Moses and the Burning Bush: God Reveals His Name | Advent Day 8

The shepherd had given up on significance. Forty years earlier he had been a prince of Egypt. Palace halls, royal garments, the attention of servants and officials. Now he wore rough wool and smelled of sheep. Moses had fled Egypt a murderer. He had killed an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, thinking no one had seen. His own people rejected him. Pharaoh sought his life. Moses ran. For four decades he wandered the wilderness of Midian. He married. He fathered children. He learned every rock and spring of that barren land. Whatever dreams he once harbored had died in the desert. Then God spoke through fire. Domenico Fetti captured this encounter in 1613. Moses kneels, sandals removed, staff lying beside him on the rocky ground. Sheep scatter in the background, forgotten. The brush blazes at the composition's center. Fetti understood the paradox: fire consumes. That is what fire does. Yet this fire preserved. Green leaves remained visible within the flames. The bush burned without burning up. "I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned." Only when Moses turned aside did God call his name. "Moses, Moses!" The double naming marks significance throughout Scripture: Abraham before the knife fell, Jacob before entering Egypt, Samuel in the night. Something momentous follows. "Here I am." The Hebrew "hineni" means more than presence. It declares availability. Readiness. What came next required bare feet. "Take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." Removing shoes strips away protection and pretense. You cannot run from holy ground. You cannot flee quickly when barefoot on rocky soil. The act declares vulnerability before the divine. Moses hid his face. He was afraid to look at God. This is the appropriate response to holiness. Those who encounter the living God tremble. They fall on their faces. They cover their eyes. But God had not come to terrify. God had come to deliver. "I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them." The language reveals divine character. God sees. God hears. God knows. God comes down. This is not a distant deity observing from afar. This is a God who descends into the suffering of His people. The pattern continues throughout Scripture. God comes down at Babel, at Sinai, and ultimately at Bethlehem. The direction of divine movement is always toward humanity in its need. Then Moses asked the question that changed everything. "If they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" The answer has occupied scholars for millennia. "I AM WHO I AM." The Hebrew "ehyeh asher ehyeh." Say to the Israelites: "I AM has sent me to you." This name appears in the Hebrew Bible as YHWH, four consonants Jews considered too holy to pronounce. God identifies Himself as pure existence. He is the one who simply is. He does not depend on anything else for being. Every other being derives existence from somewhere else. YHWH is the source from which all existence flows. The burning bush itself became a symbol carrying multiple meanings. Israel burned in Egypt's furnace of affliction, yet was not consumed. The nation should have died under Pharaoh's oppression. Slavery and genocide should have ended them. Yet they endured. Like the bush, they burned without burning up. And the bush points forward. Divine fire inhabiting human nature without destroying it. God and man dwelling together in one person. The incarnation itself. The bush that burns without burning. Moses protested his calling with excuses that sound remarkably contemporary. "Who am I?" He felt inadequate. "They will not believe me." He feared rejection. "I am not eloquent." He pleaded inability. Each objection received the same answer: "I will be with you." Not your eloquence but My presence. Not your authority but My power. Moses thought the mission depended on his qualifications. God made clear it depended on divine accompaniment. Consider the preparation hidden in Moses' years of failure. Forty years in Pharaoh's court taught him Egyptian ways: culture, language, power structures. Forty years in the wilderness taught him survival in the terrain Israel would wander. Both educations served the mission he could not yet imagine. Moses thought he was just tending sheep. God was training a deliverer. Jesus claimed this name for Himself. "Before Abraham was, I am." The Jews picked up stones. They understood the claim. The carpenter from Nazareth identified Himself with the voice that spoke from the burning bush. The I AM of Exodus stood before them in flesh and blood. The One who spoke from the bush still speaks. The fire that did not consume still burns. The name too holy to pronounce took on human form and walked among us. Advent moves toward the manger where I AM lay wrapped in cloth. You stand on holy ground too. The place of your ordinary labor, your daily routine, your unremarkable duties. God meets you there. Remove your sandals. Pay attention. The bush burns in your backyard. Your inadequacy does not disqualify you. Moses made every excuse. God answered each one the same way: "I will be with you." The mission does not depend on your eloquence or authority. It depends on His presence. Stop reciting your failures. Start trusting His promise. This Advent, turn aside to see. The fire burns for those who notice. The voice speaks to those who listen. I AM waits in the ordinary places of your life. The ground beneath your feet is holy. You need only recognize it. Tomorrow we witness the Passover, when death passed over those marked by blood. The lamb slain in Egypt points to the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. The story accelerates toward deliverance.