Friends, welcome back as we continue through Exodus.
Glad that you’re with us.
Thank you for being a part of this study as we move into the third chapter.
And, Michael, if there’s a
thing that people know about the Moses story,
it’s
probably this is going to be high on the list.
This is kind of the signature moment in many ways.
It is the defining part of,
I think, the story.
At least it’s
where the rest of the book kind of hinges.
I think there’s lots of
reasons for that.
It’s a dramatic story.
It’s a visual story.
It’s a simple story,
and yet it’s a miraculous story.
So,
I doubt that these are going to be new words for anybody,
but we will go through them and we’ll see if maybe they’re,
you know, you never know.
This is one of those stories,
I think, that can kind of always hide another thing that we didn’t
know about it.
So,
verse 1, chapter 3,
Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law,
Jethro, the priest of Midian,
and he led his flock
beyond the wilderness and came to Horeb
to the mountain of God.
There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush.
He looked,
and the bush was blazing,
yet it was not consumed.
Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at
great sight and see why the bush is not burned up.”
When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see,
God called out to him from the bush,
“Moses,
Moses.”
And he said, “Here I am.”
Then he said, “Come no closer.
Remove your sandals from your feet,
for the place on which you are
standing is holy ground.”
He said further, “I am the God of your father,
the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac,
the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face,
for he was afraid to look at God.
So, again, as we said, a very dramatic story.
Moses is out just doing his job.
He’s tending flocks.
His father-in-law called a real yesterday,
a real,
and today named Jethro,
just a difference in translation, a difference in the names.
Here he is out in the field.
He sees this thing that
interests him.
A bush is on fire,
which I don’t know if this is a common sight or not,
but the thing that makes this remarkable is that the bush is not actually burning.
It’s on fire, but it’s not being consumed.
And Moses says, “I have to go see this.
I have to check this out.” And as he approaches,
he hears the voice of the Lord.
Notice here,
“Lord is the word Yahweh.
The all caps give us that information.” And God calls out to Moses
and says,
“Come no closer.
Take the sandals from your feet,
for you are standing on holy ground.”
He then gives this formula,
“I’m the God of your father, Abraham,
Isaac,
and Jacob.” And then
Moses hides his face,
for he was afraid to look at God.
This is something we’ll see occasionally
in this book, the idea of hiding your face, the idea of
fear, of respect, of awe.
But this is a signature moment.
This is the story of Moses calling,
and it begins with
this remarkable sight that attracts him,
Michael, and he finds himself
unexpectedly in the presence of God.
Yeah, Clint, I think that it would be easy to miss some of the signs that the text
is giving us here.
Look here at the end of verse 1 here,
where he goes to Horeb or the mountain of
God.
If you remember Genesis,
important things happen on mountains.
When you look at the very
common sight here of the bush,
we have had other very common places in the book of Genesis also
become pivotal places of the encounter with God.
It’s hard to not remember Jacob in that encounter
in what was a commonplace,
where he sees this staircase and the idea that at this place he
had an encounter with the living God that’s sort of a close,
a liminal space between the physical and the spiritual.
And here we are in the midst of what is very clearly told as a common thing.
Like you said, Clint, he’s doing his job.
He’s out in the wilderness.
And once he goes to the other
side of the wilderness,
beyond the wilderness, which, by the way,
should already give us a
foreshadowing of the importance of wilderness that is going to feature throughout the book of Exodus,
the actual wilderness experience of the people,
but also the spiritual wilderness that they’re
going to travel through.
And then you have this reality where God calls out this audible speaking.
And this is a very,
very unique encounter as we have it in the biblical text.
And notice that as Moses hears the voice of God,
he responds with these words,
“Here I am.” And if
you were with us through the book of Genesis, again,
this is a throwback to the time and time
and time again that people said,
“Here I am.
Here I am, God.
Here I am.” It’s this sort of making
yourself present before the presence of the living God.
And it’s a connection looking backward,
but a tip off to the reader to know that this is the kind of thing that happens when God is about
to intervene or God is about to get involved.
This is a moment,
and we’ve seen several moments
unlike this, where God sort of lets things play out,
but this is a signal to us,
the reader, to know God is now on the scene,
that this is a transformative encounter.
And it becomes, I don’t want to rush ahead here,
Clint, but this becomes so iconic
that we’re going to see this throughout the scriptures,
references to the burning bush.
We’re going to see it into the
New Testament and in the early church.
I mean, this is a kind of God encounter which leaves an
impact as Christians even today understand our relationship with a God who reveals God’s self to us.
