Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost (A) 2017

+ In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti + Amen.

Text: Exodus 3:14
Theme: “I Am”

Dear friends in Christ Jesus,

Moses was 80 years old when God called him through the burning bush. Imagine beginning the busiest and most difficult phase of your life at that age! He didn’t readily agree to the challenge, but God equipped him as needed. The rest, as they say, is history. And important history it is! The baby who was floated in a miniature ‘ark’ on to the Nile became the powerful deliverer who parted the Red Sea. The man who was cultivated in the school of Egyptian royalty brought freedom from Egyptian oppression. More importantly, he was a type, a foreshadowing, of the true redeemer to come, Jesus Christ.

The encounter at the burning bush reaches its apex with this conversation: “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?’ 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.’”1 Here we are brought face to face with profound mystery. The Lord declares to Moses that He is the EXISTING God. He is the eternally living being. What Moses really needs to know is that God intends to save and not destroy. These truths are both a matter of faith and of future revelation.

How do we know God is a God of love? Can the empirical evidence prove He is not aloof, or whimsical, mostly uninterested in human affairs, or even inept? We observe as much disagreement, danger, and disaster in the world as we do unity, security, and goodness. There’s never any shortage of bad news for the media to report. The question of how a loving God could allow bad things to happen is always on the lips of skeptics. The query should not be brushed off as illegitimate. Life is seldom a series of harmless, positive, and stress-free events. Often the opposite is the case. How does God fit into the picture?

The reality of sin in the world is transparent for all to see. Danger, selfishness, harm, and pain are perpetrated intentionally by people against their neighbours and also cause much ‘inadvertent’ collateral damage. But it’s dangerous to generalize. God holds the mirror in front of us. How do we fair when we look honestly at our lives? What if others could read our thoughts or our hidden motivations? Do we make excuses for, or simply ignore our transgressions against God’s holiness?

We can fool ourselves. We can fool others. We cannot fool God. He knows exactly what our idols are. He knows precisely where our trust lies. He knows what motivates our priorities and informs our decisions. The punishment for sin is separation from God. Eternal separation is called hell. If hell doesn’t exist then Jesus is guilty of wild exaggeration, misrepresentation, or outright falsehood. He spoke of hell frequently.

How do we know God intends to save sinners who turn to Him and not destroy them? We know because of a single man who was nailed to a Roman cross. And that’s the only way we can know that God’s love is more than temporary providence; a kindly gesture to provide some necessary things during this temporal life. The question is not whether we can look around and find examples of beauty, virtue, and harmony in the world. We can because those things are part of the magnificence of His creation. But that cannot tell us if we have God who is willing to forgive our sins and spare us from death. It tells us nothing about facing mortality and the leap into the unknown. It’s not a question to be left to chance.

Thankfully, Jesus left nothing to chance. The plan of salvation was completely antithetical to human wisdom. Did it make any sense to wrap a crown of thorns around the head of Jesus? It certainly didn’t to Peter, “Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.’”2 How could the Creator of the universe be subject to the humiliation of criminals? How could the Author of life be subject to the curse of death? Yet, that’s exactly what grace means: God sacrificing everything for us. That is the good news; the gospel.

You can spend a lifetime but you will never wrap your mind around what this grace means. You will never plumb the depths of it. Logic cannot come to terms with it and you will never circumscribe it with your intellect. But God wraps it around you. He encompasses the believer with the benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection from the time of baptism. This power is the Spirit’s tool to work forgiveness and reconciliation in your life. It has the power to radically transform one’s heart, mind, and outlook. Loving the neighbour is no longer a matter of being guilt-tripped, and point-scoring with God, but of spiritual vocation.

Did Moses leave that encounter with God entertaining any ideas about how he would go out to build his personal career? Did he dismiss God’s claim on him as nothing more than a reminder to occasionally nurture the spiritual aspect of his life? Did he walk away ambivalent or apathetic? Hardly! His life was radically reoriented to the service of the living God. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.”3

The closeness Moses had with God is well-documented. The Bible says, “The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.”4 We must balance that with the fact that Moses was only allowed to see the ‘backside’ of God.5 It was a preview of greater things to come. “God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”6 In Christ, we know the Father. And we know He desires to save, not destroy. “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.”7 It’s a timely reminder. Surely fathers need as much respect and support as at any time in recent memory. Fathers have the privilege of reflecting the gentle strength and genuine compassion of the heavenly Father.

So, Moses met the great I AM at the burning bush. He never looked back, only forward to the fulfillment. Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”8 “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst.”9 “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”10 He said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”11 Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”12 Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”13

The burning bush was an altar for Moses; a place of interaction with God. We have our burning bush too. Here, at this altar, the I AM meets us to bless us with His life. Here forgiveness, reconciliation, and peace are offered to you through His body and blood. Here the mystery, insofar as we can perceive it in this life, is revealed. Amen.

+ In nomine Jesu +

Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost
3 September 2017
Reverend Darrin L. Kohrt

1 Exodus 3:13-14 2 Matthew 16:22
3 Matthew 16:24 4 Exodus 33:11
5 See Exodus 33:23 6 2 Corinthians 4:6
7 Psalm 103:13 8 John 10:11
9 John 6:35 10 John 11:25-26
11 John 14:6 12 John 8:12
13 John 8:58