2nd Unmanageable God

Exodus 20:3-6

A little boy was drawing with his crayons. When his mother asked him what he was drawing, he answered, “God.” “But,” his mother said, “nobody knows what God looks like.” “They will,” the boy answered, “when I finish my picture.”

That little story is the second commandment.

Actually, there is some dispute about the first and second commandments. If you come from a Catholic or Lutheran background, you probably learned that what we are calling today the 1st and 2nd commandments were combined as one commandment.
You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.
In the Catholic and Lutheran traditions, the first commandment is verses 3-6. Roman Catholics and Lutherans follow the division made by Augustine in the 4th century; most Protestants follow the traditional Jewish division.

“So,” you might ask, “doesn’t that mean Catholics and Lutherans only have nine commandments?” And the answer is that they take what we call the 10th commandment, You shall not covet, and divide that into two commandments.

I sympathize with this. When I was studying the ten commandments in preparation for this series, I was quite confused about the difference between the 1st and 2nd. You shall have no other gods before me and You shall not make for yourself an  idol. Isn’t that saying the same thing?

One of the places in Scripture to see the difference is in the account of Jehu in II Kings 9&10.
Jehu came to be king during the time of Elisha. The reign of Ahab and Jezebel was one of the more evil periods in Israel’s history and now that Ahab had died, his son Joram, was on the throne and still heavily influenced by his mother Jezebel. Elisha, and it seems God also, was not happy with the son of Ahab and especially the son of Jezebel on the throne so he sent one of his prophets to anoint Jehu as the new king. This prophet did more than pour oil on Jehu. He charged him with the responsibility of killing all of Ahab’s family and destroying the worship of Baal.

Jehu took his responsibility seriously. He went with the officers and soldiers who followed him and killed all the men, women and children of the house of Ahab, taking special attention that Jezebel was among them. Even the close friends of Ahab’s household were killed.

He then called the worshipers of Baal, the god Jezebel served, and told them he would be much more fervent than had been Ahab in his devotion to Baal. He told them he wanted a special feast and all the worshipers of Baal assembled. Then he told his soldiers that if they allowed any of these worshipers to escape death by the sword, their lives would be taken. So all the worshipers of Baal were killed.

And so we read in II Kings 10:28
So Jehu destroyed Baal worship in Israel.

In the chronology of kings of Judah and Israel, that makes him a good king. But then the account goes on from this.

So Jehu destroyed Baal worship in Israel.  29 However, he did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit—the worship of the golden calves at Bethel and Dan.
30 The LORD said to Jehu, “Because you have done well in accomplishing what is right in my eyes and have done to the house of Ahab all I had in mind to do, your descendants will sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation.”  31 Yet Jehu was not careful to keep the law of the LORD, the God of Israel, with all his heart. He did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam, which he had caused Israel to commit.

Jehu destroyed the false gods of Baal but what were the golden calves at Bethel and Dan? What were the sins of Jeroboam?

Eighty to ninety years earlier, when the kingdom of Solomon split into Judah and Israel, Jeroboam, the first king of the northern kingdom of Israel had a problem. Jerusalem was in the southern kingdom of Judah and the temple was in Jerusalem. Jeroboam worried that if the people from his northern kingdom kept going to Jerusalem to the temple, it would dilute his power and the people might align themselves with the king of Judah. So he called together his political officers.

I Kings 12:28
After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves. He said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”  29 One he set up in Bethel, and the other in Dan.  30 And this thing became a sin; the people went even as far as Dan to worship the one there.

Dan was in the northern end of Israel and Bethel along the southern border with Judah. For almost ninety years, these golden calves served as substitutes for the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. These golden calves were created to be images of God and it is these two idols that Jehu did not destroy.

In this account of Jehu, the difference between the first and second commandments can be seen. The first commandment is You shall have no other gods before me. Jehu obeyed this commandment by destroying the worship of Baal.

The second commandment, You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below, that was the law Jehu was not careful to keep with all his heart when he allowed the golden calves to remain.

