a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. (…) The Lord came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. And the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down and warn the people, lest they break through to the Lord to look and many of them perish. Also let the priests who come near to the Lord consecrate themselves, lest the Lord break out against them.” (see Exodus 19:16–19; 19:20–22) Such a role had to be played by a distant God! No intimate confession, but a huge detachment. No burning bush within arm’s reach, but an inaccessible mountain top. No name quietly whispered, but resounding threats. Only then did the nation of Israel come to believe in this God, only then was His paternal authority resumed. But at what cost? At the cost of immense alienation, ranging from future violence and bloodshed among the faithful and the unfaithful Israelites, to the blood spilled on the cross by Jesus, to the present day mass loss of faith. Thus, the true name of God will remain hidden behind a patriarchal mask that He is going to wear for many other acts to come in His drama. 10 The toughest role Neither did Moses reach the Promised Land. He was only allowed to see it. It seems that although he knew who God was and was able to listen to Him carefully, he was only allowed to peek into the Kingdom of God, just as into the Promised Land. He was still not at home there. Nevertheless, Moses was a great and respected teacher. Let us recall how hard it was for the Israelites to cope with the fact that in their drama neither God-the-Author nor God-the-Director had any shape or form, although they had an admirable advantage over neighbouring nations. However, it was impossible for them at that time to comprehend and to be able to experience the fact that even God-the-Actor did not have any form or shape. However, God’s drama continues. Will anyone accomplish more? After more than a thousand years, the time is finally ripe for God-the-Actor Himself to appear directly on stage as a loving and suffering human. A burning bush or a mighty voice from above, once these attributes belonged to God, the distant God. Now, however, the time has come for God to play the role of a close God, a God capable of sharing joy and sorrow with a human – capable of looking like a human, able to laugh and cry like a human, in short, to be human. Why is it that not everyone is like that? It has moreover been stated that God is covertly present in every human. How we look, what we do and who we consider ourselves to be are mere masks and roles played by one common actor in God’s drama. So what remains? Why is each one of us not God directly? Because we do not want this at all! It would be too little for us to be just “the one that is”. Instead, a human prefers to identify with his or her role in life, with the man or woman he or she was born to be and gradually to identify with other social roles. In addition to those roles, a human also identifies with 76 (8) Petr Pavlík
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