Holy Ground

Friday, May 5, 2023

One day Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian.  He led the flock far into the wilderness and came to Sinai, the mountain of God.  There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush.  Moses stared in amazement.  Though the bush was engulfed in flames, it didn’t burn up.  “This is amazing,” Moses said to himself.  “Why isn’t that bush burning up?  I must go see it.”  When the Lord saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!”  “Here I am!” Moses replied.  “Do not come any closer,” the Lord warned.  “Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground.  I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”  When Moses heard this, he covered his face because he was afraid to look at God.  Then the Lord told him, “I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt.  I have heard their cries of distress because of their harsh slave drivers.  Yes, I am aware of their suffering.  So I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt into their own fertile and spacious land.  It is a land flowing with milk and honey—the land where the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites now live.  Look!  The cry of the people of Israel has reached me, and I have seen how harshly the Egyptians abuse them.  Now go, for I am sending you to Pharaoh. You must lead my people Israel out of Egypt.”  But Moses protested to God, “Who am I to appear before Pharaoh?  Who am I to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt?”  God answered, “I will be with you.  And this is your sign that I am the one who has sent you:  When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God at this very mountain.”  Exodus 3:1-12

Moses is both a much-revered and enigmatic part of God’s revelation to us.  Born the son of an enslaved Hebrew couple, destined to die in a political power move, his mother put him in a basket made of reeds, and set him adrift near the palace of their oppressor.  The Pharaoh’s daughter rescued the baby and raised him in the palace as her own.  By the time Moses is 40, he discovers his heritage, Jew, not Egyptian.  He gets himself banished from Pharaoh’s good favor when he kills an Egyptian who was beating a fellow Jew.  Forty years later, as a humble shepherd, minding the sheep of his father-in-law in the Midian desert, the back side of nowhere, Moses meets God.  The man whose life could have easily been snuffed-out (more than once) by the king of Egypt, yet bravely defied him to defend the very people Pharaoh had enslaved, is now humbled by a burning bush, and a disembodied voice, claiming to be God. 

Another forty years passes in the miracle of the birth of a newly-freed nation, and the subsequent divine hand of God leading them through crises and victories.  In all, Moses kept his eye on the goal…bringing God’s chosen to a place of worship.  God had made it plain:  When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God at this very mountain.

For You Today 

Moses, the man, the hero, understood his job was not to be a hero, but a tool in the hand of God, to bless the nations of God’s creation.  His earlier quest to know God led to an opportunity to serve God, and Moses surrendered his life in that service to honor the God who inhabits holy ground.

So, here’s a thought to grapple with today:

What would YOUR burning bush look like?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:   Is That Enough?  and  Just When...   

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Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©