3/9 Saturday in the Third Week of Lent

Exodus 3:13-16

Moses said to God, "If I come to the Israelites and say to them, "The God of your ancestors 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." He said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, "I am has sent me to you.' "  God also said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, "The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you': This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.

An offering from Rob Leacock

In this exchange with Moses, we can see God’s eagerness to reveal himself to Moses and the Israelites.  God’s readiness to disclose himself intimately to Moses has profound implications for the Israelites.  It is not just a moment of revelation, but one that is identity-giving.

When I was in seminary, during a course called Systematic Theology I went to the usual Friday discussion section led by our teaching assistant, Edwin.  A brilliant scholar and teacher, Edwin began to outline the reading assignments and the lecture.  That week we happened to be covering theological models of the Incarnation (the theology that discusses the hows and whys of God becoming human in the person of Jesus), and Edwin was going to help walk us through this often complicated theology.  Edwin took up a dry erase marker and wrote his first bullet point boldly:

“Before all else, God chooses to give himself to that which is not God.”

It might not seem so, but that was a profound moment for me.  It was a moment that altered my own understanding of God and my relationship with him and even my identity.  As Edwin would explain, our God, our loving God, is a God of self-disclosure.  God calls us into deeper relationship with him (and with each other) by continually offering himself, giving himself, showing himself, revealing himself to us.

Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask; through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.