After gently knocking on my door, she burst into my office. Sobbing, she said, "I don’t know what to do. He just won’t stop and it doesn’t end and it’s driving me crazy. I can’t stand it anymore." She was a little old lady (though she’d probably object to the word old). A 78 year old widow in deep trouble with a neighborhood bully. Her brutish neighbor had built on her land, ruined her garden, lied to the authorities, and confronted her with vulgarities that would make a sailor blush. She had taken him to court, but there had been no resolution and he continued to oppress her at every turn. With quavering voice and tear streaked face, she repeated, "I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do." As I listened to her, I got angrier and angrier. I wanted to go visit this horrible man and give him a piece of my mind, or get two of our biggest members to be her bodyguards the next time he abused her, or do something else that would rescue this widow from her oppressor. But in the end I was reluctant to do anything more than support her with sympathy and prayer. I didn’t feel good about that and when I began to study this text, I felt even worse because I recognized myself in Moses. But as I dug deeper, I discovered some wonderful good news for the likes of that widow and Moses and me. Our faithful covenant God does rescue his people, even when his appointed rescuers are reluctant. As the story opens, the people of God are being oppressed by the biggest bully on the block, the nation of Egypt, the greatest power in the world at that time. After welcoming Israel into Egypt in the days of Joseph, the Egyptians turned against them as the burgeoning Jewish population became a threat to Egypt’s national security. Over the course of 400 years, the Egyptians increased their oppression until Israel at last cried out to God in agony. Exodus 2 ends with these promising words. "God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham…" Perhaps you recall our study last week, as we heard God promise Abraham that he would bless those who bless Abraham’s children and curse anyone who cursed them. It seemed as though God had forgotten that covenant promise, because Israel had lived a cursed life for hundreds of years. But that wasn’t the case at all. In fact, says the story, "God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them." And we expect to read that God is going to rescue Israel straightaway. But the next thing we read is, "Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father—in—law, the priest of Midian," which is a long way from Egypt. This seems like a digression from Israel’s woes, until we remember that Moses is an Israeli, a famous one at that. Adopted by the daughter of Pharaoh, he was raised at the heart of Egyptian power, until his impetuous murder of an Egyptian sent him packing to Midian in the southeast corner of the Sinai Peninsula, as far away from Egypt as he could get. There he took a wife and began a new life as a humble shepherd. In his effort to find pasture for his flock, he went to the far side of the desert where God found him. At the base of the mountain of God, Moses was mesmerized by a strange sight—a burning bush that didn’t stop burning. When he edged closer to see this strange thing, he was stopped in his tracks by the voice of God. "Moses, Moses!" Moses didn’t know that it was God speaking to him from the bush, so he said simply, "Here I am." "Do not come any closer," said the Voice. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." Then the Voice identities himself. "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this Moses hid his face, because everyone knows that you will die if you look directly at the blazing glory of God, just as you will go blind if you stare at the sun. But this blazing God is not there to burn Moses. He is there to bless his covenant people through Moses. Israel felt alone and forgotten, but in words bristling with God’s determination to rescue them, God says, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people… I have heard the crying… I am concerned about their suffering… I have come down to rescue them and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land…." When Moses says tentatively, "Here I am," God replies triumphantly, "Here I am," and I am going to rescue my oppressed people. "So now go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people out of Egypt." You can almost hear the gasp and the gulp from Moses. You can hear his first reluctant words, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh? I’m just a little shepherd boy." Well, actually he wasn’t. He was nearly 80 by this time and he had been a prince in Egypt. But then he had fled for his life after committing murder. None of that matters, says God. "I will be with you. It doesn’t matter who you are, because I will be with you. And this will be the sign that I have sent you. When it’s all said and done, you will worship me with all Israel on this very mountain." That’s all well and good, says the reluctant