Moses Part 6 (Exodus 5-6:12)

    Finally the moment we've been waiting for. After Moses and Aaron worship with the elders of Israel, they go before Pharaoh and the showdown begins.

    There are a remarkably few scenes from the Bible that I would've liked to have witnessed but this is one of them. It must have been an awesome sight. The palace at Thebes was a grand sight, its pillars and walls ornately painted with scenes from Egypt's past. As Moses and Aaron walked in, undoubtedly their attention drawn to Ahmose smiting the Hyksos who were not unlike the Israelites. They walked past hundreds of nobles, courtiers, priests, and scribes, all richly dressed with linen kilts and shimmering jewelry. And sitting at the end of the hall on his golden throne with the Ureaus (the cobra symbol that protected Pharaoh and by extension Egypt) wrapped around his head was Pharaoh.

    Here more so the anywhere else with the possible exception of Karnack were Moses and Aaron confronted with the awesome splendor of the world's mightiest nation. And here they stood, no crowns or jewelry to announce their station; no nobles or courtiers. Instead they were dressed in simple shepherd's garb, their only symbols of power being an old, gnarled stick in each hand.

    The contrast must have been striking and yet I cannot help but wonder who truly carried the weight of power with them. Pharaoh was supposed to be god, Horus incarnate, but for all of his trappings and temporal power, did he really feel divine in the face of these two simple men? Who really carried the weight of power with them in that room 3500 years ago?

    Moses and Aaron deliver their simple message: "This is what the LORD (Yahveh), the God of Israel, says: 'Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert.'"

    Pharaoh (probably Thutmose III) had been a young man sent off to fight wars in Canaan when Moses had gone into exile. Moses had been intended for the throne by his aunt and sort of step-mother Hatshepsut (Thutmose was the son of a concubine. Egyptian family trees can be a bit confusing). But Moses had largely refused to become Pharaoh, choosing rather to side to a degree with his people. Hatshepsut had used this refusal to essentially take the throne for herself while sending her nephew and legitimate heir off into the wilderness.

    But then Moses, the Hebrew, had murdered the Egyptian task master which was just the thing Thutmose III needed. Moses had been forced into exile and shortly thereafter Hatshepsut had died, leaving Thutmose III in sole possession of the throne. He had immediately erased his cousin and aunt from history.

    Or so he had thought. Now this ghost from the past was standing before him having hardly aged a day in the 40 years he'd been gone, demanding that he let the Israelites go into the desert for a festival. Why this and why now? Who was this "Yahveh"? The God of Israel? What right did the god of slaves have to demand anything of Pharaoh, the divine incarnation of Horus on earth?

    "Who is the LORD, that I should obey him and let Israel go?" questions Pharaoh. "I do not know the LORD and I will not let Israel go."

    "The God of the Hebrews has met with us," Moses and Aaron answer. "Now let us take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the LORD our God, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword."

    Dread seizes Thutmose as his eyes flicker up to the elaborate paintings on the wall of Ahmose driving the Hyksos back to Canaan and beyond. His memory goes back to his own campaigns against the Semites, like his epic victory at Megiddo so many years ago.

    Had Moses changed his mind? Had he come back to unite the Israelites against Egypt, to overthrow the Egyptians and set himself up as the new Hyksos Pharaoh? Moses had been a skilled warrior and tactician in his day, the Pharaoh remembers. This, Thutmose resolves, he will not allow to happen at any cost.

    With a snarl, he retorts to the two prophets, "Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their labor? Get back to your work! Look, the people of the land are now numerous, and you are stopping them from working."

    But Pharaoh isn't done yet. His fear drives him to employ even harsher measures. Under the pretext of laziness, he gives orders to his foremen that they are to no longer provide straw for the Israelites to make bricks with. Straw was a key ingredient in mud bricks, which is what was used to build in Egypt. When the mud and straw were baked in the sun, the straw secreted a substance that made the bricks almost plastic like, thus preventing them from dissolving in rain. Many of these bricks have survived to this day and you can still see the straw in them.

