In firefighting parlance, the bush on Sinai is “fully involved,” it’s engulfed by flame, every branch, every stem, every leaf.
The bush is burning but it’s not being harmed. The leaves are not turning to ash, the branches are not becoming red coals, fallen to earth and aglow as they are consumed.
No, the plant is verdant, full of life, and moisture, not a cell is dead or damaged. It’s internal life-giving structures remain. There is therefore no smoke but there is somehow an inexplicable fire.
This is what turns the head of Moses and this would turn our head, too. This is not how it goes with the things of this world and fire. Fire destroys the things of this world but not *this* fire.
The first Christians see the Son of God in the bush, not only as the “angel” that speaks from its center; for them this tree represents the body of God in the humanity of Jesus and the sacred fire represents the divine life that suffuses his ordinary and frail human dust.
Jesus is human all-in and divine all-in: the human things he does reveal his humble divinity and the divine things he does reveal his vulnerable humanity.
The burning bush in this sense prefigures the transfiguration of Jesus, where a brightness unknown to this world engulfs the physical Christ, shining brighter than the sun in full strength, a bright sadness that reveals the cross as the crux of what it means to be human and what it means to be God.
The cross neither destroys the humanity of Jesus; nor his divinity. Instead the death of God in the human flesh of Jesus destroys death, not only for Jesus but for all who share human nature, making resurrection the end of every human and not the grave.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes that “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God; but only he who sees, takes off his shoes.” Every bush. Ponder that.
By grace every human can become as the bush: engulfed by the fiery presence of God but unharmed, “fully involved” by flames that sanctify her, body and soul, burning away everything in her that is not of love.
The first Christians, some of whom, like Moses, dwelt in the desert, tell this story:
“Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, ‘Abba as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?’ then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, ‘If you will, you can become all flame.’”
The angel that speaks from the midst of the bush identifies himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He tells Moses that this has been his name before any of these mere humans existed and will always be his name, for he is outside time and always simply the same God that appears to us whenever in time he appears to us.
Centuries later, Jesus—the “angel” who speaks to Moses from the fiery bush—gets into a conversation with the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection. Jesus goes all the way back to this story on Sinai:
“But now, as to whether the dead will be raised—haven’t you ever read about this in the writings of Moses, in the story of the burning bush? Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, God said to Moses, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ “So he is the God of the living, not the dead. You have made a serious error.” (Mark 12:26-27 NLT)
Moses, too, is now among these who ever-live, as the transfiguration of Christ reveals.
The deliverance that God accomplishes in the flesh of Jesus, by the Passover he endures on the cross—prefigured in the thorns of the engulfed-but-not-consumed bush—is the defeat of death that death might vanish from human nature like straw in flame (Athanasius).
When we ignore every satanic voice that hinders us from taking up our cross, we too with Jesus Christ become walking, talking trees of life, aflame with the fire of God but not destroyed, made ready to participate in his deliverance of those who all their lifetimes are enslaved by the fear of death, made ready to love our enemies, made ready to preserve the creation God loves. In our eyes every bush is afire with his energies, every patch of ground holy.
Image: “Holy Ground” by Mike Moyers.
Comments