Gangs and Bullies V (RV)

When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him.

 - From Exodus 34

I've devoted some time to the topic of "Gangs and Bullies." These are two relevant and timely concepts. All anybody wants to talk about these days, is this bully or that bully. We frame the stories of our lives with tales of the bullies in our past. 

And when faced with a bully, we go find some crowd to protect us. 

I'd rather not give that much credence to stupid bullies. I write my life story so that they don't matter. And then I conduct myself so that neither I, nor those close to me, will ever be troubled by them.

And I disagree that there is strength in numbers. A thousand people that are angry because someone slighted them do not become suddenly right, morally. There's just more of them. I find no satisfaction in getting back at a wrongdoer, just because I found a bunch of similarly offended people. A person's petty anger doesn't become selfless virtue just because he found five hundred other angry, petty people.

It just becomes an accumulated, multiplied, noisy throng of mad people.

Moses had been with God. When he was on the mountain getting the Ten Commandments, it might also have been the same time that he and Elijah were taken and set down in Christ's timeline, for the Transfiguration. At any rate, he had been with God (and maybe with Christ). It had such an effect on him, that his face shone. And as Archie Woods has pointed out . . . our faces give off light. 

Moses' face gave off more light.

Moses came down . . . alone . . . having been with God . . . for forty days and nights . . . and Aaron (his brother), and all of Israel, were afraid.

It seems to me, that the beginning of dealing with bullies is not to join a crowd.

The solution is to do what Moses did. Do what even crowds are afraid of:

Go off with God . . . alone . . . with Him.