I walked into a workshop on worship last weekend at Lakeside Church and lost my breath. Gabriel Wilson, Lakeside's Director of Worship Arts, was presenting the Who, What, Where, When, Why and How of Worship. As I walked in he was reading this passage:
[God] passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation (Exodus 34:6-7).
I love this statement of God's character. It honestly takes my breath away. God must like it too, because he includes it no less than eight times in the Bible. It may be the single most common description of God.
What Moses heard that day was a recital of the beauty and balance of God's heart in his relationships with us. It is a song of grace and truth. It is a story of mercy and judgment.
I find that we human beings often land on one side or the other of God's character. Some of us love the side of mercy and grace. Perhaps that's because we know how much we need it. We know if it were not for God's compassion, we would not survive--not in this world and not in the one to come.
Or maybe we just never liked rules in the first place, so mercy seems more important than judgment.
On the other hand, some of us seem to delight in the judgment of God. Perhaps that's because we see the injustices in this world. We know first-hand how cruel the world can be. And we know that judgment doesn't always come soon enough to bring correction. So we love the idea that God will eventually judge, and the wrongs of this world will be righted.
Or maybe we're just rule-keepers and can't tolerate the rule-breaking of others.
If we land off-balance on either side, we have missed God's heart. God proclaims loud and clear his character: compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. He maintains love and forgives wickedness, rebellion and sin. That means he is ready to bring grace to everyone. Hallelujah! I have hope.
However, God also declares his intention to punish the guilty. In some way this judgment even passes down to the children and grandchildren. Perhaps this generational judgment happens because generational sins get passed down--alcoholics beget alcoholics, abusers beget abusers, liars beget liars. Sin produces like-minded sin in the next generation. At any rate, God is the Judge. It is his character and his prerogative. Whoa! I have fear.
In this description, God calls me forward. He motivates me, both through hope and through fear.
Of course, followers of Jesus will recognize this description of God from the Gospel of John. In different words, John describes the same character of God as it was displayed in Jesus:
We have seen his glory, the glory [character] of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).
I lean WAY TOO HARD toward mercy! But judgement gives me hives. I'm still working on finding middle-ground. :)
Posted by: Jami the Very Worst Missionary | May 19, 2010 at 06:58 AM