot see God, and we break this commandment when we try to represent him with visible images and direct worship toward them.

But where does breaking this commandment begin? It begins in the imagination. When the Israelites made the Golden Calf they had to begin with, “Here is the best way to represent God – he is like a young bull.” We are on the way to breaking this commandment, whenever, instead of looking to the Bible to find out what God is like, we begin with “I like to think of God as…” and then we add “grandfather,” or “therapist,” or “my higher power, or “my best friend,” or as “all loving without judgment,” or as a “feminized picture of Jesus”  - or however we imagine God and make him the God we want rather than the God he is.

2. Judgment

The Lord saw what was going on and informed Moses about it and his holy anger against his people. When Moses came down the mountain close enough to see the calf and pagan worship, he became very angry. He burned up the calf, ground up the remains, sprinkled the dust on water, and made the people drink it. He ordered that a number of them be executed – and 3000 were. And the LORD sent a plague on the people.

Why? Because the LORD is a jealous God. We usually think jealousy in a negative way – it comes from insecurity and neediness, it sees the person as a possession, and is controlling. It is a negative emotion the creates unhealthy relationships.

However, the commandment and other places in Scripture tell us God is a jealous God. In what way? Think of a husband and wife who experience the special love or marriage. They legitimately want that love expressed toward no one but one another. They expect the other person to live according to what they affirmed in the marriage liturgy: to love each other, comfort each other, honour each other, and keep each other in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep each other only unto to the other, so long as both shall live.

Suppose a man should take a favorite picture of his wife, dedicate a room to her, and set up a shrine around her picture. He spends hours in that room talking to the picture, holding the picture in his hands, and kissing the picture. But he spends no time with his wife, never talks to her, never holds her in his arms, or kisses her. How would a wife feel about that? She would be legitimately jealous about the false way her husband expresses his love.

So the LORD is jealous that having loved us and redeemed us, we should worship only him and worship in a way that is consistent with the reality that he not a God we can see. He is jealous and provoked when we make images of him in our heads or with our hands. God is not a God who can be seen, but he is a God who speaks. He wants us to listen to him.    

How can we see God now? We see him in Jesus Christ, not by trying to imagine what he looked like and directing our devotion to that picture, but by focusing on him as he is revealed in the Bible.  One day Jesus took his three closest disciples, Peter, James, and John, up on a mountain, and there he was transfigured before them – there was a temporary outbreaking of his divine glory. St. Matthew tells us that while the glory was still manifested in Jesus, a bright cloud overshadowed them and God the Father spoke:, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”  Do  you want to see God? Focus on Jesus in his Word and Sacraments. Listen to his Word read and preached. As you receive the bread and wine feed on him in your heart by faith. See God in Christ revealed in Word and Sacrament.