Exodus 3:1-15 Commentary

From the banks of the Nile to a parched mountain (the literal translation of Horeb), we find Moses settled into the humble lifestyle of a nomadic shepherd just about as far from Pharaoh’s court as humanly possible. The King James tells us that, as the curtain rises on this scene, Moses is hanging out with some sheep on “the backside of the desert”. (Sometimes you just need the poetry of the KJV!)

Out in the middle of nowhere, Moses sees a strange bush, burning but not burning up. In a moment of curiosity that instigates the unfolding of God’s plan, Moses decides to turn aside and investigate further. When God sees that this sight has captured Moses’ attention, God calls out — as Ellen Davis puts it — as one “calling for help … God is calling Moses to help carry the load of human suffering, the suffering of the oppressed.”

The Africana Bible Commentary reminds us that this tussle between God’s plan, human resistance and the rollout of Divine Deliverance is “the formational and identifying event for Israel. It became the lens through which Israel interpreted her experiences and the foundation of her understanding of God. Thus the historical event developed into a transcendent moment — one that can occur again and again. And so it does, in the life of Israel and beyond.”

Young people are often looking for God’s plan for their lives to manifest as obviously as a burning bush in the wilderness. Others find themselves called out when they least expect it. As the Israelites will say to Pharaoh, “The Lord, God of the Hebrews, happened upon us.” Like, “there we were, minding our own business on the backside of the wilderness, and God? Well, God just kind of … happened! God is up to something in the world. God will liberate God’s people from sin, abuse, misdirection and alienation. And these transcendent moments of God’s intervention occur again and again in the life of Israel and beyond.

God has a plan for the liberation and deliverance of our souls but then also for the whole world. And, in this, we are each asked to play a role. And, like Moses, we are all inadequate to that task. I’m not being uncharitable here it’s just that taking part in the work of God in the world is always beyond our grasp and just outside our competencies.

Robert Alter writes about Moses, “Alone among the Biblical characters, he is assigned an oddly generic epithet, ‘the man Moses’ There may be some theological motive for this designation, in order to remind us of his plainly human status, to ward off any inclination to deify the founding leader of the Israelite people, but it also suggests more concretely that Moses as forger of the nation and prince of prophets is, after all, not an absolutely unique figure but a person like other people.”

God calls inadequate people to do big things. God called tiny Samuel to be a priest and the kid thought his boss was asking him to run errands in the middle of the night. God called Isaiah whose first response is “Woe to me! I am ruined!” Jeremiah and Ezekiel respond in similar fashion. When God calls someone to do something, it seems the lowest common denominator of the experience is that it is weird.

And there’s something about Moses’ story that reminds me of another Biblical story too:

• A messenger of the Lord in a remote place
• Appears to someone with other plans
• To tell them

1) God has created a deliverance plan

2) God wants you to deliver it.

• Those God calls respond with fear and then with curiosity, with some initial resistance that necessitates some miraculous intervention.

It’s almost like:

• A messenger arrives in the hick town of Nazareth
• To a young woman with other plans — namely to get married and live happily ever after.
• But God gives this message:
  • I have created a deliverance plan, Mary.
  • And you will deliver my deliverance.
• And Mary’s curiosity turns to consent. “May it be to me as you have said.”

The parallel of these two stories is not new-fangled. As far back as the 4th century, Gregory of Nyssa suggested that Mary stands in church history as evidence of God’s presence, not unlike the burning bush that is not consumed. Mary carries the Son of God in her womb and yet does not dissolve into ash.

Scholar Ellen Davis elaborates on this ancient insight when she writes:

“The image of Mary, ancient and still fresh, may serve to refresh our reading of Moses’ story, which suffers somewhat from over-familiarity. Mary and Moses have this in common: in the history of the world, they are the two people who have known God most intimately, know God in ways that mortal flesh ordinarily could not tolerate without burning to a cinder. The Israelites understood that trespassing on holy ground would bring instant death. The high priest took his life in his hands when he entered the Holy of Holies one day each year, and even he entered the holy place enveloped in smoke, for who could see God and yet live. Yet God spoke to Moses ‘face to face, as one speaks to a friend.’

…If God had a best friend then surely it is Moses. At moments we see Moses sass God, when things are not going well in the wilderness. And not only does he get away with it but God accommodates his complaints and makes in-course corrections. God does not take a human being so fully into the divine confidence — you might say, God does not depend on a human being so fully — until Mary conceives by the Holy Spirit. These are the two more-or-less ordinary people in the history of the world with whom, it seems, God has felt most fully at home. Moses and Mary are the ones who made most room in their lives and therefore in our world for God’s dramatically new work of deliverance. Knowingly and willingly, they welcomed God as God is, utterly demanding and utterly loving.”

The child born of Mary will go on to repurpose the words of God to Moses, “I am who I am” when he declares: I am bread. I am the vine, the gate, the good shepherd. And, in John chapter 8: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”

The light of the burning bush, the light born of Mary is still today for us the light of the world. The promise that we will never walk in darkness. The hope that one day all the world’s sorrow and grief and pain will be disbursed by the light of Christ’s Kingdom among us.

Illustration Ideas

The great thing about the twist to focus on the Moses-Mary parallel is that no one is going to see Christmas coming on Labor Day weekend (in the US). The more you can do with this abrupt and unseasonable change of focus, the better!  Don’t be afraid to sing a Christmas carol or setting of Mary’s Magnificat.  I recommend Canticle of the Turning for any time of year.