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The Golden Calf | Exodus 32
We often view the story of the Israelites who made the golden calf as a cautionary tale that suggests something like, “If you don’t wait on God, you’ll make an idol. That’s bad. Don’t do that.” But what if, in this month of Tammuz, God is actually using it to invite us into something deeper?
After Maggie’s message on overcoming shame, the Lord started to show me this story in a different light. Instead of, “You bad little Israelites, you should have just waited on God,” I began to have the thought – what if there was something deep down in their hearts that was eroding their trust in God? And what if instead of focusing on being good little Christians, we let God into that place before the opportunity to make a golden calf even comes across our radar? Maybe God isn’t standing there shaking His fist saying, “Don’t make a golden calf you dummies,” but instead He’s extending His merciful hand, asking us to take Him up on the offer to look inside so that we aren’t tempted to follow the voice of shame when things get hard.
What we believe about God in these situations when God asks us to wait, stay, remain, trust – especially in a season of suffering – will determine what we choose. Will we wait for what He wants to give, or will we take and make out of our own insecurities? I would suggest the answer is deeply connected with what Maggie was talking about this Sunday.
The Story Behind the Story | Exodus 32 | Genesis 3:1-24
In Genesis 3 we see that shame causes us to hide or cover up, blame or criticize, cut off or separate. If you take these three consequences of shame and apply them to the story of the golden calf fiasco, you may notice some similarities.
It says in Exodus 32, “When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, ‘Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” ESV
Was it just mere impatience that led to the idol worship? Maybe. Or maybe there was something underneath that lead to the impatience we see in the story. Let’s look at the pattern here – hide, criticize, separate.
There was no honesty about how they were feeling and what they were thinking, just criticizing how long it took Moses to come down. Then we see that it ended in separation – separation from Moses and separation from Yahweh.
Who would have thought that shame could look like making a golden calf in our lives? Or impatience? Or mistrust? Or an inability to wait on God? Or misdirected confidence in our own ideas and plans?
With this new lens, let’s re-imagine the story behind the creation of the golden calf. Now, we will never really know what was going on in their hearts, but we can imagine that it might have sounded something like this – “Moses sure is taking a long time to come back. Maybe God’s given up on us all together. It makes sense, we have let Him down so much. We’ll never measure up. Why would He still want to provide for us and take care of us? He’s probably angry and disappointed and I don’t blame Him. But we need a god to follow! If this really is the final straw and He’s not coming back to us, we had better make something that we can worship. It’s right and good to worship. We’ll call Him Yahweh and because we can control this god, we can trust He will never leave us.”
When you dig down deep (I mean really deep to the very bottom) you’ll find that shame always results in the same underlying story - because I am this way, they’re gonna leave me. Or more accurately, because I am this way, God’s gonna leave. It’s our deepest fear. And if we sit long enough with the voice of shame in our lives, this is what we will find at the bottom of it all – the story behind the story.
I don’t know about you, but it seems clear to me that the Lord wants to confront deep areas of shame in our lives that are masquerading as something noble, accepted, and celebrated even. Areas where we hang our heads low, or areas where we puff our chest up all because of the same root – I’m not good enough.
But don’t stop there! Let Holy Spirit show you what you’re really scared of – I’m not good enough and because of that _________________________. <<< This is the place He wants to meet you! This is the place where you surrender and this is the place you experience the reality of the gospel in your life – He came to make peace so that we could experience the reality that He will never leave nor forsake us.
This week let’s slow down and let the Lord uncover areas of shame in our lives. As we do, remember the glorious gospel of Jesus and how He made a way through shame to get to us with the promise - I will never leave you or forsake you. This is the most combative statement that obliterates shame and He wants to make it real to us.
The Gospel and Shame | John 8:1-11 | John 21:15-19 | Genesis 3:21
The gospel both uncovers and confronts shame in us. It gives us a pathway back to the way we were originally made to live in the garden – naked and unashamed before God and each other, no fear, no distance.
In John 8, where the woman caught in adultery was the only one who had her shame uncovered, Jesus evened the playing field. He called out everyone else’s and gave an opportunity for them to confront it, just like he did with the woman. This is what the gospel does! Not because we’re bad, but because there is a way to live where we’re free, whole, and empowered to choose and shame robs us of that life.
Then in John 21, we see Jesus undoing the shame that was wrapped around Peter after his denial, making it possible for Peter to choose to follow Jesus again. Here we see that Jesus calls out shame as the problem, not Peter. Once shame was unwrapped from Peter’s identity, he could choose to once again follow Jesus and step into what God had for him to be and do in the earth.
Lastly, the gospel allows us to come close to God, as uncut stones making an altar to offer ourselves to God. In Genesis 3:21, God covers Adam and Eve in animal skins so that – though they had to leave the garden – there would always be a way to come close to Him. This is so powerful! And this is the foreshadowing of the gospel! If our deepest fear is that God is going to leave us, when we look at Jesus we see that God literally crossed Heaven and Earth to prove to us that this was not true, and it started way back in the garden.
This week is filled with breakthroughs for us. Areas where we’ve been stuck and had no idea were linked with this deep root of shame, God is coming for. Expect it to be uncomfortable, surprising and freeing. Ask Holy Spirit to help you be aware, soft and humble when He draws near to expose and ask Him to let you really sense the closeness of His presence. Where there has been a separation in our hearts, causing distance, callouses and apathy, the King is coming!
Personal Reflection
Q. Take some time to read over and meditate on these scriptures this week. Let Holy Spirit reveal how the gospel abolishes shame. God wants to speak directly to those deep parts of you.
Q. Do you notice any fruits of hiding, covering, criticizing, blame, separation or isolation? This is a clue! Ask Holy Spirit to uncover by asking, “What’s the story underneath this? Why am I covering, criticizing, isolating etc.?” Go as deep as Holy Spirit leads you then make an altar and surrender it to Him. He promises to meet you in that place, no matter what you find hidden there.