1. The Burning Bush

In Exodus God is represented as this all-consuming fire which will consume everything if it is not connected to it properly. God has to be present in the world without consuming it. This is why the burning bush is so important. It is a miraculous event where God is present in the world without completely consuming it. God is later going to show Moses how he can be in a relationship with the world without consuming it. This will require a hierarchy and a set of mediations which will allow the presence of God down into the world to be there. The mediations are a covering to protect us from the full wrath of God.

1. God can use anyone – It is interesting that God doesn’t use some large fragrant tree like a cedar but a common desert variety bush and this typifies the humility of Moses. God can use anyone. It is out in the desert away from the constant distractions of life that you see the burning bush and hear from God. See also 1 Corinthians 1:26-29. God uses the common and ordinary for His great purposes.
2. The Lord is with me – The bush was not on fire, but the fire was within the bush. The ordinary can surprise if we look beyond the outside appearance. Jesus was rejected in Capernaum because they failed to look beyond the human Jesus that they knew growing up. The miracles he performed and the words He spoke were ignored. There are bushes burning around us that we may not recognise.

2. Moses Turns Aside to Look (3:4)

Moses is humble and open to the possibility of turning aside. When he sees this burning bush which is not consumed, he opens himself up to the revelation that is in it. There are moments that can lead to divine revelation – if you have your shoes off!

We are always lower than the ideal and Moses is afraid to look upon God. Moses can only say “Here I am”. There are not many words that you can get out when you meet God! Moses is paying attention to what his God wants to say to him. Attentive listening can be useful! Moses needs to overcome his shame before he can look at God.

3. Taking your Sandals Off (3:5)

Moses is to take the sandals of his feet and cover his face as he encounters the infinite in the finite. The removal of the sandals is an image of circumcision as you remove the animal garments of skin which God gave to Adam. God gave them as protection from the thorns. If you want to meet with God in the manner that he reveals Himself in the thorns, then you have to remove the garments of skin in order to receive that revelation.

Taking off your sandals at the time was a way of disclaiming any ownership of the land. However, it was God who told Him to take them off. This is a redundancy nowhere else perhaps in the Bible. Take your shoes off… your feet. Where else are your shoes except on your feet? It’s in the Hebrew.

Moses stands unprotected with the ground and “naked” in front of God. Shoes protect us from the ground and elevate us from the ground. We need to stay in contact with the earth. To “return to Eden”, Moses needs to remove his garment of skin (shoes).

Taking the shoes off is a call to humility. You can be friends with what you know (arrogant) or friends with what you don’t know (humble). Modern man doesn’t see God because they don’t turn aside to look as they think they know enough. Remember – shoes off, eyes open!

4. God Reveals Himself (3:6)

How deep into the abyss do we need to look before we realise the need for God? An intervention from someone greater than ourselves or the tyranny. There is a focus on human happiness now in the health sector. Our ancestors knew that life was extremely difficult. The path to true happiness is difficult and extremely difficult to reach or hold onto for long. The pursuit of truth rather than happiness is a more fulfilling endeavour.

“Good parents” think they can’t take their kids to funerals. Death is so terrifying that we need to shield children from it. We need to face death together.  It can grow bonds between family members to make them stronger. Children are a lot stronger than we think. If they see us being strong then they learn to be strong. The funeral is a ritual to understand the horrors of death but also the hope for the future. It’s like a war or its moral equivalent.

You grow when you learn new things. If you have a challenge, then certain genes turn on. Your biology turns on to make you more than you are. You must face death, tyranny and evil in our life. The deeper you go, the more of you turn on. You don’t get stronger in the gym without lifting weights.

Some people make their way through life without challenges and in so doing are likely to end up bitter and resentful. If the world challenges, then it is the fault of someone else! It can help to get young people to voluntarily take the highest burden they can shoulder. However, you need someone to tell them, so they realise they have something to offer.

