Moses and the bush that burns without being consumed is one of the great moments in Sacred Scripture, a moment suffused with the gospel, and the start of the Exodus, an event that for the first Christians interprets the entire human story as a deliverance from death enacted by the faithfulness of God.
It is a great poverty that contemporary Christians do not read these Old Testament texts as stories that reveal Jesus Christ.
Often in the Old Testament the “angel of the Lord” or “the angel of God” appears to humans, this time in the midst of the flames that engulf but do not burn the blackberry bush.
This is not Gabriel, not a Messenger. And as we listen to the words of the angel it becomes clear that here is Someone within God speaking not only for God but as God.
The prince of Egypt turned Bedouin shepherd is told to take his sandals off because he’s standing on holy ground.
The voice of the angel declares: “‘I am the God of your father: The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.’
“Moses,” we are told, “hid his face, afraid to look at God.”
Where else do we hear God speak these exact words?
We hear them in Mark and Luke’s gospels, in Jesus’ conversation with the Sadducees. They have asked Jesus a complicated question about a woman who marries seven brothers, wanting to know whose wife she will be in the resurrection (that they don’t believe in).
We do obsess about marriage and often when we read this exchange we focus on Jesus’ explanation that we are no longer married in the world that’s coming to this world.
What we miss is Jesus’ much stronger rebuke of the Sadducees for assuming that the seven brothers and their wife are dead. They are not dead.
Jesus brings up Moses and the bush that burns without being consumed and says that “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the God of the living, not the dead.”
Jesus does not mince words: “You are badly mistaken!”
God tells Moses from the flaming bush that he has seen the affliction of his people, that he has heard their cries, that he knows their pain. And indeed he does—from the inside, in the human flesh of Jesus.
He tells Moses he is sending him to deliver them from death (Egypt): “I have come down to help them, pry them loose from the grip of death (Egypt), get them out of that country... .”
“Why me, Lord?” It’s not just Moses’ question. It’s every human’s question. But this story is first not about Moses and it’s not first about us. It’s about God.
God is terse with Moses and with us: “I’ll be with you,” echoing the words of Jesus to his disciples at his Ascension, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
God is with us. This is the important thing.
Moses wants to know the name of the God who is sending him, again forgetting that his credentials are unimportant. What’s important is the saving activity of God.
The angel of the Lord tells Moses, “I-AM-WHO-I-AM.”
Who else describes himself with the words “I am...”?
John’s gospel records seven of these “I am...” statements spoken out into the world by our savior:
“I am the bread of life.”
“I am the light of the world.”
“I am the door.” (my favorite)
“I am the good shepherd.”
“I am the resurrection and the life.”
“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
“I am the vine.”
So, as you may be catching on, I’m reading this story of the beginning of Passover as a gospel story.
And the first Christians did not pull this way of reading Exodus out of thin air. Paul taught them to read it this way:
“Remember our history, friends, and be warned. All our ancestors were led by the providential Cloud and taken miraculously through the Sea. They went through the waters, in a baptism like ours, as Moses led them from enslaving death to salvation life. They all ate and drank identical food and drink, meals provided daily by God. They drank from the Rock, God’s fountain for them that stayed with them wherever they were. And the Rock was Christ.” (1 Cor 10:1-4)
I am inspired by the Last Supper analogy Paul draws here, steeped as he was by the worship of the New Testament church in the Eucharistic mystery (1 Corinthians 10:15-18, 11:23-26).
And here, finally, is a great beauty and a great mystery: God tells Moses that he has always been and will always be known as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
God decides to identify himself with the human story, with our story, and to name himself using our names.
What we finally must understand is that this story of a bush and God and Moses is by the Spirit our story, is the story of the church as nothing less than the whole human family, is every human’s story.
God has acted, is acting, and will act to rescue us from death. And, like Moses, he allows us to participate in his work to remove the billowing, dark pall of death that hangs over the nations.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning wants us to see this:
“Earth's crammed with heaven/And every common bush afire with God/But only he who sees takes off his shoes.”
There are burning bushes all around us if we have eyes to see, and from this holy fire God is calling us to *his* unfailing work to save the cosmos.
Let’s take our sandals off this Lent, enter the silence of the wilderness, and hear what God has to say to us about the end of death. He has invited us into his story of redemption.
It’s not about us, it’s about God with us, until the end of the world.
Comments