CMP Review 2023-07-23

“Moses wants to know, to have certitude,” writes Walter Brueggemann, describing one of the most mystical and mysterious passages of the Old Testament. “Moses wants to know about the future and the mode of God’s presence with Israel.”

Moses pleads and God responds. “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest,” He assures him. Moses makes a second request. God responds again, “I will also do this thing that you have spoken.”

“Yahweh … seems to give over to Moses all that has been asked,” explains Brueggemann. “Moses, one more time, is relentless. He has now received assurance of ‘face,’ ‘rest,’ and ‘favor.’ Now he asks one more request: ‘Show me your glory.’ ‘Glory’ bespeaks God’s awesome, shrouded, magisterial presence, something like an overpowering light. It is in this passage as though the request for glory is to draw even closer, more dangerously, more intimately, to the very core of God’s own self.”

Amazingly, God grants this final request too. What does Moses see? That is the contemplation of today’s poem by Charlotte Mason. I listened to it and chills ascended my spine. It is a devotion that must be heard to be believed. Find it here.

@artmiddlekauff