Golden Calf

This morning we are going to look straight at the golden calf and talk through this idea:

Our solutions to deal with our deepest desires always point to something necessary but disappoints at the same time. Christ offers a real solution.

This is a well worn story in the book of Exodus. We need to talk through what is going on and then talk through the implications of it.

This is a wild story. So let’s begin when Moses is missing.

First: the story begins with Moses gone missing. Or so they think. Moses has been up on the mountain for apparently too long. And the isrealites have a short term memory issue. And because he is gone for what they believe is too long, they begin to come up with an ingenious solution. The god replacement plan. They believe that, even after seeing all that God has done for them, that they can replace and create something that will be better than what they had.

They become the creators of a solution for a problem that had not yet been able to solve.

Illustration on a not quite fully baked solution. The GRavina Island bridge was a bridge that was started to be built to connect the small community of Ketchikan AK with their airport. The construction process began but never finished. So it sits as a bridge to nowhere. Something that points to another destination but isn’t solving the issue

Idolatry is like a bridge to nowhere. IT points to something desired and needed but can never reach the solution. It shows something that we desire but can never meet that desire. This is what the Israelites experience in our passage this morning.

Creating an idol that resolves a deep need

We think that waiting is too big of a burden to bear, so we create solutions that never last as long as we want.

Idolatry will always point to a desire and disappoint In meeting that desire.

So in this passage today we learn something about the human condition and then we learn how much it takes to truly satisfy the weight of the human condition.

Exodus 32:1–4 ESV

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

We think that we are the solution to every problem.

After the Israelites are freed, they experience the miracles of power from God, the shepherding of kindness in leading them through the desert and then the giving of the laws that help the Israelites live in relative peace. They are also given the instructions on what it means for them to live in relationship with God.

And then Moses goes up the mountain and he is gone for a little too long and they decide that they can do this whole thing by themselves.

This represents All the right things in the wrong direction.

They are pointing to a real need.

They are pointing to a real problem.

But are going about it the wrong way.

This is the thing with building idols. We want to create things we can worship all the time because we have a desire to worship. What is happening with this group shows us that we have it in us a desire to worship. But it also shows us that we really can’t meet that desire. They sure try though.

Aaron creates an idol from thier gold to deal with their loss. They didn’t know what to do next, they needed something to aim their certainty at and so they aimed it at a calf.

We see in this the deep desire for certainty when there is none and the inability to create something sufficient to meet that loss.

Have you ever had a kid look at you when they are learning something and say to you, “I can do it!” And you sit back and watch and realize that they are not in fact, going to be able to do it. ANd they mess up gloriously? For a kid this is an opportunity to learn. They can safely practice tying their shoes or putting toys away. But in the Israelites case it would be like if your 3 year old walked up to you with your car keys in his hand and said, “I can do it!” And in the Israelites case, Aaron agrees to go along with it.

Exodus 32:4–6 ESV

And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

In this creation of an idol, they relax. They move into celebration and peace. This idol becomes a means for them to believe they have recovered everything. The problem is that it doesn’t actually fix the issue. The idol points to a need but does nothing to resolve our issues. The calf doesn’t lead them anywhere or covenant with them in relationship. The calf doesn’t offer mercy and love. The calf doesn’t give them everything they need in order to survive and thrive in relationship.

It is easy to create a golden calf because it represents the desire to have our losses met, our desires filled. But no idol has ever been sufficient to rebuild us, to forgive us.

An idol is more of a mirror of our need than a redeemer of a people.

And we create these mirrors to our desires in the forms of idols all the time. We trust something that we think will hold us up. We believe in something that we think will be enough.

We create idols in our mind and immediately ask too much of them.

We bear our full weight on them and then we are upset when they can’t hold us up.

An idol can never do anything proactive for us.

It’s like jumping into a foam pit with everything you are and not being able to get out again. Robin and the foam put at the trampoline place.

We do this with most anything and everything. We are creative in our idol making. Anything that will show us our desire but not be able to actually meet it fits in this frame.

An idol will make demands of us that we can’t keep. It will demand of us a sacrifice.

And these idols are found everywhere. That’s why this story matters. Because we still create idols to fit our needs.

Politics? Yes. I am not anti politcal. It is unavoidable. The problem is that we have turned politics into an idol. We have asked more of it than it is able to produce.

