Sympathy for the Revellers
Sympathy for the Revellers
Andrew Senior
“…the gold is mine,’ declares the Lord Almighty.” — Haggai 2:8
Nicolas Poussin’s “The Adoration of the Golden Calf” hangs in the National Gallery in London, where I saw the painting for the first time only recently. It is a depiction of God’s people around the golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai. On the left the scene is rich in energy and movement; the people smile and dance freely with clothing hung loose. On the right, with outstretched arms and hands raised, the people gaze and point in wonder at their idol, and chief amongst them is Aaron, caster of the calf, clothed in white, drawing the people’s attention to his handiwork. It is an indulgent and worshipful gathering. I must confess that as I surveyed the scene, I felt a sympathy for the idolatrous revellers—not with their specific actions, but with their loss of patience and faith.
In the dim, upper left corner of the painting, the wrathful figure of Moses is seen at a distance, raising a stone tablet above his head, another already in pieces at his feet. The painting depicts a scene from Exodus, after God has freed His people from enslavement to the mighty Egyptian empire and has led them through the desert to the mountain where He will give them His Law, speaking to them through his servant Moses.
Moses twice goes to the mountain to commune with God, with the crowds below listening intently in obedience—at least at first. In response to God’s words in the mouth of Moses, including the unambiguous command in Exodus 20:23 that “You shall not make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold,” the people declare, “Everything the Lord has said we will do” (Exodus 24:3). But Moses’ second and prolonged stay on the mountain proves too great a test for their fragile patience. The people lapse into the grumbling and ingratitude that had been a hallmark of their attitude in the desert.
Nicolas Poussin, The Adoration of the Golden Calf
Even as Moses rests on the mountain top—in the very presence of God Himself, receiving the tablets of stone which God has inscribed with his own finger—the people turn away and seek to worship something tangible instead. In a grand irony, the object of their worship is formed no less from the gold earrings that God allowed them to plunder from the Egyptians as they were liberated from slavery. In Poussin’s painting, the golden calf is actually a bull, which is thought to be a reference to the Egyptian god Apis and Poussin’s way of showing that the people are regressing back to the servitude from which they have come, rather than worshiping the God who has freed them. It is this act of self-determination that leads the people to the revelry depicted by Poussin.
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A few years ago, after fifteen years of what felt like largely fruitless efforts to do what I felt the Lord had instructed—to be a witness to Him in my workplace, where I carried out the duties of various government department jobs—a colleague finally found Jesus. I truly felt that God had used me at long last. My colleague said they had given their life to the Lord, and I watched them (with, on reflection, a misplaced pride) become involved in our church’s life and listened as people at work spoke about the changes they were seeing for the better: a new sense of calm and peace in a person known for being anything but.
Over the following months, life threw some pretty tough circumstances at my colleague, in the form of incredibly challenging and heartbreaking family issues that required much of her time and energy. Slowly, she drifted away from the church and from God—and in the end even became hostile to me. It was a friendship painfully lost, and with it came a loss of evangelical conviction. In my heart I paraphrased the words of the people in Exodus 32:1: “As for this Jesus,” I said, “who says he will save people from their sins, I do not know what has become of him.”
I did not wholly turn my back on God in the manner of the Exodus revellers, but today, several years later, I am still wrestling with this experience. What does it mean for my understanding of God’s purposes, and his ask of me to declare his gospel to those around me? Why did my friend come so close to salvation and then seemingly slip away? Why has God allowed my (my?) ministry to be apparently so fruitless?
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On a first viewing, the dominance Poussin’s canvas might suggest that his primary objective was to celebrate the revelry, but a narrative drawn out by Dr. Francesca Whitlum-Cooper suggests otherwise. In her talk on the painting for the National Gallery’s “Talks for all” series, she helpfully highlights the ways in which much more is going on than initially meets the eye.
The off-centre positioning of the idol, the sense of an increasing loss of control—the foreground is dominated by a man naked to the waist who appears to be stumbling over—the presence of Moses and his evident anger, the foreboding clouds across the top of the painting, all suggest impending calamity. As one online reviewer put it simply, “The scene feels wrong.”
Poussin’s off-centring of the idol also serves to emphasize that through the worship of an idol—the creation of which they had demanded—the people had in fact put themselves at the centre of the story. God was not acting according to their timing, nor meeting their expectations, so they took matters into their own hands and made themselves a god they could control. “We do not know what has become of Moses,” they declared, unwilling to acknowledge or trust the answer—that Moses was on the mountain listening to God, remaining faithful to His call. The actions of the revellers brought them under God’s judgement and the dreadful punishment that God brought on them for their sin against him, as told in Exodus 32: 28 and 35. Poussin’s picture, dominated by the revelry, and yet hinting at where this action is about to lead, points to a dreadful outcome.
Despite all this, the twists and turns in the Exodus story, in chapters 33 and 34, tell of a God who is once more willing to start over again with His people. A God who listens to Moses’ pleading on their behalf, who shows them grace and mercy just as He did in the desert, raining down manna, who abounds in steadfast love for them, who forgives their inequity and sin and transgression. A second pair of inscribed stone tablets is given and a new covenant is made—a promise by God to do wonders and awesome works for his people.
In response, the people repent of their idolatrous ways and turn back to obedience. “[A]ll who were willing, men and women alike, came and brought gold jewellery of all kinds: brooches, earrings, rings and ornaments”, and dedicated them as an offering to the Lord for the building of the tabernacle (Ex 35:22), to the sum of 29 talents and 730 shekels (Ex 38:24). That is just under one tonne of gold. Then the people obediently carried out the work of building the tabernacle according to what the Lord commanded Moses, and Moses blessed them (Ex 39:42-43).
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To languish in my empathy with the revellers would be to get left behind in their journey of atonement and renewal. The people disobeyed and obeyed in a repeating cycle—yet throughout, God did not stop being their God. Indeed, even as the people were handing their gifted gold to Aaron for the idol to be made, God was instructing Moses in multiple uses of gold by those same people, in the building of the tabernacle and its articles.
The nineteenth century French impressionist Paul Cezanne wrote of Poussin, “I want the friendship of a painter who gives me back myself. Every time I come away from looking at Poussin, I know better what I am.”
I came away from “The Adoration of the Golden Calf” knowing better who God is and this in turn has helped me to remember better what I am in God. Who am I to take God’s call to faithfulness and turn it into a demand for a personal sense of purpose and achievement and, in doing so, decide that my friend is lost to him? I long to live in submission to the Lord with renewed conviction and reverent fear, and the Exodus story reminds me that by his grace—and his grace alone—this change can occur. This is my plea to him.
Andrew Senior
Writer & Poet
Andrew is a writer of fiction, poetry and reflections on faith. He is based in Sheffield, UK and has had work published in various local and UK publications. Other of his faith reflections have appeared on Fathom, Foundling House and Story Warren. More of his published work can be seen at: https://andrewseniorwriting.weebly.com/
Photography by Alex Azabache