Yeah, and Moses’ responses are twofold,
and I think we see in them,
you know, Michael,
a kind of
appropriate interaction.
So first,
God says, “Take off your shoes,” and there’s no reason
Moses does that.
You’re standing on holy ground.
Now,
it is not the ground that is holy,
it’s the presence of God that makes that ground holy.
And so,
Moses takes off his shoes,
a sign of sort of respect,
a sign of obedience,
and then when God announces Himself,
Moses hid his face,
for he was afraid to look at God.
You know,
he bowed, he showed respect.
He responds to this presence, this voice.
And then God continues the conversation.
So jumping in at verse 7 here,
the Lord said, “I’ve observed the misery of my people who are in
Egypt.
I’ve heard their cry on account of their taskmasters.
Indeed,
I know their sufferings.
I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians and bring them up out of that land
to a good and broad land,
a land that flows with milk and honey to the country of the Canaanites,
the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
The cry of the Israelites
has now come to me.
I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them.
So come,
I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people,
the Israelites, out of Egypt.”
But Moses said to God,
“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
And God said, “I will be with you,
and this shall be a sign for you that it is I who went with you.
When you have brought the people out,
you shall worship God on this mountain.”
So a lot happening in this section.
We saw this reference yesterday at the end of chapter 2.
God says, “I’ve seen the people.
I’ve seen their misery.
I’ve heard their cries,
and I am going to respond.” And now the piece of information that is new to us and certainly new to Moses,
I’m going to send you to the Pharaoh.
And if you remember how it is that Moses finds
himself out in the wilderness,
having fled from Egypt,
running for his life from a Pharaoh,
this can’t be good news.
This is not probably celebrated news for Moses.
So Moses even says to him,
“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out?” And God says,
“I will be with you.” In other words,
this is really good,
I think.
Moses says, “Who am I?” And God says, “I will be with you.” In other words,
you’re nobody.
This isn’t about you.
“I will be with you,
and I will give you this sign that you will worship me on this mountain.”
The question of identity is going to be important through this chapter.
I think we’ll probably get
into it most deeply tomorrow,
but the idea of who are you,
who is Moses,
who is God,
how do they conceive of themselves,
how do they talk about themselves,
how do they talk about one another?
This identity question is woven deeply into this narrative,
and I think we get a taste of that here.
Moses says, “Well,
why should I go?” And God says,
“I will be with you.” And I think
this is going to be something I think we subtly see,
Michael, throughout the rest of Moses’ experience.
And in some ways, Clint,
it sets a new kind of pattern for God’s interaction with those that God has chosen,
because when you think of someone like Abraham or Jacob or Isaac,
and you begin thinking about how God called them in this covenantal relationship,
it was a pattern.
And as it followed down,
sometimes there were surprises,
but God largely was keeping God’s
promise down the line.
And here Moses, when he encounters God,
looks for a reason.
Why me?
When God speaks to Abram,
Abram just goes.
He does what he’s told.
But here,
there’s some more of this, actually, as this story goes on.
There’s a little bit of doubt right from the start
as Moses is having this conversation with God.
And what’s striking is that we come back around to the mountain.
It’s very clear the sign that God’s going to give Moses is when the people
have come back out,
God says, “You will worship God on this mountain,” the very place where
God has chosen to reveal himself to Moses.
And if you know any of your biblical literature,
you know that the sign of the mountain is very common in the encounter between God and people.
Jesus is
transfigured on a mountain.
You have the mountain where Abraham takes his son in response to
God’s command to him,
the binding of Isaac.
Here you have God saying on the mountain that
when you see yourself coming back here with the people,
it will be a sign to you that I was with you.
And that,
we should be very clear, is the point.
The point is that Moses has no reason
to be this guy,
right?
Because Moses is the one who ran away from Pharaoh.
Clearly, as the reader, we have some concern for Moses’ safety and well-being.
It’s a different Pharaoh,
right?
The Pharaoh that Moses ran or fled from is now dead.
But we still, as the reader,
wonder, you know, Moses, is this Pharaoh going to have heard of you?
Is he going to remember you?
Are you going back to your danger?
Surely, Moses was thinking the same.
But when God calls Moses,
and we’re going to learn this even more as we go on in the study the next couple days,
that there’s even more things that should probably disqualify Moses from this service.
But yet, it’s the fact that
God has chosen Moses that makes this whole story hang together.
It’s not about Moses’ capability.
It’s not about Moses’ platform or status.
It’s that God chose Moses.
And once God chose Moses,
that’s all that Moses should need.