    Yet now the Israelites are told they have to find their own straw to make bricks but they are required to make the same number of bricks as before. This is of course impossible and they are worked harder and beaten more mercilessly. When they go to Pharaoh to beg for mercy, the hard-hearted king rebuffs them, accusing them of laziness and subtly pointing the finger of blame at Moses and Aaron. Naturally they turn and rail at Moses and Aaron.

    Moses particularly is distressed. This is not at all how he envisioned this whole rescue thing working out. He knew it wasn't going to be easy, he knew that Pharaoh wasn't going to just say, "Okay, you kids have fun" and leave it at that. But not this. Instead of helping, Moses was making things worse.

    In despair, he cried out to Yahveh, wondering if somehow he had made a mistake, if he had misread what Yahveh wanted him to do. He asks if this is why Yahveh sent him to Pharaoh, to make things worse for the Israelites instead of helping them. Yahveh's answer is beautiful.

    "Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country. I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty but by my name the LORD (Yahveh) I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan where they lived as aliens. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant.

    "Therefore, say to the Israelites: 'I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from the under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. And I will bring to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to your Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD."

    What is Yahveh saying in all of this? Essentially he is saying that I have not forgotten my people or my promise. I am going to rescue you them and I am going to bring them to a better land. You just have to trust me.

    Many people when they become Christians think that their lives will instantly become better. They will get promotions at work, their spouse will love them even more, they're health will markedly improve, and they'll suddenly stop struggling with all those pesky sins.

    But this is rarely, if ever, the case. If anything, life usually gets worse, not better when we devote our lives to the service of Christ. Our coworkers and friends look at us funny, even making deriding comments about us behind our backs or even to our face. Our spouses just don't understand what we're experiencing. Temptations seem to hit us harder than ever and we still aren't Olympic athletes. In many ways, we can relate to the Israelites who are promised deliverance only to see life get markedly worse. So what gives?

    The battle between Pharaoh and Yahveh (a concept that will be dealt with in the next post) personifies arguably the central theme throughout the entire Bible: the Great Controversy between Christ and Satan. It started in heaven eons ago before coming to earth in Genesis 3. Ever since then, Christ and Satan (adversary in Hebrew) have been fighting a constant battle over humanity.

    You see there are two sides to this world: the good that is brought on by Yahveh and the bad, generated by Satan. Just like Pharaoh wasn't going to take the defection of his slaves lying down, can we really expect Satan to do the same? No, of course not. He is going to throw everything he's got at anyone who goes to the other side. So really, we should expect things to get worse.

    But there is a silver lining to all of this. Things will get better. Just like he promised the Israelites through Moses to deliver them out of the bondage of Pharaoh, Yahveh has promised to deliver us out of the bondage of Satan. Life may be harder now, but it will get better. All you have to do is endure just a little longer.

    That's really what faith is: endurance. It's trusting that no matter how bad things are now, Yahveh's promises to make this world a better place are firm and true and hanging firm to him. It's easier said than done, I know, but it doable. Look at the people in Hebrews 11 (of whom Moses is one). If you read their stories, you realize that there is nothing special about them. Yet they are remembered simply because they endured when times got rough. They refused to let go of Yahveh's promise.

    They say the night is darkest just before the dawn and in life, that is true. The hardest times, the worst pains, the most miserable moments are all just before the great things come. Serving Christ is not easy; he never promised that it would be. But he did promise that the dawn is coming.

Moses Part 5 (Exodus 4:18-31)

    In case you haven't noticed, there are parts of the Bible that leave you scratching your head as to why it is in there. Some of them are just plain disturbing stories like most of Judges while others seem random and completely unrelated to anything. Exodus 4:18-31 are among the latter.

    They are a series of seemingly random anecdotes that Moses (the author of Exodus) stuck in there as fillers and transitions. But they are part of the word of God, so they have to have some message, right? Taken individually, they really don't. But if we look at them as a whole, maybe something will appear.

