May 26, 2006

(Part Two:  adapted from Exodus 3:11-22)

Moses raised his head and peered at the blazing bush before him.  With the impact of what he had just heard detonating all kinds of feelings of disbelief, terror, and good old-fashioned amazement, he simply couldn’t manage to find his own voice.  The Voice of the Lord, however,  had just pronounced an unexpected destiny for him and now there simply were no words to adequately capture the jumble of conflicting feelings and thoughts exploding within him.

“Ah… um,” he finally managed to murmur.  “You mean, uh… me?  I, uh, well, um, You know that I ran away… don’t You?  And also, You know that I killed a man over there… right?  I mean, I just figured that You of all people would have known about that….  And besides, Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?  They probably wouldn’t even remember that I’m a Hebrew.  They wouldn’t just welcome me back, I’m sure.  Between them and Pharaoh, who probably still has a bounty on my head, I could get killed!”

There was a stirring sound and the flames within the branches of the bush flickered brighter, swirling out towards him as if reaching to him.  The Voice spoke again.  “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I Who have sent you:  when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship Me on this mountain.  When you have done all that I have in store for you to do, you will return here, along with your brothers and sisters, and you will all worship Me here.”

The implication of what the Voice was saying was not lost on the man who cowered before It.  God had remembered His people.  And He was now intervening in His creation’s mad race towards self-destruction once again and was, at the same time, reaching into Moses’ life.  In this incredible encounter, God was announcing promises that would fulfill not only the ones uttered before for the people of Israel, but were personal and specific to Moses’ life as well.  It was as if the Lord was squelching any suspicion that could possibly have arisen in Moses’ mind that God could ever forget His promises or forsake those who belong to Him.  Not only was God sending him, He was also guaranteeing that Moses would survive, succeed, and then return to this very spot… the place that God had first spoken to him.

But as much as Moses’ heart leapt within him to the sound of God’s voice, little leeches of doubt clung to him and sapped his willpower.  “But,” he pondered aloud, “suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’  Then what shall I tell them?  I just can’t go to them and tell them that ‘What’s His Name” sent me, can I?  I know that there’s nothing to the statues, stories, and kings that the Egyptians worship, but they have names for all the idols to which they bow.  And as far as we go, our own eyes have been looking inward so long because of our own troubles, that we’ve really gotten out of touch with You.  We don’t even remember what You’re like.”

Although the flames were continuing to glimmer patiently in the deep shade of night while Moses was speaking, they seemed to burn a bit brighter and more glorious.  God spoke again, but this time with a majesty at which had never even been hinted before in Moses’ wildest imaginations.  “I AM Who I AM,” said the Voice.  “This is what you are to say to the Israelites:  ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

A sense of overwhelming awe came crashing over Moses and he hid his face again.  Infinite and immeasurable, the perfect and holy glory of God Almighty flickered through those few words.  Utterly beyond earthly reckoning, they described the essence of the One Who was and is absolutely sufficient within Himself.  Ageless, timeless, and limitless in power, knowledge, and love, this amazing and living God was now speaking with him in the back hills of Midian.  God Himself was reaching forth His fingers to continue a work that had been begun hundreds of years before when His same Voice called to a man named Abram to set out from the land of Haran to “go to a land that He would show him” (see Genesis 12:1).

“Moses,” the Lord continued, “Tell the Israelites, ‘I AM, the God of your fathers – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob – has sent me to you.’  This is My name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.”

Even as God spoke to him, Moses was struck by how different the Lord was from what peoples around the world thought and believed about the divine.  The Lord was so perfect, with such incredible glory, amazing power, and unimaginable compassion!  And such REALNESS!  God wasn’t simply different from what other peoples in the world worshiped, He was more than even Moses and his people had ever imagined or hoped.  The Lord wasn’t just a god for only the part of world from which Abraham had come; He was alive and well in Egypt, hearing His people cry out.  He wasn’t just a god of Moses’ ancestors or merely the god of a nation of people, He was here in Midian too and had met Moses, declaring His lordship over even his broken life.

“Moses,” God said.  “The king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him.  So I will stretch out My hand and I will do amazing things.  Then he will let you go.  And after all these years of their working as slaves for the Egyptians, I will even work in such a way that those who have oppressed My people will look favorably upon them and give them silver and gold.  Even though they have been slaves, when they leave Egypt, they will not go empty-handed.”

Hope was now thoroughly awakened in Moses.  “I can’t believe it,” he thought.  “My people are finally going to find release.  They’re about to wake up and see that the Lord has remembered them and has a special destiny for them!”  But then, a nasty spark of doubt flared up in his mind again.  “But why me?” he wondered.  “Why do I have be the one?  I don’t think I can do it.”  But even as he thought these things, he sensed that the contents of his heart were already known to the One speaking to him.

To be continued….

(Thom Mollohan and his family have ministered in southern Ohio the past ten and a half years.  He is the pastor of Pathway Community Church, which meets on Sunday mornings at the Ariel Theatre.  He may be reached for comments or questions by email at pastorthom@pathwaygallipolis.com).