We felt like God wasn’t doing enough and so instead of waiting on Him we wanted to see if politics are able to produce what He can’t. I’m here to tell you now that politics will only point to a real need and desire but disappoint to meet that need and desire.

Sexuality and identity? Yes. Conversations around sexuality and identity are very important and needed. We want to make room for us as a church to have conversations around this. But if we turn to our sexuality to meet the deepest needs of our soul it will disappoint every time. It points to a real need that we need to talk about but will disappoint everytime.

Work? Points to a need but will disappoint as an idol

Eventually we have to come to terms with the fact that the idol cannot hold up to the weight of our soul. So then the very thing that we are holding up as an idol we end up blaming for not being able to deliver.

Blaming an idol to resolve our guilt

As you can imagine God sees what is going on and becomes angry. And you might be suspect at God’s anger or if you have never read through the OT and you’re like, “well God is angry, I should have expected that.”

Exodus 32:9–10 ESV

And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”

But imagine for a moment that you have a child that is interested in hockey. You get them involved in a pee wee league. They like it and so as they get older you get them involved in a travelling league. You get them lessons. You get them better gear. They outgrow gear. They have to travel to different towns. Travel is expensive. You pay it.

They play in high school and play in tournaments. You pay for it. They end up going to a national tournament with their team. You pay for them to get into the tournament, you pay for the plane tickets and an uber to get from the hotel (that you paid for) to the rink.

Your child wins the tournament with their team. At the end they are the team captain and get to give a speech to rally the team and crowd. The first thing out of their mouths is, “tonight could not have happened without...” and you realize they are finally going to thank you for the hundreds of times you drove them around or bought the team pizza or paid for extra rink time. Not that you need it but it is nice that they know what you did. Your child takes a pause, looks over your way and finishes the sentence “Ralph our Uber driver who drove us all the way from the hotel to the rink! Thank you Ralph!”

If that irks you just a little bit, then understand God’s emotion in this. He has given everything and called His people to live with Him at the center. And they, in a brief moment where they don’t know what is happening. completely turn to someone else.

Now Moses implores God and God relents. But Moses has to deal with what is going on. And so he approaches Aaron, his brother, and Aaron who had up to this point led the charge, responds to Moses with this

Exodus 32:21–24 ESV

And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. For they said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”

Aaron takes no responsibility for what is going on. He completely bypasses it and blames what is going on on the people and the calf.

It’s a little humorous to see Aaron dodge responsibility but his humor is our reality.

When toe to toe with guilt or wrongdoing or shame. When we come to a place when the thing that we thought would change everything changes nothing we recognize that now we can’t look to that thing for hope but we can blame that thing for our sorrow.

When we can’t find the hope from the thing that we had placed all our hope in we turn on it.

We do this with sports all the time. Our team is our greatest hope until they don’t do what we want them to do and then there is nothing but hate.

Our love quickly turns to hate if that thing or person doesn’t do what we want them to.

We define the value of something by it’s usefulness to us. Ernst Cassirier tells us that as soon as that thing removes it’s usefulness it “melts away into nothingness.”

Finding a God who will actually resolve our deepest need.

We will always turn to something that promises us more than we can attempt to do on our own.

Always.

This is a human constant.

And it is very good news.

Because while there have been a near amount of infinite things that have volunteered to take that place, only Christ has stood in that place to be the One who can meet our needs through taking the blame that we want to place on everything else.

God has not left us alone to figure out what to do with our deep need. He has always been the one to meet that. Always been the One we can hope in, the One we can trust in, the One that, even if we don’t always know what He’s doing, we can wait because He is One who has continued to fulfill His promises.

Christ is the fulfillment of His promises. God has come close to meet us in any place of loss or guilt or shame. He has not left us to figure it out ourselves. He has given Himself for our sake to free us from the chase that leads to brokenness. From the pursuit that often “melts away into nothingness.”

That thing that you need, that you hold dear, that need that compelled the Israelites to create a god out of nothing is met at the person of Christ.

It is met in His sacrifice.

MEt in His love

IN His grace.

2 Corinthians 8:9 ESV

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

When we trust Him for salvation we are trusting that all that we have hoped for is found in Christ. and that Christ Himself is trustworthy with the weight of our soul.

We want to be a people whose desires point to Christ who fulfills them. We don’t want to stop short. Give all of who you are to Christ, don’t give to an idol that cannot give back. As Christians we can give our desires to Christ Who can actually hold them and support us.