    First is sort of a conclusion to the argument Moses had been having with Yahveh that we discussed in in the last three entries. Exodus says that Moses "went back to Jethro" and requested that he be allowed to return to Egypt to see his people. Jethro sends him off with a blessing.

    Yahveh tells Moses that the people who wanted to kill him are dead and so it is safe to return to Egypt (that will quickly change). Moses then took his wife and sons and the "staff of God" and headed back to Egypt. Along the way, Yahveh gives Moses another message, essentially saying that Pharaoh's going to be stupid and stubborn and resist Yahveh's commands until basically Egypt is burned to the ground and Pharaoh's firstborn is dead. It is a rather chilling statement by Yahveh, especially the "I will harden Pharaoh's heart" bit which we will discuss in greater detail later.

    Now is where things get really weird. Moses and company stop at what amounts to a Late Bronze Age version of a Motel 6 and suddenly Yahveh shows up about to kill Moses. No explanation is given but Zipporah (Moses's wife) seems to understand something that everyone else has missed. She takes a knife and cuts of her son's foreskins and then presents them to Moses with a sort of sarcastic remark. Apparently Moses hadn't circumcised his boys and Yahveh would not accept that. But thanks to Zipporah's remarkably quick thinking, the day was saved.

    Suddenly we shift scenes from Moses to Aaron, who is presumably in Egypt. Moses's brother is told to go meet Moses in the desert, which how that worked given that Aaron was a slave is never really explained but he does hook up with Moses interestingly enough at the mountain of God, where the whole burning bush thing happened and where a lot more was going to happen.

    Finally to the troop get back to Egypt where they meet with the elders of Israel. Moses and Aaron tell them what has Yahveh has told them and that they will soon be free and leave Egypt behind for good. At first it seems that the elders are hesitant about this, which is understandable considering that Moses and Aaron are proposing what amounts to a slave revolt. If it doesn't work, the consequences are decidedly not pleasant. But once Moses performs the signs Yahveh has given him (the snake, the hand, and the blood), they're convinced that Yahveh truly has come to rescue them. The chapter ends with them worshipping Yahveh together.

    As I said earlier, taken separately, these stories seem to have not point other than to fill the gap between the burning bush and Pharaoh's court. But if you look closely, you will see that these individual anecdotes are part of the same story and have a single, common thread running through them: we are not alone.

    At the beginning, Jethro gives Moses his support and blessing. Then Moses takes his wife and sons with him. Even in Yahveh's soliloquy in which he tells Moses of all the hardships he will face in Egypt, Yahveh talks about what he is going to do, the subtle message being that Yahveh is going to be fighting right beside Moss the whole way. Moses has Yahveh as his ally.

    Then there is the circumcision story, which is just plain weird. But notice something interesting: it was Zipporah, not Moses who saved the day. What if she hadn't been there? The story of Israel might have gone very differently.

    Finally, there is Aaron and the elders of Israel. Aaron meets his brother in the wilderness with joy and excitement while the elders of Israel, once convinced, are equally stoked. They throw their support and weight behind Moses 100% (at least for the moment). Moses is not alone.

    At the burning bush and even in this section, Yahveh doesn't hide from Moses exactly how hard his task is going to be. It seems almost strange that Yahveh would tell Moses about how difficult it is going to be convincing Pharaoh to let the Israelites go given how hard it was to convince Moses to try. But that is something else about Yahveh: he is upfront with you. When he gives you a hard task, he tells you exactly how hard it is going to be so that you know what you're getting into.

    But that brings us back to the story. Yes, Yahveh has given Moses a hard task, something he makes no bones about, but he has also given Moses the help he needs to do it. Moses is not alone.

    And that is the common thread, the point of all of this. We are not alone. As Christians we have been given the task of setting the world free from sin (see the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20), which in and of itself is a daunting prospect. Individually we are given specific works to do on Yahveh's behalf to accomplish this great goal. And often they aren't easy.

