This is Marc Chagall's etching with watercolor titled: The Death of Moses. In Deuteronomy 32:51 God tells Moses that even after leading the Chosen People through the Sinai desert for forty years, Moses would not enter the promised land with them.
"Because you did not make my holiness clear to the Israelites." Yikes! It is said that the largest Christian denomination is Roman Catholics, and the second largest is fallen away Catholics. Have the priests failed to make God's holiness clear to the people?
We're told more in Deuteronomy chapter 34. God is called Yahweh.
Apparently resigned to it all, in Chagall's etching, Moses appears to be getting ready for a good nights sleep. He has put down his wonder-working staff; his unveiled face still emitting rays of light. Moses waves to God who seems to be pushing away the clouds, opening a path of light for his servant, who looks to God face to face.
But we notice too that it seems God personally buried Moses in the valley. I'd suggest God buried Moses in a secret place because God knows how idolatrous human beings are. God knew that if Moses' grave were known, we'd forget everything he taught us; we'd build a great shrine with a decorated tomb, summoning people from all around the world to make expensive pilgrimages to it, to buy souvenirs, to stay in the five star hotels, dining in the fine restaurants that spring up around shrines. No, God left Moses' body hidden in the wilderness.
The God of the Jews and Christians isn't a shrine-god or real estate god.
"It is mercy I desire, not sacrifice." Hosea 6:6; Matthew 9:13
"My sacrifice O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, O God, will not despise." Psalm 51:17
True religion happens in the wilderness: the wilderness of my inner life. In the wilderness (desert) there is nothing to hold onto, no one to impress, nothing that will save me. I'm utterly vulnerable in the wilderness; face to face with my own unvarnished self. In the inner wilderness I have no cloak of prestige to wear, no masks, no facade. I stand alone before God, who sees me and loves me just as I am.
The only thing we find in the desert is sand. Moses' burial in the desert-sand teaches me: when I crouch down and write the story of my past, with all the wounds, the mistakes, the sins, the twists and turns that may have taken me faraway, when I leave and glance back over my shoulder, I notice the wind has blown it all away. God is like that.
I want to accept this desert-y spiritual place and not run to some other kind of religion that distracts, 'saves' or is more comfortable and easier. Oh God, thank you for burying Moses in a secret place of sand and wind.
"Because you did not make my holiness clear to the Israelites." Yikes! It is said that the largest Christian denomination is Roman Catholics, and the second largest is fallen away Catholics. Have the priests failed to make God's holiness clear to the people?
We're told more in Deuteronomy chapter 34. God is called Yahweh.
Then leaving the Plains of Moab, Moses went up Mount Nebo...and Yahweh showed Moses the whole country: Gilead as far as Dan, the whole of Naphtali, the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, the whole country of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the Negeb and the region of the Valley of Jericho, city of palm trees...And Yahweh said to Moses, "This is the country which I promised on oath to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, saying: I shall give it to your descendents. I have allowed you to see it for yourself, but you will not cross into it." There in the country of Moab, Moses servant of Yahweh died as God decreed...He buried him in the valley in the country of Moab...Since then, there has never been such a prophet in Israel as Moses, the man whom Yahweh knew face to face.
Apparently resigned to it all, in Chagall's etching, Moses appears to be getting ready for a good nights sleep. He has put down his wonder-working staff; his unveiled face still emitting rays of light. Moses waves to God who seems to be pushing away the clouds, opening a path of light for his servant, who looks to God face to face.
But we notice too that it seems God personally buried Moses in the valley. I'd suggest God buried Moses in a secret place because God knows how idolatrous human beings are. God knew that if Moses' grave were known, we'd forget everything he taught us; we'd build a great shrine with a decorated tomb, summoning people from all around the world to make expensive pilgrimages to it, to buy souvenirs, to stay in the five star hotels, dining in the fine restaurants that spring up around shrines. No, God left Moses' body hidden in the wilderness.
The God of the Jews and Christians isn't a shrine-god or real estate god.
"It is mercy I desire, not sacrifice." Hosea 6:6; Matthew 9:13
"My sacrifice O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, O God, will not despise." Psalm 51:17
True religion happens in the wilderness: the wilderness of my inner life. In the wilderness (desert) there is nothing to hold onto, no one to impress, nothing that will save me. I'm utterly vulnerable in the wilderness; face to face with my own unvarnished self. In the inner wilderness I have no cloak of prestige to wear, no masks, no facade. I stand alone before God, who sees me and loves me just as I am.
The only thing we find in the desert is sand. Moses' burial in the desert-sand teaches me: when I crouch down and write the story of my past, with all the wounds, the mistakes, the sins, the twists and turns that may have taken me faraway, when I leave and glance back over my shoulder, I notice the wind has blown it all away. God is like that.
I want to accept this desert-y spiritual place and not run to some other kind of religion that distracts, 'saves' or is more comfortable and easier. Oh God, thank you for burying Moses in a secret place of sand and wind.