Remember again the culture out of which Israel came. They lived for four hundred years in Egypt, absorbing their culture. There were over 2,000 gods in Egypt and the gods took on the heads or bodies of different animals. So the sun god, Ra, took the head of a falcon. The music god, Hathor, took the head of a cow. The wisdom god, Thoth, took the head of an ibis.

Last week I said Israel was used to thanking one god for something and another god for something else. So it could be they made an idol of a different god when they made the golden calf. But it is also a possibility that Aaron viewed this golden calf as an image of the god who had led them out of Egypt. It is possible that Aaron simply put an animal body on the god of Moses.

Aaron said to Israel when the golden calf was presented:
These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.

Jeroboam used similar language when he presented the golden calves to Israel
Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.

If, when Aaron made the golden calf he was representing the Canaanite god of fertility and power, he violated the first commandment. If he meant to put an animal face on the god of Moses, he violated the second commandment.

When Jehu destroyed the worship of Baal, he obeyed the first commandment. When he left standing the golden calves at Dan and Bethel, he disobeyed the second commandment.

The first commandment instructs us how to worship the right god. The second commandment instructs us how to worship the right god in the right way.

The first commandment deals with false gods. The second commandment deals with false worship.

The first commandment tells us that there is only one true god. The second commandment tells us not to make an image of this one true god.

Why do people break the second commandment by creating images of the one true God? You would think that if they manage to reject false gods and worship the one true God, this second commandment would be unnecessary.

Let’s go back to the Egyptians. Why is it that they put animal faces on their gods? Why not simply say, “We worship the sun god, Ra.” Why put the head of a falcon on him?

It is difficult to communicate something that cannot be seen. If you were an Egyptian priest and you called everyone to come worship Hathor, the goddess of love, music and alcohol. The people might ask, “Where is she?” If you responded with “You can’t see her, touch her, smell her, hear her or taste her, but trust me, she is here,” it might be a difficult sell. But if you put a cow’s head on her and put a statue of her in front of the people, then you could tell them, “Here she is. Come worship her. Drink and dance and have a good time worshiping Hathor!” Now that is something you can sell to people.

Worshiping what you can know with your five senses is relatively easy. Worshiping what you cannot know with your five senses is much more difficult.

It may be that you come to church some Sundays and during the worship and preaching, you think to yourself, “You know, I’m not at all sure there really is a God. What am I doing here?” God is worshiped. The bulletin has scriptures that talk about God. We pray to God. The sermons talk about God. But where is he? Can you look around during church and see the God we are talking about? How do you know that we are not being deluded and believing in something that is not true? Is this a philosophy that has no real basis in truth?

Doubt is a necessary part of Christian faith. Faith does not grow without doubt. You cannot have faith without doubt. So doubt is necessary for faith, but it is also normal and natural. Anyone who does not doubt the existence of a God we cannot sense with our five senses is not thinking. They have simply accepted what they have been taught. Doubt is to be expected when we consider our faith in God who we cannot know with our five senses.

But if you have an image as the center of your worship, then there is less room for doubt. Having an image makes it much easier to believe. The image is there and I worship the image.

When Moses was on Mt. Sinai, the people got nervous. Moses spoke with God and so they followed him. It helped that he had lots of powers he could unleash. Israel was convinced by the words and deeds of Moses. But now, where was he? He had walked up into the smoke and fire, lightening and thunder. He had been gone for a long time. Maybe he had died on that mountain. If he was gone, who was there who could talk to God. In some senses they had followed Moses up to this point.

They were now sitting, waiting, getting nervous and decided they wanted to see God. So they created a golden calf to represent him. This they were familiar with and they danced and partied around this idol.

You shall have no other gods before me. OK, but where are you? How can we know you are there? Let me make you easier to comprehend. Let me make you so I can wrap my brain around who you are. Let me reduce you to a size I can handle. This is the temptation.

Anselm was an 11th century philosopher who became Archbishop of Canterbury. He wrote, God is that, the greater than which cannot be conceived.

How can you make an image of such a God? To make an image means that you can conceive of what the image represents. If what the image is supposed to represent is greater than what you can conceive, then it is impossible to make an image.

And that is precisely the point. You cannot make an image of God because whatever you create will minimize and limit who God is.

An image makes what the image represents manageable and God is unmanageable.