    When we see the enormity of our mission looming before us, it is easy to quail and feel overwhelmed. But we don't stand alone. Yahveh has given us help to do whatever it is we are sent to do. Moses had Zipporah and Aaron and the elders of Israel. We have our support team too.

    That is one of the beauties of Christianity. We are already part of a community that will give us support and assistance we need. If we are willing to see, we have people like Zipporah who have our back, who see our mistakes when we don't and fix them. We're human after all and make all kinds of mistakes. We need those who have our backs. Yahveh has given them to us.

    We also are surrounded by Aarons, people who are strong where we are weak. We can't do everything, try as we might. There are things, probably lots of things that we're just not good at. But there are lots of people who are and Yahveh will give us those we need.

    Then there are the elders and Jethro. While the Bible doesn't specifically record it, I'm certain that there were naysayers among the Israelites. But there were more than a few among the influential that backed Moses. The same is true with Jethro, who sent his daughter and grandsons with Moses to Egypt. There will be those who say that you're wrong and that what you're doing is foolish and impossible, but there will also be those who believe in the same mission you do. You will have support from them.

    The point is we are not alone. Yahveh will give us the pieces we need to do his work. Yes, it is hard. Yes, it is overwhelming but Yahveh knows this. He understand we need help and he will give it, just like he gave Moses. We are not alone.

Moses Part 4 (Exodus 3:16-4:18)

    Now that Yahveh has told Moses who he is, he reiterates his command. Moses is to go back to Egypt and lead the children of Israel to the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Yahveh also warns Moses that it isn't going to be a simple matter of walking up to Pharaoh and saying, "Let my people go." Pharaoh was going to fight and resist but in the end, Yahveh promised, he would yield.

    How does Moses take all of this? "What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, 'The LORD did not appear to you?'"

    When we read this, often we wonder at Moses's doubt and hesitation. After all, he was talking to Yahveh in a burning bush. Isn't that enough?

    But I can understand his hesitation. This wasn't Yahveh telling him to clean his room or something trivial like that. Yahveh was calling Moses to be the liberator of an entire nation, a daunting task to say the least. I know I would be overwhelmed.

    Yahveh understands too. Instead of rebuking Moses for his doubt, he instead gives Moses a sign.

    "What is in your hand?" he asks.

    "A staff," Moses replies.

    "Throw it on the ground."

    Moses does so and to his astonishment, the stick turns into a snake, which he naturally runs from. But Yahveh tells him to reach out and grab the serpent by the tail. Carefully Moses does so only to see the snake become a staff again.

    "This," Yahveh says, "is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers-the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-has appeared to you."

    If this were me, I'd be good at this point (along with more than a little frightened of my staff). But Yahveh isn't done yet.

    "Put your hand inside your cloak," he orders Moses.

    When Moses pulls his hand back out, to his horror, it is leprous (side note: not necessarily leprosy; the ancient Hebrews called a wide variety of skin diseases leprosy). But Yahveh tells him to put his hand back in and this time when Moses pulls it out, his hand is back to normal.

    Yet Yahveh still isn't done giving Moses ammo. "If they don't believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground."

    A staff that turns into a snake, a hand that can be come leprous on command, and the ability to turn water into blood; that should be plenty to give Moses the confidence that he can do this. He's got the power, right? But, nope.

    "O LORD," Moses whines, "I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue."

    Yahveh's answer cuts to the heart of this issue. "Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?" (ESV)

    Who has made man's mouth?

    Moses has completely missed the point. All he can see are the problems: I can't do this, they won't do that, so on and so forth. In fact, even after Yahveh has laid this boom on him, Moses still says, "O Lord, please send someone else to do it."

    To his credit, it is a daunting task that Yahveh has called him to. Yahveh is asking Moses to go virtually by himself to the most powerful man in the entire world and challenge him to a battle of the gods and that's the easy part. He then has to take a group of slaves and mold them into a functioning nation. Moses has a wife and kids and a simple, peaceful life. I can understand him not wanting to leave that and I can understand him being overwhelmed. Most of us would be too; we can understand Moses's self-doubt.

