Exodus 2.23 - 3.14

Every child has great ideas about what they are going to be when they grow up: a rock star, President, play for Man United, be a millionaire right all the wrongs in the world. There comes a time when you begin to realise that it’s not that easy. I remember feeling very uncomfortable at the grand old age of 25 a quarter century and what to show for it? Now it’s nearly another quarter of a century and I think I know what they mean by the ‘mid life crisis’.

So it was with Moses, a man of great promise and so little to show for it in this dead end job ‘at the far side of the desert’ a burnt out case, disillusioned, discouraged, just making do, keeping sheep, raising a family. But one day this left behind man sees something ordinary, a bush on fire becoming something extraordinary, a bush that burns but does not burn up and life is never the same again. Burning bush is much more than a symbol of the Presbyterian Church it tells us much about who God is and what he has done and can do for us.

GOD TRANSFORMS THE EVERYDAY What began as just another day doing the same old thing turned out to be an absolutely new experience for Moses.’ (Childs) An ordinary bush / working day / man who is in a dead end -- add a God who delights to work in human weakness and what do you get? God’s spirit blazing out from us without burning us up, like a filament in an electric bulb, small and flimsy, yet when the power flows it glows and glows.

How many of our everyday situations remain ordinary because we refuse to believe that God could or would transform them? But then, we keep God at a distance and do not know really know him and if you come near God you have to be careful.

GOD BLAZES WITH HOLINESS Moses comes near out of curiosity but God warns him not to get too close, not to trifle with his power like a notice around an electric pylon ‘Danger, God at work. Keep your distance!’ This fire is not for sight-seers to warm their hands at; it is a place for servants to take off their shoes to stand without rights, unprotected, before God the utterly holy and righteous one where Moses responses is the only correct open: to hide his face because he is afraid (in the best and deepest sense) to look on God. Do we think about God too lightly and carelessly? Is our search for him too trivial a pursuit? Can we truly echo the words of the hymn? ‘How I fear you, living God / with deepest tenderest fears/ and worship thee with trembling hope / and penitential tears’

We need to be aware of the awesome holiness of God combined with the tender compassion ‘meekness and majesty’

GOD CARES DEEPLY FOR HIS PEOPLE 2.23-24 ‘The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out and their cry for help went up to God. God heard their groaning ... God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.’ 3.7 ‘I have seen their misery. I have heard them crying out and I am concerned about their suffering. I have come down to rescue them.’ Is there any other religion that presents a God who is both holy and who cares and yearns and comes down in this deeply personal way? In Islam God may be holy, but does he get involved? In Hinduism the gods may be very close, but where is that holy fear? Here is a God who blazes with holiness and burns with tender love for his people infinite and intimate.

And here is something to remember at those times when you ask: ‘is God there at all?’, when you cry out with pain and find it hard or impossible to pray. then even when your emotions tell you he isn’t there or doesn’t care or your circumstances seem to suggest it’s hopeless don’t rely on how you feel or what you see -- you may still believe that he is there and he still cares. Did Israel in slavery in Egypt feel blessed by God? No, but God still cared. Was Moses, an exile, has-been, failure looking for blessing that day or expecting to meet God? No but he did meet him. Often when meeting people who are depressed, their heads are down their faces are sad, they are looking inward I long to tell them they may think no-one loves them, they not even love themselves but it still remains true that God loves them and cares for them. and sometimes I even say it to them, not I hope tritely but truly, if you will only look out and look up God loves you. And of course sometimes I have had to say it to myself or hear it from others: ‘don’t keep looking in or around, John, look at the burning bush’ And what is our burning bush? If we learn with Moses that God transforms, blazes, cares and is named ‘I am who I am’ a God who is personal who invites us to trust him and follow him, then we are drawn to the one in whom God became fully involved with us when God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. As John’s gospel makes clear Jesus is the burning bush He is the one who declares ‘I am’ I am the way the truth and the life, the good shepherd, the bread of life. Before Abraham was I am ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man you will know that I am’(8.30) If you do not believe that I am, you will indeed die in your sins (8.24) I am the light of the world; he that follows me will not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life (8.12) We need to realise that the bible does not explain everything about God (that would be impossible) but the bible gives not an explanation but an invitation. I suppose Moses even after all that he saw and heard that day could have rubbed his eyes and gone back to the safety of his dead end job keeping sheep and sometimes chatted about a strange spiritual experience he once had but he didn’t. He took up the invitation and started a long journey which brought freedom not only to him but to a whole community

God can transform the everyday, God blazes with holiness God cares passionately Gods who is the Lord ‘I am God who is revealed in Jesus ‘I am the light of the world’ invites us to follow and to be transformed.

Lord, when our lives seem dull and ordinary when we think we’ll never be any use when we trivialise your holy burning being when we think you are distant and uncaring when we wonder who you are may we know that you are here that you do care and we may know you if we follow you

May our God supply every need of yours according to his riches of glory in Christ Jesus. To God our Father be glory for ever and ever.