rescuer, but with all due respect, "Who are you? Suppose I go to the Israelites and say, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I say?" Over the years of oppression, God’s people may have forgotten their covenant relationship with God that special partnership forged by God with Abraham hundreds of years ago. Or they might have concluded with some justification that God had forgotten them. It had been a long time since they had heard from God, after all. Or under pressure from their Egyptian taskmasters, they might have begun to worship the many gods of Egypt. So it makes sense that the Israelites would ask, "Who is this God you say has sent you to rescue us? Who is this God who claims to be able to save us from the cruel power of Pharaoh?" God replies by telling Moses and all subsequent generations his real name. "God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am." This is what you are to say to the Israelites; ‘I am’ has sent you." Or as subsequent generations of Bible students have pronounced that name, "Yahweh, the Lord has sent you." "I am who I am." That’s very mysterious name. We can begin to understand it if we realize that none of us can say, "I am who I am." Oh yes, the cartoon figure, Popeye the sailor man could say it; and so do many arrogant modern folks who think they are self—made. But no one can justifiably say "I am who I am," because, in fact, we are what we have been made. Moses was the product of his Jewish parents, his Egyptian education, his Midianite shepherding, and so much more. Even the Egyptians gods were the product of the minds and hands of Egyptian priests and artists. God says, I am the product of no other forces. Nothing and nobody has made me what I am. I am who I am—completely independent of all other power, absolutely sovereign over all that is or every will be. I am unchanging and unchangeable in my faithfulness to my covenant promises. I am who I am, so I can and will rescue you. Tell that to my groaning people. Tell that to Pharaoh. Tell them all that "I am who I am" is going to rescue his people no matter what anyone says or does. Then God goes to great lengths to tell Moses exactly what to say to Israel. Tell them that Yahweh has appeared to you. Tell them the God of their fathers has been watching and has seen and has promised to bring them to a rich and spacious land. Tell them, and they will listen to you. And tell old Pharaoh to let my people go. He won’t let you, so I will strike him and his people with plagues. He will let you go then. In fact, the Egyptians will be so glad to get rid of you that they will give you all their riches, so that you will leave the land of slavery free and rich. God told Moses all of that. Understand that—— Moses hears the voice of God telling him what to do and how it will all turn out. But, incredibly Moses is still reluctant. "What if they don’t believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not send you?’" Now God has already said that the Israelites will believe Moses, but Moses doesn’t believe the word of God. You’d think God would become so angry with such unbelief that he would strike Moses down, or at least walk away muttering, "Oh, forget it!" Instead God gives him three signs to convince Israel that Yahweh has sent Moses, and to convince Moses to go to Egypt to rescue God’s people. These signs aren’t just little parlor tricks; they were mighty challenges to the world of the Pharaoh. The staff turned into a snake was a direct challenge to Pharaoh’s power, because the Pharaoh’s wore a head dress with a cobra carved on it. The hand turned leprous and then back proved that even the most dread disease in the world was under God’s control. And the Nile turned to blood conveyed the message that even the mighty river at the center of Egypt’s entire economy is like water in Yahweh’s cup. Overwhelming evidence that Moses has been sent to rescue Israel by the God of their Fathers, the great covenant Yahweh. But Moses still isn’t ready. "O Lord, I have never been eloquent. I’m still not, in spite of this incredible meeting with you and in spite of your awesome power. You may be the great ‘I am,’ but I am a poor speaker." Now, God is getting a bit impatient, so he says, "Who gave man his mouth or his ears or his eyes? Who gives speech or sight? I am the almighty creator of all. Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say." Stop making excuses. And that’s when Moses comes clean. All the questions and objections at the burning bush have been a smoke screen. The central problem is that he just doesn’t want to do this thing for God and for God’s people. "O Lord, please send someone else to do it" he said. Can you relate to this? It isn’t that we don’t know what God wants us to do. We’ve heard the Word of God for our lives very clearly. It isn’t that we haven’t heard his promises to us. We’ve heard God promise to lead us and protect us and provide for us and rescue us. It isn’t that we don’t know about God’s power and love. We’ve heard the Gospel of Jesus and seen the mighty signs of the cross and the empty tomb, which prove his love and power. Our problem isn’t ignorance; it is arrogance. We simply don’t want to do what God wants us to do, because we want to do what we want to do, even if it’s just tending sheep out in the desert. This is the mystery of disobedience. Behind all of our excuses and objections and questions and reluctance to do the rescue work of God’s kingdom lies the simple fact, "I don’t want to do this. O Lord, please send someone else to do it so that I can keep doing what I have been doing." Perhaps we’re pretty happy tending sheep. Perhaps we’re not up for the hassle involved in the long journey back to Egypt to rescue those difficult people. Perhaps we’re afraid of the bully. Perhaps we simply don’t trust God to perform the miracles necessary to rescue his people. But whatever the presenting reason, the deepest source of our reluctance to do what God says is rebellion. We simply don’t want to do what God wants us to do, because we want to do what we want to do. How does God respond to that mystery of disobedience? Well, first of all, with exactly what you’d expect, and then second, with a great surprise. First, God got angry with Moses; his "anger burned against Moses." Does that mean that a tongue of fire licked out of the burning bush and consumed Moses? It could have and he would have deserved it. And the Bible does speak of God’s anger as a consuming fire and it does speak of a place where the fire does not go out. It can be a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God who speaks out of a burning bush. And Moses surely deserved God’s anger. He has just turned God down flat. But, amazingly, anger was not God’s last response to Moses. Or rather, in his anger God spoke words of grace. "What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you. And he will do for you what you cannot do for yourself." Here is the good news in this fascinating story. Even in his anger, God is gracious with his chosen people. He stoops to our weakness and provides what Jesus called a "paraklete." No, I didn’t say parakeet; I said paraklete. That’s the word Jesus used in John 14:16 where he was speaking to his disciples on the night before he died. As he prepared to leave them, he said, "I will ask the Father and he will give you another paraklete." That’s a Greek word that refers to someone who will come alongside us and give us just the help we need. In Moses’ case, God sent a man named Aaron, the brother of Moses, to be the paraklete he needed. Moses needed a mouthpiece, someone who would stand alongside him and speak for him. And that’s exactly what God provided. We need more than a mouthpiece. We need a mediator, someone who will stand between us and a God who is angry with our disobedience. So in our case, God sent a man named Jesus, the Son of God, to be the mediator we need. The great God who calls himself "I am who I am" is so determined to rescue his oppressed people that he sent the one who said over and over again, "I am. I am the light of the world. I am the bread of life. I am the vine. I am the door. I am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way, the truth and the life. I am who I am." This is the mystery of redemption—the great "I am" sent the great "I am" to rescue people who say, "I don’t want to do what God wants me to do." The world has never seen a stranger, more wonderful sight. No, I don’t mean a burning bush that doesn’t stop burning. I mean a bloody cross that doesn’t stop rescuing reluctant and rebellious people. That cross assures us that even though the road to rescue may be long and slow and filled with obstacles, including reluctant rescuers, our faithful covenant God will come to deliver us. And on the other side of that cross, the risen Lord sends us into the world to rescue the oppressed. The cross doesn’t get us off the hook when it comes to obeying the voice of God. You hear that in God’s last word to Moses in Exodus 4:17. "But take this staff in your hand so you can perform miraculous signs with it." I will rescue my people, so now, go. I know a little old lady who needs to be rescued from a bully. Do you know someone who needs to be rescued from the bully of sin? Where is the Lord sending you?
Stan Mast
Stan Mast has been the Minister of Preaching at the LaGrave Avenue Christian Reformed Church in downtown Grand Rapids, MI for the last 18 years. He graduated from Calvin Theological Seminary in 1971 and has served four churches in the West and Midwest regions of the United States. He also served a 3 year stint as Coordinator of Field Education at Calvin Seminary. He has earned a BA degree from Calvin College and a Bachelor of Divinity and a Master of Theology from Calvin and a Doctor of Ministry from Denver Seminary. He is happily married to Sharon, a special education teacher, and they have two sons and four grandchildren. Stan is a voracious reader and works out regularly. He also calls himself a car nut and an “avid, but average” golfer.
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