    But that self-doubt is the problem. Moses doesn't believe he can do it, which many of us would mistake for humility but that's not humility: it's a lack of faith.

    You see, that's the point Moses missed. Yahveh has called him to this task, he made him for this task and now Moses is essentially saying that Yahveh made a mistake. That is what Moses's is really saying when he says "Send someone else." No wonder Yahveh's anger "burned against Moses."

    But Yahveh doesn't make mistakes, as he reminds Moses. He created Moses, he has the power to fill in whatever Moses lacks and he will. Yahveh is saying, "You can do this because I say you can and that is all that you need."

    Who has made man's mouth?

    All of us were created with a purpose, a task. It may not be as epic as Moses's, freeing an entire race from bondage and making a nation out of them, but it is something. And often it is something we feel is over our heads.

    "I can't be a missionary."

    "I can't learn a new language."

    "I know nothing about teaching."

    "I can't speak in front of people."

    I can't, I can't, I can't.

    We try to pass off our doubt as being humble. We say that we aren't doubting Yahveh, we just know our limits. But that isn't remotely true because we know that Yahveh has called us to that, whatever that is, and we are saying to Yahveh, "You're wrong."

    Isn't that definition of being faithless? Yahveh has made us, created us, and called us. He knows what we're capable of far more than we do. If there is anyone we should trust about what we can do, it ought to be him. When we doubt ourselves, we are really doubting him.

    Yahveh has a purpose, a mission for your life. So when you confront it and you feel overwhelmed, remember who has made man's mouth.

Moses Part 3 (Exodus 3:7-15)

    Moses is standing there in front of a burning bush that has claimed to be the God of his ancestors. Strange as that seems he believes the bush and takes off his shoes and covers his face. This is probably one of those "you had to be there to understand" moments. Obviously God wasn't the burning bush; indeed the Bible says that it was a voice from within the bush that was God but still this had to be a rather peculiar experience.

    This whole episode begs the question why is God in a burning bush in the middle of a desert talking to disgraced-prince-turned-shepherd?

    The answer is simple: God has seen the suffering of his people and now he's about to do something about it. He is going to deliver the Israelites from the Egyptians and bring them "into a land flowing with milk and honey." And he has chosen Moses as his instrument to do this.

    Moses's response to this epic calling? "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"

    Translation: "Say what now?"

    Moses hesitation is understandable. Last time he was in Egypt, he failed miserably as the "savior" of Israel. He was forced to flee his home and his family as a humiliated murderer who had lost the respect of his people and his peers. Now he was an 80 year old shepherd. Who would feel up to that task under those or really any other circumstances?

    But not to worry; God gives Moses a promise. "I will be with you. And this will be a sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain."

    At this point, I imagine Moses crossing his arms and looking very serious. At least that's the image that comes to mind when I read his reply to God's promise to be by his side.

    "Suppose I go to the Israelites," Moses begins (note the "suppose") and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?"

    To us this seems like a fairly routine question. After all, what is the first thing you ask someone when you meet them? What is your name, right? Simple and basic.

    But we have to understand the cultural context of this question. In our culture, a name is little more than a group of sounds that identify a particular thing or person. I am designated "Jonathan." That is how people differentiate me from others around me, although with a name as common as Jonathan that can be a little difficult at times.

    However in the Ancient Near East, a name was far more than an identifying mark: it was your identity. Great significance was attached to the meaning of your name; your name defined you.

    There are tons of examples of this in the Bible. In the book of Hosea, which is a fascinating story in and of itself, God tells Hosea to name his kids (although some, it would seem, are not actually his kids) specific things for a certain message. In the book of Genesis, God changes a man's name from Abram (exalted father) to Abraham (father of many). Later on, he changes another person's name from Jacob (grasper/deceiver) to Israel (he struggles with God).

    We could go on and on with examples of names and their meaning, but the point is that in that culture, to ask someone their name was to ask far more than simply what to call them; you were asking who they were. Moses's question isn't just "What is your name?" It is "Who are you?"