Why is there evil in the world? Maybe it because we are not all we could be? If we are all aiming up it would be amazing what percentage of evil, we could reduce. Passing challenges builds character. Job passed the test. Reaching our potential can be a measure of self-help that can take us some way up. The highest potential is responding in faith to God’s call.

The higher the goal (mountain) the more intense the joy in making progress towards it. Like Elijah it can be depression after reaching it! In Exodus we have a mixed multitude heading for the Promised Land. Where there is no vision, the people perish.

God is the actor in history and the Jewish worship is based on their on their history while other nations worshipped nature with their gods.

5. The God of Abraham and the Mixed Multitudes (3:8)

God represents Himself as the God of Moses’ ancestors. The Israelites are these scattered people within Egypt that God appears to have forgotten and doesn’t remember and they themselves don’t remember who they are and come together as a people. God is going to gather the Israelites out of Egypt and back to the identity of their fathers – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God is going to do that at different levels. The people hat leave Egypt are not just the descendants of Israel but also a gathering of all kinds of people. It is the structures of the giving of the Law that will bind them together as a nation despite not being descendants of Abraham. If they agree to follow the covenant that God will give them then they will be bound to the identity. What is happened in Christianity is similar only expanded even more.

6. Remembering Israel (3:7-10)

When God creates, He sees, and He evaluates it is good. God remembers Israel and wants to reconnect with Israel but in many ways, it is too scattered and too far from God to be able to properly connect to Moses. God had to create all these intermediary structures (veils) in order for Him to be able to connect with them. He also has to remove the improper veils of the Egyptians in order to be able to join with Israel. Moses has to remove the sandals which are the improper Egyptian covering (the uncircumcised flesh) but also covering his face in order to manifest the proper mediation to be in contact with God.

7. The Land of Milk and Honey (3:8)

The best of that which is tame, the best that which is close. The tame animals that produce milk or the mother that produces milk for nourishing. Then there is the best of the wild that is distant, but which is extremely sweet. It’s a bit ambiguous why honey is kosher in the law. These represent the best of the two sides of reality – tame and wild.

8. I Am that I Am (3:14)

Moses knows that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob but what is your Name? It is helpful to know someone’s name if you are going to be able to effectively communicate but also is the starting point for a deeper more intimate relationship.

God is a being that has no other causes. He is the only thing that can name Himself as He is the origin of being and doesn’t have anyone else naming Him. It’s almost like He doesn’t have a name. God connects fractally down the levels from True being down to way that you recognise yourself. They recognise themselves as having common origin or identity in the Patriarchs (Ancestors). They had a covenant with God. God is going to use this to bring them back. They will all come out and will all come to the mountain together and worship God there. This is how they will all come together and after this to the land of Milk and Honey.

It would be some 1,500 years later that Jesus shed further light on God’s name by taking His name and filling in the blank by declaring:-

• I AM the Bread of Life (John 6:35)
• I AM the Way and the Truth and the Life (John 14:6)
• I AM the Light of the World (John 8:12)
• I AM the Good Shepherd (John 10:11,14)
• I AM the Door (John 10:9)
• I AM the Vine (John 15:1,5)
• I AM the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25)

In John 18:4-6, Jesus responds, “I am” and the large group of Roman soldiers and Temple police are knocked flat out on their backs! Such can be the power of the God’s Word.

9. Plundering the Egyptians (3:21-22)

This hierarchy begins with being and ends with the idea that they will plunder the Egyptians by taking plunder from the stranger after they gain their identity. The plunder is that which is pagan or secular and does not come directly from the revelation of God. We can think of philosophy, and science as other kinds of knowledge. We are called to plunder the Egyptians by taking what is good from what is outside and gathering it together towards God so that it finds its true value. The Egyptian is a tyrant if the Egyptian rules over you but if you are subject to God then what the Egyptian offers becomes potential for a higher purpose that is good.

The plundering has not happened at this point but God already knows it will come to pass and He will bring them out of Egypt. It will pay back for centuries of slavery to Egypt and provide Israel with the means to get to the Promised Land and build the nation.

Categories: Exodus

Tags: bible, Exodus, god, jesus, moses