The rest of it,
God will show you when the people come back out
that God did the work,
and that’ll be proof to Moses that he couldn’t have done it by himself.
It’s kind of an interesting sermon that I’m sure Moses loves the idea that God is going to do something good,
but is less excited about the idea that God wants Moses to do something
as a part of that.
I think in many instances,
we love the idea that God will act.
We’re less excited about the idea that God wants us to help or that God wants to ask something of us,
particularly because it’s often something we wouldn’t necessarily want to do.
And that’s certainly the case for Moses.
Again, we’ll see that in even clearer detail as we go through the passage tomorrow.
But Moses is initially not saying,
“Oh, great, sign me up.
Who am I that I should go?” And these are the questions.
In this passage,
“Who am I?” tomorrow as we read,
he’s really going to ask God,
“Who are you?” And these are the questions that frame our life.
Who am I in light of who is God?
And what is it that God asks of us?
What is it that God calls us to?
Sometimes we think that if we could just get a clear answer,
we would be happy about it.
But I think Moses is a pretty good example that occasionally,
at least it’s not uncommon,
that when God speaks clearly,
it is not what we hope to hear.
It is not what we wanted to do,
that God often asks of us the things that maybe we’re not inclined,
at least right away,
to give.
And certainly, that is the case for Moses.
You have to wonder if there are moments where Moses
will find himself thinking,
“What if I had just ignored that bush?
What if I hadn’t gone over
there stupid bush?
I should have just left it alone.” But Moses is about to get a life calling
that he didn’t realize was going to land on him.
And I think that makes this a very interesting
text.
And I think it’s helpful to point out,
Michael, as you did,
that in contrast to like
an Abram in Genesis,
if you were with us in the Genesis study,
God says, “Do it and Abraham does it.” Here,
that is not the case.
Abraham is a reluctant recruit,
and he is going to at least
make an effort tomorrow to see if he can get out of it.
So if you can,
join us.
We’ll see how Moses tries to offer an alternative solution
to God’s plan.
This will be really brief,
but I think it’s worth mentioning here.
We’re in the middle of the study,
Clint and I, in the midst of the Westminster Catechism.
And part of what we are talking about
as we study that is sort of the question,
“Who is God?” is the part that we’re in.
And I just want to point out here so that we’ve seen it,
because it would be easy to pass by this,
the end of 7 and 8.
God says, “I know their sufferings,
and I’ve come down to deliver them.” This is
really an essential message
in the book of Exodus,
and it’s so important that we hear it,
that God knows and cares about suffering,
that God is moved by that,
and that God is a deliverer.
This is a book of deliverance,
and it’s the deliverance in the way that you expect, deliverance from Egypt,
deliverance out of captivity,
deliverance over the River Nile,
all of these different sort of physical signs of it.
But there’s also a kind of delivering from themselves,
delivering from their own doubts,
delivering from their own sabotages,
all of these different ways in which the people are going to need delivering.
And God is sure-footed.
God is persistent.
We would in the church use the word God is faithful to deliver the people in every
sense that they need delivered.
And I just think it’s worth saying in the world in which people
have lots of ideas of who God is,
and what God does,
and what God’s intentions in the world are,
some real cynicism about God,
that God cares about the lost and the least.
God cares about those who suffer.
God is the God who delivers those out of that bondage and oppression.
And, you know, it may be easy to read past that,
but we shouldn’t.
I mean, because this is revealing
part of who we are to know and understand God is.
God is this person who delivers those who are in
bondage, and God cares about their cries.
God cares about their suffering,
and that’s worth noting.
Yeah, and yet when God responds,
he responds by sending.
God doesn’t simply
decide that he will go do this on his own.
He looks for a mediator, a middle person,
and
that,
for better or worse,
is Moses.
That sounds like a different story, though,
also, Clint.
God sends a mediator.
Yeah.
Well, I think we’ve said,
Michael, numerous times, this story, what really does
form some framework for parts of the New Testament that we see later.
But certainly, in this case,
it is the case that God,
rather than simply showing up in Egypt,
is going to send Moses.
And there is something collaborative about God’s work that is compelling,
why God would want to partner with people like us or people like Moses to do his work is unclear,
but he certainly does,
and he’s going to begin to unpack that for Moses starting tomorrow.
Well, I think that’s probably the best transition we could have.
Glad that you’ve been with us here
today, and yeah, you’re not going to want to miss the couple studies just because of the richness
of this text.
So we’re glad you’re here today,
and we look forward to seeing you as we continue the study tomorrow. Thanks.