    In God's introduction admittedly had been a bit vague in Hebrew. Literally translated, God introduced himself as the "spirit" or "god (generic)" of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That doesn't tell Moses much. This could just be some local spirit or deity sending Moses against the powerful gods of the Egyptians.

    But God's answer is unlike any Moses could've expected. He says, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'"

    Initially this answer makes even less sense but think about it. A name is more than just a word to identify someone: a name captures the essence of who that person is and no other name could've so perfectly described God. After all, how does one describe the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God of the universe? I AM fits perfectly.

    God is in effect saying to Moses, "You want to know who I am? I just am. You cannot define me; you cannot put me into a box like you do with other gods. I am beyond your comprehension and understanding. The best you can understand is that I just am."

    But there is even more to it than that. In Hebrew, the phrase is more accurately translated, "I will be who I will be." What does this mean? This means that God is self-determinant.

    This is something that sets this God apart from all the others. The gods that Moses knew of could be bought or bribed or controlled. You offer a certain sacrifice to a certain god who then is bound to perform a certain act. You say a certain prayer to a certain other god and that god will then do thus. Egyptian religion was very rigid and ritualistic. They even buried people with "How-to" manuals on getting into the afterlife.

    God is saying something very different to Moses here. He is saying that he cannot be bought or bribed or controlled. It is he, not you, that gives the commands around here, something that I think our society has forgotten. God is who he is and he alone determines that.

    This leads into another characteristic of God that his name brings out: his eternalness. Part of God being self-determinant is being self-existent. For us, a big part of who we are is determined by genetics from our hair color down to our personality. We don't have a say, or much of one, in any of these things.

    But God has no creator. He just is and always has been. God chose his personality and characteristics; they weren't determined by anything other than himself and they never will be. He will be who he will be.

    This leads us to God giving Moses the name that he will be remembered by for generations, the name I have usually used on this blog, a name that you may have noticed as being absent the last couple of posts: Yahveh.

    In our English Bibles, this name is translated LORD because Jews from roughly the time of Jesus decided that the name of God was too holy to be spoken aloud, something I find ironic since Yahveh said that it is by that name he will be remembered forever.

    The name itself, which no one is entirely sure how it is pronounced, comes from these four letters: YHVH (V is also written W), which is a derivative of the Hebrew "to be" very, HYH. Literally, the name Yahveh means "he is."

    He is. A perfect name for God. Yahveh is far too great to be summed up in a name so just declaring that "he is" is enough.

    It is a name that leaves you hanging. He is…what? Something is supposed to go there, right? Perhaps something is and that is the challenge for us. Fill in the blank. Find out who he is.

    That is the beautiful thing about Yahveh: there is always something more to discover with him. There is a richness and depth that surpasses everything else in the universe. Getting to know him isn't the work of a lifetime; it is the work of eternity and even that is not enough.

    His name is also the answer to the questions the Israelites were asking. "Where is God?" "Does he care?" "Does he exist?"

    This name is Yahveh's way of saying, "Yes, I do exist, and yes, I do care, and yes, I am here to save you."

    Today people are asking the same questions and the answers have not changed in the last 3500 years. Yes, Yahveh does exist. Yes, he does care. And yes, he is going to fix the world.

    People ask me how I can have faith and hope in such a messed up world. They ask me how I can believe in a God of love and kindness when there is so much cruelty. They ask me how I know that God is who he says he is. My answer is simply to say his name.

    He just is.

Moses Part 2

    Forty years have passed since Moses went into his self-imposed exile. He has married Zipporah, one of the women he rescued, and had a son, Gershom. No longer does he rule as the prince of Egypt; now he is a simple shepherd tending the sheep of his father-in-law.

    According to the Bible, Moses has taken the flock to a place called Horeb (it will be significant later on) when he sees a strange sight: there is a bush on fire. Now this in and of itself is not unusual. It is the Sinai Desert after all, which is hot and miserable and bushes I imagine catch fire all the time. But there is something strange about this burning bush.

