The God who Blazes

Exodus 3:1-12

1 Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 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. 3 Then Moses said, "I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up." 4 When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." 5 Then he said, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." 6 He said further, "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 observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver them from 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 country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9 The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. 10 So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt." 11 But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" 12 He said, "I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain."

            I had a friend back in Texas whose name was Markus. Markus was from Germany—and he never let anyone forget that. In fact, I was convinced for a while that he had a strange speaking disorder that forced him to begin every sentence with the phrase “In Germany…” Despite such a quirk, Markus was a great friend and an amazingly bright, theological mind. He and I often sat next to each other in class, and when the conversation was not up to the intellectual level Markus preferred he would often turn to me and tell me what was going on with him that day. From those several impromptu conversations with Markus, I recall one particular incident most clearly.

Markus told me that he was leaving the seminary one morning for lunch, when he saw our preaching professor, Dr. Gregory, walking across the campus, towards the parking lot and his waiting car. Apparently, Markus wanted to get Dr. Gregory’s attention, so he shouted out from the entrance of the building, across the lawn, towards the professor, “Hello, Dr. Gregory!” I’ll never forget what Markus said happened next: rather than turning to see who it was that was calling his name, rather than continuing on towards his car and what I’m sure was an important lunch date, Markus told me that Dr. Gregory stopped dead in his tracks and looked up—towards the heavens—as if God was calling his name. I told Markus I didn’t know what was harder to believe, that our professor thought God spoke with a German accent, or that God would call him “Dr. Gregory” rather than simply “Joel!”

I suppose if we went around this room today several of us could share experiences where we were sure we heard God call us by name; perhaps for some of us those have been life-changing moments. Of course, if we couldn’t recount such an incident in our own lives, then I think it’s safe to say we all know someone who has claimed to have heard God call him or her by name. Then there are, of course, those wonderful accounts in Scripture of God calling individuals by name. Of those great stories in Scripture, perhaps none is so widely-known and recognized as the story before us today—the story of God calling Moses by name in the third chapter of Exodus. Not only is it a story that is easily recognized among those of us in the Abrahamic faiths of the world (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), but it is a story that has been popularized thanks to Charlton Heston and Cecil B. Demille in that 1956 cinematic epic The Ten Commandments.

This encounter with God serves as the climactic turning point in the life of Moses. Prior to this meeting on the mountain, Moses had been born to Hebrew slaves in Egypt, raised in the palace of polytheistic Pharaohs, exiled into the wilderness, and integrated into the life of monotheism in Midian. His life had been a roller coaster of sorts: born into destitution, raised with the most lavish of luxuries, cast out to die, and now he finally finds himself in a life of relative peace, when God calls his name. We know what happens next, don’t we? Moses leaves the safety of a shepherd’s life in Midian to raise a revolution in Egypt, to emerge as the deliverer for God’s people. He leads the Israelites out of Egypt, across the wilderness, and through the Red Sea, only to wander in the desert for forty years before dying just within sight of the Promised Land. Truly this encounter with God is a turning point—the biggest turning point—in the life of Moses, but for all that this encounter says about Moses, what does it tell us about God?

Well, I suppose the best place to begin in answering such a question is at the beginning of our text today. In verse one we hear about Moses keeping the flock and taking it out past the wilderness to the mountain of God, and in verse two we read, “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.” Did you notice what that verse actually says? Let’s read part of it again: There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush… Moses doesn’t just happen to see a flaming bush; this isn’t a meeting of mere circumstance or chance. The language here tells us that the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses; the angel of the Lord is the one who is doing the action here—God is the one initiating the contact with Moses. Now, if that’s stretching it a bit for you just keep reading, because after Moses turned aside to check out this sudden appearing, God called out to him in verse 4 "Moses, Moses!" God called out to Moses first. There’s no “Hey. Is anybody there?” coming from Moses; God is the first one to speak. This God who blazes is the God who initiates action.

