“When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.” So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’ “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.” Exodus 32:1-10

“Til the Cows come Home”

Clearly, this has to do with cattle curfews, right? It sort of does. Cows were often milked in their barns at night, making that task one of the last on a farmer’s to-do list (but let’s hope he wouldn’t wait forever to do the job, the way the phrase implies now). The expression has been around since at least the late 1500s and is likely to continue until … well, you know.

The Israelites just were not going to wait for Moses to come down from the mountain — as such, they were not waiting for the figurative “Cows to come Home”. It was taking too long for Moses to talk with G-d — for Moses to come down with the most important words, artifacts, and instructions from the Lord.

We are a society that is becoming more and more impatient. I can feel it in my own soul — fast food, fast internet, fast shipping — it is making us expect that everything should happen or come to us now. I guess the Israelites were under the same curse — even after they had waited so long as slaves in Egypt — even after they had been rescued by the Lord so many times — they just were unwilling to wait. They were truly “stiff-necked” and impatient.

It is hard for the average person to slow down, and to be patient — whether we are sitting in traffic, or especially if and when we are imploring our G-d for answers or for G-d’s presence in our lives. We have to learn to wait and to allow things to happen in our lives in G-d’s time. And that, my friends, will take prayer, patience and understanding. But, as I have discovered in my life, waiting is worth the time.

Pastor Dave