    It doesn't burn up.

    Instead it continues to burn and burn without the leaves or the branches ever being affected.

    Curious and probably a little bored (tending sheep isn't generally an adrenaline rush), Moses goes over to investigate. And that is when his life changes forever. As he steps closer, he hears a voice calling to him.

    "Moses! Moses!"

    This had to have confused Moses. He was looking at a strange bush that was on fire, yet not consumed and now there was a voice speaking to him. The thought that he had been getting far too much sun must have crossed his mind.

    Yet he decides to play along and answers, "Here I am."

    "Do not come any closer," the voice commands. "Take off your sandals, for the place you are standing is holy ground."

    Again Moses must have just been more confused. He's standing on holy ground? But all there is is a voice and a strange bush. This isn't a temple or a sanctuary; it's the middle of nowhere!

    Then the voice identifies himself. "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."

    Suddenly everything clicked for Moses. Moses realized with terror that he was standing in the very presence of God himself. So quickly he covered his face because, the Bible says, "he was afraid to look at God."

    "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground."

    Several years ago, then-President George Bush was giving a speech in Iraq to several Iraqis after the successful (more or less) removal of Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party. During the Q&A part of the speech, an Iraqi threw his shoe at the President, who displayed admirable reflexes in ducking it. While most of us laugh it off as strange and comical, in that culture what that man did was a far greater insult than if one of us had flipped off President Bush.

    In many cultures today, the Middle East included, the foot is vilest part of the body. Showing someone the bottom of your foot is a worse insult that the finger is here and taking your shoes off when entering a home or a building is a sign of respect. For example, when I was in Laos, we took our shoes off when going into the sanctuary. To us this tradition may seem strange, but to them it is a matter of reverence and respect.

    This brings us back to Moses. God tells him to take his shoes off because he is standing on holy ground. For the former prince of Egypt, being on holy ground certainly wasn't anything new. Egypt was covered with temples and sanctuaries. Even today, the vast complexes at Karnak, Abu Symbel, and Luxor fascinate archaeologists. Taking his shoes off when entering a holy site wasn't something new for Moses.

    But this time, he wasn't at a temple or a sanctuary. He was out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of sheep. There were no priests, no statues, no altars: just him, a bush, and some sheep. And this was holy ground? It begs the question, what makes this place holy?

    The answer is obvious: God was there and anywhere God is, is holy. Well of course anywhere God is holy, we all get that. But do we get that God can be anywhere?

    When we think of a holy place, for most of us our minds immediately think of the church sanctuary. We even have special rules for the sanctuary: we wear our best clothes, speak softly, and never run. Now there's nothing wrong with that: the sanctuary is a holy place and we do go there to meet God. But so often we treat it as the only holy place in our lives; as if it is the only place we go to meet God.

    Yet in the Bible, very rarely do people actually meet God at the sanctuary or temple. They meet God by the sides of roads, on the tops of mountains, in caves, on boats, even at tea time (that's an interesting story). All of these places become "holy ground."

    Do we realize that we are walking on holy ground all the time? Anywhere God is is holy ground and God meets us anywhere. He meets us in our bedrooms, in the car, in class, in church, at lunch, even in the bathroom from time to time. Will we, like Moses, recognize that the ground we are standing on is holy and take off our sandals or will we just walk on by?

Moses part 1 (Exodus 1-2)

    Moses is someone that I don't think gets nearly enough press time in Christianity. We like to tell stories of David or Daniel or Joshua or some other Old Testament hero but Moses seems to get overlooked. More often than not, when Moses is mentioned, it is as the man who brought the Law and somehow he gets critiqued for simply doing his job.

    But when you study the Bible, arguably no other character other than Christ himself had more impact both on the world of the Bible and even our world today. Many of the laws and principles that he wrote down (although he did not create them) are still used today. The 10 Commandments are still looked at as the standard of morality whether you believe in God or not (a fact I find somewhat ironic).