Now, after this initial contact with Moses from God, something else happens, something that might seem a bit strange to the uninitiated. See, after God calls out to Moses, Moses simply replied, “Here I am.” I am convinced that at this point Moses has no idea to whom (or what) he is talking. He simply responded to the voice as if it was trying to place Moses or check his attendance. But that’s not the thing that seems strange—it’s what happens in verse 5: Then he said, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” Moses is told to take off his sandals because he is in the presence of holiness, the presence of God! And you can tell that the reality of the situation hit him hard, because in verse 6 we are told, “… Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.” He hadn’t bothered to hide his face before because he was unaware he was in the presence of God. It seems this God who blazes, this God who initiates action, also demands reverence.

Let’s not be confused by what this means. Reverence isn’t merely lip service to the Almighty. Reverence isn’t proper protocol for the sake of proper protocol. Reverence isn’t summed up in the removal of one’s cap upon entering a church sanctuary. Reverence is the act of recognizing the Almighty God for who he is, especially when you are in his presence. Reverence is the recognition of the terrifying power of God, and it is clear that Moses recognized that power when he hid his face.

God, however, didn’t appear to Moses simply to frighten him into recognition. No, God appeared to Moses because he had heard the cries of his people. Scripture tells us so in verses 7 through 9: “Then the Lord said, ‘I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from 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 country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them.’” It appears that this God who demands reverence, this God who blazes, also holds compassion for his people. Moses is terrified by the flaming image of God before him, yet God speaks to Moses of his concern for the Israelites and his desire to bring them up out of their oppression in Egypt, but that isn’t the full reason God appeared to Moses.

In verse 10 God continues speaking to Moses: “So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt." God appeared to Moses, because God planned to send Moses to carry out his will. The God who blazes is the God who calls us to his work. And who can blame Moses for his response in verse 11? There he says, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" “Who am I?” Who are any of us to be counted worthy to do the will of God? Who are any of us to be found capable of such an enormous task as the one set before Moses? And remember, this isn’t the great man of faith, the great prophet, we find on the other side of the Red Sea; this isn’t the great hero of the faith who calls down plagues upon the great world power that was Egypt. This is Moses, the immigrant shepherd in Midian, the one who doesn’t immediately understand that he is in the presence of the God who commands reverence; this is the flawed, sinful son of slaves who is an exiled outlaw, and God calls him to go to the most powerful man in the known world and demand he set his slaves—rightly inherited possessions in his sight—free! Of course Moses would question God’s decision to send him, of all people, for such a task!

But then, from the blaze of the thorny bush, came the words we find today in verse 12: “[God] said, ‘I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.’" The God who blazes, the God who commands reverence, the God who initiates action, the God of compassion, calls us to do his will, AND HE GOES WITH US AS WE DO IT! God said to Moses “I will be with you.” He didn’t promise that it would be easy; he didn’t promise that it would be quick; he didn’t promise that it would be without costs; yet he promised something greater than all this. He promised to be with Moses, and in that promise we hear this truth: God promises to be with us as we go on our way in this world, doing his will.

These words from God to Moses speak to us from another time, from a different mountain. It was on that mountain that the God who blazes showed himself to the world after being in the grave for three days. The words to Moses from the blazing bush are echoed in the twenty-eighth chapter of Matthew’s gospel as Jesus commissioned his disciples: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Today, you and I are no different than Moses when he stood on Horeb. We are in the presence of the God who blazes, and today he is calling us, just as he called Moses on Horeb, just as Christ called the disciples at his ascension. He is calling us to put our trust in him, to trust that he is with us as we go on our way, seeking to do the work of God’s kingdom. Today we are confronted by the God who initiates action, who calls us by name, who deserves our reverence. Today we are confronted by the God of compassion, by the God who promises to go with us down whatever road his calling may take us. Today, we stand like Moses, in the presence of the God who blazes.
Let us pray…