With an idol we have something that can be comprehended with our senses and that is appealing because we now have a god who can be comprehended. But God is incomprehensible. With God there is and always will be mystery. As soon as you try to reduce the mystery, you begin reducing God to the limits of your mind and that is idolatry, a violation of the second commandment.

Let’s get practical. We don’t have golden calves in our Christian worship. Where are the violations of this commandment in our lives? Another way of asking this question is this, In what way do we reduce God to a manageable size?

Sometimes when people share their Christian testimonies, I get the sense that they have found a way to make God work for them. A Christian athlete might say that he or she found Jesus and now they score more goals, run faster, or jump higher. I get the sense sometimes that faith in God is something used to get psyched up for the competition, to concentrate more intently, to get the edge they need to excel. Some athletes use the death of a family member or a teammate to push them to higher levels of excellence. Others use Jesus for the same reason.

There are some businessmen and women who use Jesus to lead them to success. They pray and share the gospel so that God will bless them in their business.

There are some people who use God to get them to Spain illegally. They pray hard, read the Bible, give money so that God will bless them and give them money and safe passage to what they view as the Promised Land.

Some farmers may pray so they can have an abundant harvest. Some people may pray so they can get married or so they can have children.

It is OK and it is good to pray for what we need and even for what we want but the danger is that we make God an instrument to get what we want. We make what we want so important that when we do not get it, we are disappointed in God.

We use God to reach what we think is success and in the process reduce God to a manageable size. We make an image of God. We create a God who listens to us and gives us what we pray for.

It is good to pray to God for what we need and want but we do so, not so we can get those things, but so that we can release the worry and anxiety we have about those things. We pray for those things so we can be shaped by God to increasingly pray for the things he really wants for us. We pray for those things so we can draw closer to God and deepen our dependance on him. We pray so we can grow in our knowledge of God, grow in our intimacy with God, not so we can get what we need and want.

God may not answer your prayer in the way you want, but that does not mean he is less God. When you get to the point that you do not deeply and ultimately care if you get what material thing you pray for because what you most want is to be loved by God and be drawn closer to him, then you are living in obedience to the second commandment.

Here is another application. Some people say, “You know, I like to think of God as a friend. I don’t like to think of him as a judge.” What you think about God has no bearing at all on who God is. Who do you think you are to shape and mold God into an image you like and are comfortable with?

It may be that you are uncomfortable because God is revealed to be someone that acts differently than you wish he would. But then you need to submit, draw near and pray for help and understanding so that you can see God as he is, not as you wish he would be. God shapes and molds you, not the other way around.

What about the more obvious application of this commandment? Many of us have pictures of Jesus. If they are not on our walls, they are in our Bibles or other Christians literature. Sunday School materials have pictures of Jesus. Is this a violation of the second commandment?

On the bulletin cover there are five images of Jesus. On the top left is an image of Jesus that became popular in the 60s in the US. This is a strong, rough, masculine Jesus. On the top right is the image of Jesus I grew up with. He has long flowing, Caucasian hair. He is a gentle Jesus. On the bottom right is an image of Jesus from the 60s as an African. There are also Asian images that have been promoted. On the bottom left is a crucifix, which is a particularly Catholic image of Jesus, showing the suffering Jesus endured on our behalf. In the center is an image scientists came up with in 2002. Based on skulls from Palestine at the time of Jesus, this is how they suspect he looked.

Is it wrong to have pictures of Jesus or a crucifix? Is this a violation of the second commandment, not to make any images of God?

This is a bit difficult since Jesus, God in the flesh, was made man. Jesus himself said, (John 14:9)
Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.

What about pictures of God? When Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel, he painted God with his finger extended touching the finger of Adam who he had just created. Is this image of God a violation of the second commandment?

Catholics wear a crucifix around their neck, Protestants wear crosses. The crucifix emphasizes the suffering of Jesus for us. The cross speaks of the resurrection of Jesus. The crucifix is a direct image of Jesus. The cross is an indirect image because it focuses on the empty tomb and the resurrected Jesus.

If you read many articles and books from Christian preachers and theologians, you will get many opinions about what is proper and what is not. I am sure we come to this sermon today with many different views about what is a violation of this commandment.

