Sermon Text: Exodus 33:12–23
Date: July 5, 2026
Event: Proper 9, Year A

Exodus 33:12–23 (EHV)

Moses said to the LORD, “Look, you yourself have been telling me, ‘Lead this people up,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ 13So now if I have found favor in your sight, please show me your ways, so that I may know you, so that I may find favor in your sight. Consider that this nation is your people.”

14The LORD said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

15Moses said to him, “If your Presence is not going to go with me, do not send us up from here. 16After all, how would people know that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Isn’t it in this way: that you go with us, so that we are distinguished, I and your people, from all the people who are on the face of the earth?”

17The LORD said to Moses, “I will also do this thing that you have said, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”

18Then Moses said, “Please show me your glory.”

19The LORD said, “I will make all my goodness pass in front of you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord in your presence. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy.” 20He said, “You cannot see my face, for no human may see me and live.”

21The LORD also said, “Look, there is a place next to me, where you shall stand on the rock. 22It will happen that, while my glory passes by, I will put you in a crevice in the rock. I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23Then I will take away my hand, and you will see my back. But my face will not be seen.”

Give Us Rest!

“How are you doing?” We ask this question to friends we’re catching up with and family members that we’re checking in with. If we’re the one being asked that question, it can be tempting to simply answer “Fine,” even if that’s not exactly true. And if you’re the one asking the question, you have to decide for yourself if you’re going to leave that brief answer alone or probe deeper.

But there’s an answer to this question that maybe should concern us a little bit. If you ask someone, “How are you doing?” and they answer, “I’m tired,” that could point to a whole host of problems. Now, perhaps it’s just that they haven’t gotten enough quality sleep lately. But on a deeper level, something is sapping that person’s energy and leaving them in a rough state. This might be a call for help for a problem you didn’t know existed. It might be an admission of hardship that they would otherwise not fess up to.

But while “tired” may be a concerning answer, it’s also an entirely relatable one, isn’t it? We’ve all been through (or are going through) things that just seem to sap our energy and leave us drained. Sometimes the problem is that we’re doing too much and we need to back off physically, mentally, or emotionally. But sometimes, we’re tired because we’re not getting the true rest that we really need—the rest that God alone provides.

In our First Reading this morning, we rejoin the Israelites after their rescue from their slavery in Egypt, but also immediately following the Golden Calf incident that we heard wrap up last week. Coming out of that gross, rank idolatry, God was very clear that he was withdrawing his presence from his people. “My Angel shall go ahead of you … But I myself will not go up among you, because you are a stiff-necked people, and I would consume you on the way” (Exodus 32:34, 33:3). The people’s unfaithfulness was already setting a precedent, and God was trying to warn them that unfaithfulness would eventually lead to the loss of the blessings he had promised in the two-sided coventant that promised earthly blessings for faithfulness.

But the idea of God’s presence and help not going along with the people as they left Mount Sinai and went to (ideally) take possession of the Promised Land was terrifying. The people living in that land were strong, and this band of recently freed slaves could never dream of ousting them in a show of pure military might. God had promised to hand the land over to the Israelites, but if he was no longer going to do that, they had no hope of success. This is, in part, why Moses said, “If your Presence is not going to go with me, do not send us up from here.” In other words, “Lord, if you’re not going with us, why should we bother? We’re gonners.”

Moses’ pleading with God on the people’s behalf has its desired effect. God relents from withholding his presence from them and promises to go with them—and more! “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” In the immediate term, God’s promise is to give them rest from their enemies. To (eventually) hand them the Promised Land so that they have rest from their wanderings, rest from the nomadic existence, and rest from war and conflict.

But the context points to a bigger, more important rest. God had withdrawn his presence because of their sin. God was making clear that sin separated people from him, so that a greater conflict than any war between nations existed between God and sinful mankind. Sin separated the people from God and set them in an unwinnable war. Peace in that war could not come from the people, and it could not come from Moses; it could only come from God.

And this is, ultimately, the rest that God is promising with his presence. It’s the same rest that Jesus promised in our Gospel when he urged all those who were weary and burdened to come to him. Jesus isn’t necessarily going to bring us rest from our earthly troubles. Sometimes we will have crosses that never get taken off of our shoulders and thorns in the flesh that will continue to irritate and impair us until we reach eternity. Things that drain us of our energy and leave us tired will continue to weigh on us in this life. But Jesus says that we can bring our real, eternal burdens to him, and he will give us real, eternal rest.

That’s what is happening on the cross. As Jesus suffers and dies, he takes your sinful burden off your shoulders and puts it on his. God’s presence was clearly nailed to that cross, abandoned by his Father, suffering hell, because it’s what we needed for rest, what we needed for peace between God and us; and that’s exactly what God provided.

The Israelites did not have an exclusively easy time because God’s presence went with them from Sinai. In fact, the troubles and hardships were just beginning for them, as they would embark on a 40-year wandering in the wilderness until the next generation could demonstrate their trust in God’s promises and thus take possession of the Promised Land. Dark days would be ahead, despite the fact that God’s presence would be with them.

Dark days are ahead for us too, unfortunately. Or maybe that’s too worldly a word; it is better to view these struggles and difficulties as fortune, as a blessing, rather than as something negative. Because as difficult as they will be to bear, God promises to work good from them. For as much as it pained Paul to be reminded over and over again of his sinful tendencies and the reality of sin in thoughts, words, and actions, it also magnified the solution to that sin, as he closed our Second Reading, “What a miserable wretch I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25).

Moses did not end that conversation with God after God promised his presence. No, he asked for God to show him something, something amazing, something profound, something that, as God said, really no sinful person could fully see: “Please show me your glory.”

We are very familiar with seeking God’s glory. After all, it’s the name of our congregation, just in Latin rather than English. God’s glory is everything that he can and should be praised for. God’s glory is his presence, his care, his protection, his love, and his forgiveness. It makes perfect sense that Moses would make this request of God ahead of their journey and planned entry into the Promised Land. Why wouldn’t he want to see confirmation of what God had said and promised? Why wouldn’t he want confirmation of the true glory of the one who made these promises to him and the whole nation?

We may not get tucked in the cleft of a rock and see God’s “back” passing by, but actually, we have something even better. We have the recorded fulfillment of all of God’s promises to mankind. We have the assurance that our sins are forgiven because Jesus paid for them. We have the comfort and correction of God’s Word, which condemns our sins and points to our Savior. We have the assurance that we, like Paul, despite being miserable wretches, have been rescued through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Or, to put it another way, we have God’s rest. Because God’s rest is his glory. His glory comes primarily from his mercy that rescues rather than condemns, that saves rather than damns. Because of Jesus, you and I dwell in his glory and live in his rest. That rest is ours now and will be ours in full when he calls us home to eternal life.

So as we are spiritually tired—exhausted!—in this life, go to your source of rest. Flee to the pages of Scripture to hear God’s promises and see them fulfilled in Jesus to do for you and the whole world exactly what he said he would do. Take solace in your baptism, that water paired with God’s word that has made you his dearly loved child. Flee to the recovery of the Lord’s Supper, where you hold in your hand the very body and blood of your Savior with the bread and wine for the forgiveness of all your sins, for the peace between you and God, for a taste of the rest that is to come.

This life may feel like an unending battle that leaves us tired day in and day out, and I don’t imagine that will really change until the end. But even as you stand on the frontlines of a spiritual battle around you and even within you, take comfort and courage that for Jesus’ sake you have rest where it matters most—peace with our God.

My dear brothers and sisters, dwell in God’s glory and enjoy his rest today and always. Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria