It was on a Monday this year, two weeks ago today - the 10th day of Tishrei. Tradition holds that the original Yom Kippur or "day of Atonement" took place on Moses' second visit to Mt. Sinai (see Exodus 32). He had been up on the mount communing with the Lord long enough for the Israelites, who had come with him this time, to have given up on him. Their rebellion went far enough to include both building and worshipping a golden calf. The Lord, who had just miraculously delivered them from bondage in Egypt and their pagan gods, had this suggestion for Moses: "Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation." (v 10)
If Moses had wanted an out, this was his shot. These people that had abandoned, reviled and murmured against him over and over - a simple "ok" is all it would have taken. Moses' seed could then have been the Lord's chosen people to inherit the promised land all by themselves. Was it tempting? Would it have been for you or I?
Moses is up to the test though. Instead of the proposed annihilation, he advocates for the people and heads down the mount knowing that for them repentance is now a matter of life and death. With a decent's worth of planning Moses comes upon the camp in this way. He "cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it." (v 19-20) He asks "Who is on the Lord's side?" and before nightfall 3000 of the Israelites on the other side have been slain. This is what his advocacy looks like that day.
Then the morning comes. Before departing to the mountain again, Moses says, "Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.
And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin—; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written." (v 30-32)
WHAT! Did Moses really just offer his own salvation as a potential sacrifice for the lives of this rebellious people?! This is a complete reversal from the previous "not them but me" scenario the Lord had offered. This one is "not me but them." This unlikely proposition had to have warmed the Lord's own heart. Moses really loved them. He had learned to love them wholly, fully, and deeply - despite their weaknesses and even despite their rebellions. In likeness of the ultimate sacrifice the Lord himself would offer for a world in sin - Moses was now willing - asking even - to be made a sacrifice for the repentant, but ultimately incredibly unworthy Israelites. They are his people. He's not abandoning this ship.
Is this not an Abrahamic like test? Moses came to know by experience a little bit of the heart and mind of the Lord through this experience. Is this not the "fellowship of his sufferings" (3:10) that Paul writes to the Philippian saints of.
Ironically, this year's Yom Kippur happened just shortly after the 200th anniversary of young Joseph Smith's first trip up the Hill Cumorah to retrieve the plates. Joseph likely understood little about the firestorm of suffering that the opening of that stone box would unleash. Ultimately betrayed by some of those closest to him - some of those who he had given most for. He stayed the course. Welcome to the fellowship Joseph.
What about the invitations each of us receives to such a fellowship within our own circumstances? Will we accept them? Will we join the fellowship?
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