Face to Face

The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.  Exodus 33:11

Face to Face
By Rev. William Dohle

To know someone, to really know them, you've gotta see them and, in our world of instantaneous communication, that can be difficult.

You can chat with someone over the internet who appears to be one person and turns out to be someone completely different.  A woman can pretend to be a man.  A man can pretend to be a child.  Things are not always what they seem to be when it comes to the internet.

Though we promise to have just one account on Facebook, many have more than one, acting as one person in one account and another person in another.  In fact, most the internet pushes us away from face-to-face conversation, encouraging us instead to create pseudonyms for ourselves and alternate identities to protect our real one.

The only problem with that is...it's not real!  It's not real because there's no face time!

Face time is important.  Very important!  Couples who meet on the internet through one dating service or another need to find a time to actually meet.  Only then will they discover if their connection is real or not.  Face time is essential to keeping a relationship alive.  I shudder to think of a relationship based on more time apart than together.

Face time with God, though, is a bit complicated.  On the one hand, we are told that "The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend."  We are told that, after speaking with God, Moses' face would shine so brightly that they would need to put a veil over it to keep him from blinding others!

Talk about face time!

But then, in a curious turnaround, it would seem that Moses had no face-time.  When Moses asks God to show him his glory, God says:

"I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, The LORD, in your presence...BUT you cannot see my face for no one can see me and live." (Exodus 33:20)

So... what's up with that?  Why would it say earlier that the Lord would speak to Moses face to face and then later say that Moses cannot see God's face and live?  Is the Bible contradicting itself?  Did Moses see God face to face, as verse 11 claims, or did he not, as verse 20 says?

I'm not sure, one way or another, but I do know this.

As Christians, we see God most clearly in Jesus Christ.  Christ Jesus tells us in the Gospel of John:

"How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?  Don't you believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me?  The words I say to you are not just my own.  Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work."(John 14:9-10)

For Christians, face-time with God isn't with an incorporeal being.  It doesn't involve an old man in the sky or a bright light or anything like that.  For Christians, face time with God is face time with Christ.  "No one has ever seen God;  But it is God the One and Only who is close to the Father's heart has made him known."(John 1:18)

So the next time you need face-time with God.  The next time you need to see God's face and know who God is and what God is like.  Find a cross and meditate on Him there.  Because, in the man who hung from that cross and now lives, we see God!

Show me your face, Lord God, in Jesus Christ and in all those around us who need the gifts you have poured into my life.  Amen.