November 1, 2010 – Exodus 32:21 – 33

Aaron seems pretty pathetic here.  When confronted he claims that he through all the gold into the fire and out came the calf.  He does not want to take responsibility for the making of the calf.  Then it talks about Moses’ foes.  It appears there was some divide of in the group, as is depicted in movies and maybe Aaron was just easily swayed.  Then all the Levites rally to Moses and slay their kinsmen.  Doesn’t this sound like they killed all the other Israelites.  The footnote says they only killed those that were especially guilty of idolatry, but that isn’t the sense you get from reading it.  But they can’t have killed them all or else there would only be one tribe left.  For this loyalty the Levites would be given the duty to be special servants to the priest and be consecrated to the Lord.  They wouldn’t receive any land in the promise land.  In our day and age, that would be seen as the worse end of the deal.  You did what you were suppose to do, your reward is no land and you must serve the Lord.  You that broke the rules, you get land of your own.  We must realize what an honor it is to serve the Lord and also the responsibility and harm and seduction that came to those that had the land.  The Levites were not given land so that their focus would be God.  You relate it somewhat to the celibacy of priest in the Church and where their focus is. 

Even Moses cannot see the face of God and live.  He can look at God’s back as He moves away.  This probably is wrong, but I thought of Medusa and not being able to look at her face to face, but you could look at reflections and be ok.  We think we are so high and mighty and we sometimes think we should be able to be on par with God.  We need to understand that we cannot.  God humbled Himself to become man in Christ so that He could Sacrifice Himself for us.  And God humbly becomes the Eucharist so that we can partake of Him in the Mass to form a more perfect union with Him and be able to Adore Him in Adoration.  That is for our benefit.  We are not able to look at God face to face and live.  Lord help us understand humility and our place.