God always gives sinners a
chance to become “righteous”.
The story of salvation as a whole is a
story of freely giving in which only God has the initiative, not because
of any merits of those who receive it, but because they exert free
will. The Bible story in which Moses intercedes on Mount Sinai on behalf
of his people after they engage in a serious sin by making a golden
calf is an example of that. Benedict XVI spoke about it during his
catechesis in today’s general audience.
As he continues to reflect upon praying, to which he
has dedicated his Wednesday addresses, the pope told the 30,000 people
in St Peter’s Square that Moses was a “man of prayer”.
“The great prophet and leader at the time of the
Exodus played the role of mediator between God and Israel. In so doing,
he brought God’s words and commands to his people, and led them to the
freedom of the Promised Land. He taught the Israelites how to live by
obeying and trusting God during their long permanence in the desert, but
he especially, I would say, taught them how to pray.”
He prayed for pharaoh when God tried to convert
Egyptians’ heart with plagues. He called for his sister to be healed. He
prayed when the fire was wiping out the camp. “He saw God and spoke to
Him face to face like speaking to a friend.”
Benedict XVI focused especially on the moment when
Moses was on Mount Sinai, waiting to receive the Law, whilst his people
were calling on Aaron to make a gold calf.
“Tired of a journey with an
invisible God, now that Moses the mediator had disappeared, the people
called for a tangible and touchable sign of the Lord, and found in the
golden calf made by Aaron, a God that was accessible, movable and within
man’s scope. This is a constant temptation on the path of faith,
whereby we try to avoid the divine mystery by building a God that we can
understand, one who corresponds to our own designs and plans.”
For this reason, God warned Moses what was happening.
“He told him, ‘Let me alone, then, that my wrath may blaze up against
them to consume them. Then I will make of you a great nation.’ As he did
with Abraham in relation to Sodom and Gomorrah, here too God told Moses
what he planned to do, as if he could not act without his approval.”
In
reality, by saying, “Let me alone, then, that my wrath may blaze up,”
God wanted Moses to act and ask him not to do it, “thus showing that God
always wants salvation. As in the case of the two temple cities in
Abraham’s times, punishment and destruction, which embody God’s wrath
and refusal of evil, show just how serious sin is. At the same time,
Moses’ intercession is a sign that the Lord wants to forgive. This is
God’s salvation, which implies mercy, but also constitutes an attack
against the truth of sin”.
Hence, “the sinner, having acknowledged and
rejected his own evil, can allow himself to be forgiven” by God.
“Within the corrupt reality of the sinning man, the
intercessory prayer operationalises divine mercy, which finds its voice
in the supplication of the praying person, and becomes present through
him wherever there is need for salvation.”
When, after the destruction of the golden calf, Moses
returned to the mountain to ask once more for Israel’s salvation, he
told the Lord, “If you will not, then strike me out of the book that you
have written.”
“Through prayers, as he desires God’s desire, the
interceding person understands the Lord and his mercy more deeply; he
becomes capable of the sort of love that includes totally giving
oneself.”
In this image, the Fathers of the Church “saw in the
Moses standing on the top of the mountain, face to face with God,
interceding on behalf of his people, offering himself, foreshadowing
Christ who, from high on the Cross truly stood before God, not only as
friend but also as son, and became sin, thus removing our sins to save
us.”
“I think,” the pope said, “that we must reflect upon
this reality. Christ stood before the face of God and prayed for me. He
suffered and suffers for me. He identified himself with me by taking our
body, human soul, and invited us to enter in this identity, by making a
single body and spirit with him."