No moment showing such promise and potential turned so quickly leaving nothing but despair and despondency in its wake, then the golden calf story recorded in Exodus 32. Israel had gathered at the Mountain of God. They had been slaves in Egypt, now they were liberated, freed, and headed to the Promised Land. Oh, the sound of freedom is music to the ear. Like a cookout on Memorial Day with summer just around the corner, what could go wrong? In a word, everything.
Moses was engaged in deep negotiations with God, while Israel was encamped at the base of Mt. Sinai. With the Covenant established and the Testimony* engraved by God’s finger on two tablets of stone held by Moses, the prophet began his trek down the mountain. But something was wrong. Something was really wrong. The sound of freedom morphed into the cries of war. Except it wasn’t war, just the shattering of the very covenant God founded with his people. On the ground were the pieces of the tablets, fragmented, a poignant representation of what Israel did, not only to the Testimony,* but also to the Covenant established by God.
All was lost. Like mist burned off from the hot sun, hope had dissipated. Wanting to wipe out the entire nation, God was willing to start over, only this time with Moses (Ex. 32:9-10). Moses, on the other hand, pleaded with God for mercy. God relented as mercy prevailed. But things had changed. Trust was broken. And in the balance was a damaged relationship between God and Israel.
Something else happened too. Moses changed. Physically. His encounter with God made his face glow (Ex. 34:29-35). The radiance was bright and frightened the people who saw him. Each time he met with God, his face radiated like the sun on a bright blue cloudless day. After communicating with Israel what God revealed to him, he wore a veil, which he removed before meeting with God again (Ex. 34:33-35).
Paul picks up Moses’ veil image in 2 Corinthians 3:12-18 to restore the hope lost so many centuries earlier. Unfortunately, before hope is restored, Paul says the veil is still in play, blinding the hearts of those who wear it (v. 14-15). Two points of interest are worth highlighting before we pursue further. First, whatever Paul says in these verses, he is confronting the antagonists infiltrating Corinth to undermine his ministry. We know they are Judaizers, but they are not the same ones or kind that demanded the Galatians be circumcised. Circumcision is not mentioned in 2 Corinthians, but a love for the Covenant at Sinai seems important to the antagonists. Secondly, Paul may either be relying on a tradition or taking liberties with the Exodus 34 veil story. Exodus says nothing about the reason Moses wore the veil, only that he did (Ex. 34:33,35). He met with the Lord unveiled, then spoke to Israel unveiled. After speaking with Israel, he donned the veil until he met with the Lord again, and the cycle repeated itself. Paul, on the other hand, says the reason Moses donned the veil was to hide the fact that his radiant face was fading (v. 13), a foreshadow of the Sinai Covenant reality with Israel.
Paul tells us that the glory of the Sinai Covenant, or in this case ministry, is fading and fading fast. Moses donned a veil to hide how that glory is diminishing. In the meantime, Israel themselves wore their own veil blinding them from seeing the real glory. The more they wore the veil, the duller their minds became (v. 14). They stopped thinking. They quit processing. They ceased hoping. They discontinued dreaming. They were so blinded by their own theology and understanding of Scripture that they failed to see Christ holding it all together. While it’s true that “. . . when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts” (v. 15), Paul is not only addressing Jews who reject Jesus, but he’s also addressing the antagonistic Jewish Christians bent against him and his gospel. They are either veiled to the Jesus they claim to follow, or they are veiled to conceal that Jesus is not in them. Remember, Paul is addressing this letter to people who are already Christians, who have given their lives to Christ. So, something is ironically wrong when Christians cannot see Christ because their own hearts are veiled.
I come from a tribe of believers who, probably like you, wear their own blinders preventing them from seeing or showing Jesus. We hold a high view of Scripture with clearly marked doctrinal lines. While I hold much of our doctrines close to the heart, I do so knowing the questionable approach we’ve taken Scripture to reach those doctrinal beliefs. Sometimes, those questionable approaches and conclusions have hurt the very people we are called to love and to serve. Those who have not walked the line have either been black-balled or given enough cold shoulders to show how much they are no longer welcomed. Others, who dared to remove the box holding God, found their character maligned and were shamed for “coloring” outside the doctrinal lines.
I share this because my tribe is just like your tribe, and my people are just like your people, and my story is probably your story, too. On our best days the blinders are removed and it’s like seeing Jesus in HD. On our worst days, our blinders keep us from seeing anything, trampling on the people we’re called to love the most. Or the veil is in play to hide the fact that we care nothing for Jesus only for ourselves.
So we fight every day to shed the blinders and remove the veil keeping us from being the very Jesus we proclaim to being. We have our theology lined out and our doctrine clean and simple. We tend to keep everything neat and clean to avoid messy conclusions, reading the Bible only to confirm what we already believe, forgetting that the very Bible we cherish is written by messy people engaging with messy people who are radically loved by a very un-messy God. We prefer clearly drawn lines of right and wrong, of left and right, of true and false, as it helps us know who is in and who is out, so that we know who is going to heaven and who isn’t. But when we do that, we have a veil over our hearts and we’re living with blinders on. Truth be known, if we were to remove our blinders, we’d see that we and our churches are far messier than we care to admit.
Along the way we’ve failed remove the veil to reveal that the transformation of unveiled faces is the goal of the gospel (v. 18). We’ve failed to remove the veil and to take a good long look in the mirror, while standing in finger-pointing judgment at those whose sin seems greater than ours. We’ve failed to remove the veil that distinguishes our culture of acceptability against the culture of being accepted by Jesus. We’ve failed to remove the veil to discern between our national politics and the politics of God’s Kingdom, assuming that they are one and the same. They’re not. We’ve failed to remove the veil showing the compassion of God extended to us to provide our comfort is intended for us to extend that compassion to others while comforting them. We’ve failed to remove the veil exposing the perceived enemy before us is clearly our neighbor. We’ve failed to remove the veil that feeds our selfish narcissism so that we can sacrifice for the good of others. We’ve failed to remove the veil that underscoring the needless point of suffering is how God is able to comfort his people. We’ve failed to remove the veil so that we can still clutch the stone held in our hands ignoring the voice saying, “he who is without sin, may cast the first stone.” We’ve failed to remove the veil, in part, because we like the darkness and have embraced the darkness while claiming to walk in light. We’ve failed to remove the veil because the hopelessness seems more familiar than offering hope.
I remember my sophomore year of college. I was in Bible class when the professor talked about his weekend. He mowed his lawn. Actually, he said he was in the middle of mowing his lawn when he noticed that his five-year-old son had retrieved his toy lawnmower and was “helping him” mow the lawn. Immediately, a veil was removed as he saw with clarity. His son was mimicking his every movement, following his father’s example. My professor said he thought he could be self-absorbed and continue to mow the lawn. Instead, he loaded his mower onto his truck and invited his son to do the same. With his son sitting next to him, he drove across town to an elderly widow’s home whose lawn was in extreme need of care. For the rest of the afternoon, he and his son served the widow.
By removing the veil, my professor saw a means by which to serve. By removing the veil, he not only saw Jesus clearly, but he was able to be Jesus to his son. When that happened, they experienced an unveiled hope.
Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)
* See Exodus 32:15. While known as the Ten Commandments today, that phrase is a late development and was often known as Ten Words.