When the people saw how long it was taking Moses to come back down the mountain, they gathered around Aaron. “Come on,” they said, make us some God’s who can lead us. We don’t know what happened to this fellow Moses. —Genesis 32:1
Identity gives us a sense of belonging. To be a part of a team that cheers for you. To be a partner in a relationship that cares for you. To be in a partnership that creates opportunities for you. Identity is often pursued for personal purposes to make us feel wanted, welcomed, and worthy. But seeking identity in the exteriority often means promiscuity in our fidelity with God.
Identity we seek outside the covenant of God is a form of idolatry.
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Confusion about identity.
Four hundred years of being slaves. The Israelites have lived under the rule of a foreign nation with foreign gods. They have watched and witnessed the worship of the gods of the Egyptians growing up. They are familiar with idols and the idolatrous rituals accompanying them. Comfort breeds contentment. They can’t get through the wilderness alone so they find a replacement who can. One within their comfort zone. A golden calf like the statues back in Egypt.
When the Israelites believe Moses is not returning, they displace their worry with worship—of the wrong kind. With Moses gone, they need a new god. But what they are really crying out is this: we want a new identity. No need to be a people of Yahweh God anymore. We can be a group of any god. They reject God and their identity in who He is. If God abandons us, then we can abort our identity in Him. Confusion about spiritual identity leads to personal idolatry.
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Crisis about identity.
Crisis is the Latin form of krisis. The Greek word for krisis means turning point in a disease. It’s a critical moment where you can get better or worse. Deliverance or death. Breakdown or breakthrough. For the Israelites, it’s a breakdown. They succumb to an illness of idolatry that will inflict them and their descendants after them. Moses comes down from the mountain hearing a party full of drunken people. People who drink well set a precedence for their children to drink as well. Marry a drinker and have kids who potentially think drink is divine. Generational drunkenness of idolatrous devotion gives new goals:
We want to partner with other gods. We want multiple partners, not the One true God. We want partnerships to satisfy and sweep away our confusion in crisis.
Their love relationship with God is a toxic one where they neither revere nor respect Him. A lustful people lusting after other lovers. They cheapen their devotion through prostitution. Idolatry is going to write their history.
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Faith takes part in one relationship. Fidelity partners with one God. Family of God joins partnership with one bride, the church. God can rewrite your story if you part your past, engage with one partner, and enter into one partnership with Him. Make Him your only one.
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©️2020 Jordan Su