Take off the veil!

February 11, 2009

Today's Reading: Exodus 33, 34 and Proverbs 12

In the Book of Exodus, there is a section that discusses how Moses went to see God, and unfortunately, God would let him see nothing but his…backside. Yeah, that is a bum-mer deal, but what are you going to do.

After all, Jacob once saw the face of God and was surprised that he lived. This seems to imply that whoever sees God eye to eye will pretty much not live to say what he or she saw.

I guess what Moses got was good, because he could live. Perhaps God is trying to keep us from seeing His face, because he knows that if we do, we won’t want to live. We will want to stay with God for eternity, and want to leave our lives behind. I’m not saying that seeing the face of God will make us want to spontaneously commit suicide, but we would want to skip to heaven and fast forward through life.

Just the sight of a part of God was enough to make Moses’ face becoming “radiant”. Now, you think that people would line up to see Moses wonderful glowing face, but instead, he puts on a veil.

I can imagine what it would have looked like to have Moses walk around with a veil over his face. It would be like when you cover a flashlight with a cloth. He probably looked like one of those aliens in the Cocoon movies with the glowing skin, but picture that glow concealed underneath a ski mask instead of some artificial flesh. There would probably be enough to see some glowing happening under the cloth.

I wonder, when Moses glowing face walked among the people, did they avoid him, like they would a person horrendously scarred? I’m not certain if it was the people’s idea or Moses to do the veiling, but I can’t imagine what made him hide his glow.

Perhaps it is because people hate it. The reading in Proverbs states in many ways how righteousness shines out.

You want to know what is sick? I’ve seen a lot of righteous people who love to parade their righteousness, who probably stand to be veiled. That, or snuffed out.

However, when you are doing a good thing, it stands to reason that you will face opposition of some kind. If you don’t believe me, try not gossiping about a co-worker, and you will be treated worse that the person who gossips the most.

There is some righteousness that needs to be covered, like doing good deeds in secret for goodness sake and not to gain a reward. But sometimes, the veil needs to lifted, man.