So let me add my voice to the discussion.

First of all, the second commandment does not prohibit the creation of images. In Islam, no images are permitted. This is not the case with the Bible. When God instructed Moses about how to build the tabernacle, he told him to include images of flowers, pomegranates and winged angels. Art, painting and sculpture, are not prohibited by this commandment. It is only making an image of God that is up for discussion.

Secondly, the problem with images of God is that they limit who God is. If I have a crucifix, I am reminded of the suffering of Jesus but not of the power and authority that is his by defeating death and being raised to life. It is good to remember the suffering of Jesus but we cannot forget the divine power of the risen Christ. We see pictures of a loving Jesus holding children and teaching the crowds, but I can’t ever remember seeing a picture of Jesus as described in Revelation, coming on a white steed with blazing eyes, a robe dipped in blood and a sword coming out of his mouth used to strike down the nations. This too is Jesus.

The danger of any image of Jesus is that it restricts our view of who he is.

Thirdly, it is not the image itself that is a problem. It is how that image is viewed and used that is the problem.

A crucifix can help someone to remember that Jesus died for us and encourage faith and devotion. A cross can help us to remember the death and resurrection of Jesus and encourage us in our faith. A picture of Jesus can help us to see that Jesus was fully man as well as being fully divine.

But when I touch the cross on my neck before I go out on the soccer field or touch the cross before I take a test or walk into a business meeting; when I wear the cross or crucifix so I will be safe when I walk at night or when I drive, then I have turned a symbol of the life and work of Jesus into a good luck symbol. That symbol is now just an idol I use to get what I want from God. I have reduced God to a size I can control.

When an image of Jesus, in any way, restricts my view of God, I am in violation of the second commandment.

When I first became a Christian, I had some images of Jesus I liked and hung these in my room. I never made a conscious decision about this, but these pictures were put away. I’m not sure where they are today. They were probably given away or thrown out years ago.

I like not having these images. I can see the value of pictures of Jesus for Sunday School lessons. Jesus was a man and it is helpful to see pictures of him. These are not true representations of Jesus, but they remind us of his human existence.

But as we grow, I think it is helpful to move beyond this. Those pictures that helped us when we were young now can get in the way of our faith as we mature.

Let me come to a conclusion in this sermon by talking about why it is God said he did not want images made of himself.

You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.  5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God

The word jealous does not communicate well to us because it has taken on a negative meaning. A better translation is I, the LORD your God, am a zealous God.

God is zealous for us. God is not satisfied with having part of us. God wants all of us. God wants all of our attention, all of our devotion.

If I walked into a room and saw my wife in the arms of another man, it would tear me apart. Why? If she saw me, came over to me and began to hug and kiss me and show love and devotion to me, why should it bother me that she also did the same with another man?

We understand this. We are zealous for our spouses. We want them to love us completely without sharing our intimate love with anyone else.

In the same way, God does not want to share us with anyone else. God wants our complete undivided devotion. God is not satisfied that we know a part of who he is, he wants us to know more and more and more of who he is. God wants to pull us in deeper and deeper so we have a more intimate relationship with him. God does not want part of us, he wants all of us.

And as I have often pointed out, when we do what God wants, we benefit the most. It is in our own self-interest to be more and more devoted to him. We do not lose in this process, we benefit.

In the passage we read from Colossians, Paul wrote that Jesus
is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

The universe, all that is seen and unseen, centers on Jesus. You know him in part. Reach out to the mystery. Pursue God so that you can know more of his amazing love. Open yourself to him, reach deep down, confessing your sin so you can experience more of his grace. Do not be satisfied with any restricted image or view of him. Let God mold and shape you, do not attempt to mold and shape him.

Habakkuk 2:18
“Of what value is an idol, since a man has carved it?
Or an image that teaches lies?
For he who makes it trusts in his own creation;
he makes idols that cannot speak.
19 Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Come to life!’
Or to lifeless stone, ‘Wake up!’
Can it give guidance?
It is covered with gold and silver;
there is no breath in it.
20 But the LORD is in his holy temple;
let all the earth be silent before him.”