SERMON FOR SUNDAY THE 18TH OCTOBER 2026
SERMON FOR SUNDAY THE 18TH OCTOBER 2026
Exodus 33: 18-20
Moses said to God: “Please show me your glory.” And God answered: “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will give you my name as ‘The Lord’ who will be gracious to whom I chose to be gracious, and merciful to whom I wish. But you cannot see my face, for no human can look on me and still live.”
I want to look at Exodus Chapter 33 today because we hear of encounters with God and then we hear of encounters that are quite simply awesome – and I mean awesome in the correct way and not in the way we hear about that amazing cappuccino at a local café. Awe and wonder can be downplayed so much and Moses has what is truly described as an awestruck moment in his encounter with God in Exodus Chapter 33.
Before talking about this, what image springs to mind if we think of Moses?
I must admit Charlton Heston, the blonde blue eyed all American hewn from rock power house in the Ten Commandments made in …anyone know? Answer: 1956
There have been other depictions in movies such as Exodus, Gods and Kings 2014 or further back Cecil B De Mille 1926 – a silent movie with lots of looking upwards with copious black eyeliner and lots of lights being shone on the actors.
Keep that light image for a moment because the original encounter of Moses with God has intense light that well and truly puts the studio lights as an irrelevance compared to the light that emanates from God’s holiness.
Setting
The context or setting to this encounter of Moses with God is that of needing to reason with God when the people of Israel have been disobedient through the Golden Calf. Though things settle, we hear that God is going to send an angel ahead with the people of Israel, though God would not accompany them.
Moses urgently pleads with God that without God’s presence with them, they would be a shadow of who they had been. So, the task is for Moses to dialogue with God and a surprising factor of the many facets of God, that God could do and can do whatever God wants and yet God dialogues with Moses. God listens to the servant Moses.
We don’t think of Moses as a servant and more the accomplished leader. Even the mighty are little and God immense.
Here we find that Moses asks for one thing that no human can ever have. He wanted to look on the face of God. We know that Moses has a close affinity to God and in that respect is better placed to ask this question If anyone knows about God, it is Moses. He doesn’t have to see God, for he has already found the reality of God, though he is curious. There is a sense of awe and mystery that is not to do with primitive superstition.
Today
I believe today’s world is hungry for genuine mystery. Not Agatha Christie, Ruth Rendell or the new generation of exploring the unsolved mysteries of times in the past with the hope of a scientific solution. Instead, it is the Profound that is what people hunger for. The popularity of Avatar movies where living beings, animals and nature are held together in a healing harmony far removed from the destructive or exploitive forces that are part of life has this hunger for a mysterious transcendent power.
We find there is a search for that something other. There is also interest through astrology, and entertaining the possibility that we are not the only beings in the universe. All of this in the attempt to revive this sense of what we might term transcendence. There are the great thinkers (not the great stinkers) who over the last few centuries, have applied the “scientific method,” that has been extremely successful at explaining away many of life’s little mysteries. You know, that is not a bad thing to lessen the burden of superstition and misinformation. We might be inclined to think they have lessened what we call transcendence, awe and mystery until we realise that awe and mystery are better off without superstition and misinformation. True awe and mystery are not based on superstition anyhow. Superstition and misinformation hold back and often control narratives, where awe and mystery lead to growing in the spiritual part of who we are and develop the exploration of new horizons in this life and beyond.
We sometimes assume that science has just about eliminated all mystery. To be fair, the majority of truly great scientists do not share that view. The more they delve into the deep questions the more they encounter deeper mystery and often begin to experience profound awe. Where awe and mystery are absent, we find those who place themselves as people as a great authority through their widely read research. Awe can be reduced to an everyday explanation about ancient history or how the planets were formed when this is still a theory that maybe refuted later on.
There are some agile and well researched scientists who write good books, like the agnostic physicist Dr Paul Davies of the University of Adelaide (who has written the “Cosmic Blueprint” and “The Mind of God”). What is striking about this book is how an extremely intelligent mind repeatedly bumps into areas of unfathomable mystery. He is not prepared to call the mystery “God,” but he knows there is something defying explanation. His is a religious unbelief that is almost a reverent worship.
Mystery and how we understand it in the church.
Jesus has delivered us from fear in the presence of God. As his disciple John later wrote: “There is no fear in love, for perfect love casts out fear.” Christ taught us to pray to God as a parent. That is why we begin the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father in heaven.” In saying this, our familiarity with God can sometimes have us reducing our understanding of God to the level we want and we type cast God as ordinary whilst forgetting how totally OTHER God really is. In essence, there will be always the need to respect the mystery and awe of God when we pray and worship.
Moses and the glory of God
The reason for saying this is where we started in today’s reflection with Moses up on the heights of Mt Sinai communing with God like a friend., though God being Majestic and awesome. Moses wishes he could see God face to face.
Moses said to God: “Please show me your glory.” And God answered: “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will give you my name as ‘The Lord’ who will be gracious to whom I chose to be gracious, and merciful to whom I wish. But you cannot see my face, for no human can look on me and still live.”
The divine Transcendence is wonderfully maintained. God is accessible, God is there speaking with Moses. God remains the ultimate Mystery.
God does give Moses a name-: the same name given when Moses is called by God at the burning bush. It is the name that is a verb not a noun; we call it Yahweh, but its meaning expresses the total freedom of God to be and do whatever God wishes. We cannot define God, cannot assign limits. This is underlined in the passage today when we read: “I will be gracious to whom I chose to be gracious, and merciful to whom I wish.”
Then the warning: “You cannot look on my face. For no mortal can look on me and live.”
God is too much for us. Everything that is hidden about God is for our well -being. We could not cope with the glorious Otherness of God and hides the glory of ultimate holiness from us.
God making a concession to faithful Moses. He is told of a crevice in a rock where he may hide. God will pass by and Moses will be safe in the crevice and protected from harm. He shall get a glimpse of God, not front on but departing. It reads like a man protecting himself from a distant nuclear blast. Such is the glory of God: the radiance of the Holy One who with one word brought into existence this enormous universe and beyond.
Where can we find awe for God in the Bible and then in our lives today.
The sense of awe is often present in the Bible. Elijah on Mt Carmel; Isaiah with his dazzling vision of the Lord in the Temple; Peter James and John on the mount of transfiguration; Paul on the road to Damascus when the blinding light shone from above with Jesus standing at the right hand.
What about us?
How to maintain a sense of awe in our worship, but an awe that is without fear? How to express the loving intimacy of God which drives out fear without losing the sense of wonder?
Though I’m meant to have answers, though in this case I don’t have the answer. Thankfully I don’t because that would be limited. The question, like the glory of God, is far too much for me or any one of us.
That sense of Mystery is something we all should seek and pray for. That God is mysterious and awesome, to be worshipped and yet known.
There is awe and mystery when we look at the intricacy of creation.
I can feel awe when a brilliant but humble scientist stretches my mind far beyond the everyday to the sheer mystery of everything around us and beyond us.
I feel awe when I go into the countryside and sleep under the stars.
Awe when certain passages of the Bible strike me as if I have heard them for the first time.
I also feel awe when, in God-chosen moments, the Holy Spirit is made known.
The mystery and awe of God are completely relevant even in our age of sophistication and remarkable achievement. No matter what we achieve, God is there before any of those achievements and can never fully be fathomed, yet the other wonderful mystery that God can be known and approached by us through the love of Jesus. Encountering love is the most profound Mystery. There more than anywhere else in creation, I see the glory of God passing by. At that point I can only watch and adore.
Reference : Bruce Prewer’s resources