Prayer and Preaching, p. 260
Reading: Exodus 3:1-14
1 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. 3 And Moses said, "I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned." 4 When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." 5 Then he said, "Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." 6 And he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. 7 Then the LORD said, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9 And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. 10 Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt." 11 But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?" 12 He said, "But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain." 13 Then Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" 14 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"
Homily
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
"The bush was burning, yet it was not consumed." That was the odd thing that attracted Moses attention and so he draws near, only to find himself on holy ground (and so off come the shoes; remember, cursed is the ground for your sake as spoken to Adam, but where Yahweh touches the ground again, it is holy, and so need for the shoes that will protect you from the thorns and thistles.) And so there Moses stands barefoot before the fire the burns without consuming and hears the voice and learns the Name and receives a commission of deliverance, of salvation for the people.
For Moses the Mount of Transfiguration was surely a bit of dejavu all over again, only BETTER. Only this time, the Messenger of Yahweh is shining not in a flame of fire in bush that doesn't burn up, but in the very human nature He assumed from holy Mary's womb. But it is the same One speaking and with the same purpose. He's seen His people's misery. He knows their suffering. He's heard their cry. He's come down to rescue them. His people. Not just Israel now, but His people, all the human family. And the human family has bigger issues than some earthly Pharaoh or his modern day descendants making life a misery and burden. The problem of Satan, the problem of sin which is Satan's beachhead in our hearts, our desires. The problem of where it all lands us inevitably: death and decay and separation from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who is the Great I Am.
But the awesome wonder was that instead of sending a servant with a message and signs of wonder like a Moses or even an Elijah, he tells the servants that He will do it Himself this time. This Exodus the One who is Son of God and Son of Man will lead. He'll lead the way not through some mighty sea, but through His own bloody suffering and death itself to open wide the way to home that the Promised land was only a type of. Home to the Father. "When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers." Te Deum
"In this bush the Son of God prefigured His future incarnation and appeared to Moses." Chemnitz, Two Natures, p. 90. Jesus, doing His Jesus thing even then, but His Jesus thing then was but a type and foreshadowing of the full glory He came among us to bring about.
Shoes off, holy ground, wherever you encounter the presence of Him who reveals Himself by name and is an all-consuming fire, and yet who do not consume the Virgin's womb or the nature He assumed there, anymore than he consumed that bush, but He comes among us, shining and radiant with divine love, not to consume us, but to consume that which would devour us, which He does upon His Cross and so open the way home, for our Exodus.
And how sweet that was for Moses. Moses, who would miss out on the earthly promised land that he wanted to go into so badly after those forty years of wandering due to his own sin, but he ended up being given so much more. On the Mount of Transfiguration he IS standing in the holy land, Mt. Tabor most likely. And it was sweet, but even sweeter to live forever in the presence of Jesus in the true land of the living. The light that shines from Him, from a nature that is like Moses' own, like yours or mine, that is Moses' eternal joy now. Beyond Horeb to Calvary, beyond Calvary to Zion. Home. Moses' home. Elijah's home. Your home and mine. Jesus, true God and true Man, and whose divinity did not consume His humanity, but glorified it. As it will yours and mine on the Day of His appearing. But first, the exodus through our own suffering and death, and then home free.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Hymn: 616 "Swiftly Pass the Clouds of Glory"
Prayers:
Chaplain Peter Burfeind
Melanie, Gene, Paula, Roger, Allan and Jan
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