‘Show me your glory’
The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide
Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent. (Exod 33:11)
Last week we saw how, like Moses, king David grew a close association with the presence of God represented symbolically by the Ark of the Covenant; he brought it to his capital city Jerusalem. Recall the lessons to learn along the eventful journey of the Ark of God (2Sam 6): First, that God is exalted above all earthly powers and is worthy of honour and worship by all, great and small. Second, that He is a Holy God to be worshipped in reverence and awe; the death of Uzzah who transgressed was an illustration of this point. Third, that a powerful blessing accompanies God’s Presence; that blessing filled the household of Obed-Edom, but was later transported to the entire nation when David finally brought the Ark to Jerusalem. In Jesus Christ the divine visitation was fully perfected, the outreach limitlessly extended to all tribes of the entire world, and blessed are we who embrace and live in Him.
One thing we all have to be sure of is that you need to wait at one time or another. Do you have the grace of waiting? Let us journey back a little in Moses’ footsteps; at one point he made a really stunning prayer: “Now, show me your glory.” The presence and glory of the Lord is very captivting, it is very beautiful, we all need to experience this! But it only comes to those who are willing to tarry, to wait, to abide, to remain, to linger, to stay longer until the relationship gets there… Joshua is my star in today’s reading; he ‘did not leave the tent’ and this is surely the place where he got the anointing to lead after Moses the great prophet.
We have many other great examples of characters in the Bible who achieved the ultimate waiting: Mary Magdalene received a groundbreaking revelation after waiting longer than the others: She came with some other women to the tomb, they found it empty, they went and told the apostles; Peter and John came and also found the tomb empty; Peter even took the courage to go inside the tomb, and the two apostles spent time searching and wondering what would have happened to the body of their ‘fallen’ ‘King’! It is difficult to estimate how long they lingered at the holy tomb, it now seemed increasingly meaningless to remain at a perplexing and hopeless venue; soon they were lost for ideas and decided to go back home. But Mary… she remained some time after Peter and John had returned to their own homes.
Another Mary much earlier made her waiting and Jesus said of her, ‘Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.’ (Luke 10:42) If you are ready to wait… you can pray like Moses, ‘Show me your glory.’
God bless you all.