    More than that, Moses's life was an epic drama. He seemed to go from one mountaintop experience to the next, dealing with absurd problems with even grander solutions. Elijah had Mount Carmel as his pinnacle; for Moses, that was in a day's work.

    He was tasked not just with bringing Yahveh's people out of the land of slavery but then leading them to the Promised Land all the while teaching them what it meant not only to be an independent nation, but Yahveh's people.

    Above all what fascinates me about Moses though is his relationship with Yahveh. It is one of the most unique in history. There seemed to be such a closeness and familiarity between the two that it was almost an informal friendship. Yahveh himself remarked as the specialness of the relationship in Numbers 12 when Yahveh tells Miriam and Aaron that unlike other prophets, he speaks with Moses "face to face."

    Prophet, liberator, poet, leader, judge, warrior, shepherd; Moses was all of these things and much more. And so I am going to do a character study of him which will be posted in the next few blogs which (hopefully) won't have months in between.

    It would almost be criminal if Moses wasn't born in dramatic circumstances. Everything else in his life was epic, so why not this.

    The book of Genesis, which largely functions as a long introduction to the rest of the Bible, ends with Jacob (or Israel and the progenitor of the Israelites) being in Egypt which is basically under the care of his son Joseph. Exodus 1 opens up with Jacob and all of his sons, Joseph included, being dead and a new Pharaoh ruling Egypt who, the Bible says, "did not know Joseph." So naturally he enslaves the Israelites, who had apparently been breeding like rabbits in the intervening time.

    We read this and immediately go, "What?" I mean, this seems to escalate rather quickly from, "Hey, come down to Egypt and live with us," to "You're all my slaves because I'm scared you might join my enemies." So perhaps a little historical background would help.

    The Exodus (Israel escaping Egypt) happened roughly around the year 1446 BC, which is 480 years before Solomon completed the Temple, something that is dated from when Shishak (an Egyptian Pharaoh ironically enough) sacked Jerusalem. Admittedly there is a lot of debate over when the Exodus happened; many scholars prefer to date the Exodus to the reign of Ramses II in the 13^th century BC due to other factors, but I disagree.

    Why is this date important? Between the time of Joseph in the late 18^th-early 17^th centuries BC and the Exodus, a group of people from Canaan called the Hyksos conquered/took over northern Egypt, which is where the Israelites had settled. The Hyksos ruled up until the year 1560 or so when the Pharaoh Ahmose I kicked them out. In fact Ahmose and subsequent Pharaohs went on a rampage in Canaan, sacking just about anything they could get their hands on to ensure that the Hyksos never came back.

    So look at it from the Pharaoh's point of view. He has just reunited Egypt from a bunch Semitic barbarians (in his mind) and he discovers a horde of Semitic shepherds still living in Egypt. Even though the Israelites aren't Hyksos, they are far closer to being Hyksos than Egyptian. The natural question is what if the Hyksos come back? They have potential allies sitting right here and if the Israelites join them, we're in deep trouble. Pharaoh's fear was a legitimate one.

    His response to this is less so. Pharaoh's idea of population control is to literally work the Israelites to death. The Bible says that he "put Slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor and they built the Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh."

    But it didn't work. Instead, the Israelites grew even more numerous so Pharaoh resorted to even more drastic measures. He commanded the Hebrew midwives, a couple of women named Shiphrah and Puah to kill every boy that is born. Naturally the midwives are horrified and don't carry out the ghastly order. Finally at his wits end, Pharaoh sends in the army with orders to get every young boy and toss him into the Nile River.

    Into this mess is born a child to a family of Levi, Amram and Jochobed. Naturally they didn't want their son tossed to the crocodiles and so they tried to hide him from the soldiers, more or less successfully for three months. But soon enough they realized they couldn't keep him forever.

    Drastic times call for drastic measures they say and what the family did was certainly drastic. Figuring that the child was supposed to be thrown into the Nile, they decided to follow through with that order on their own terms. The family made a reed basket, waterproofed it, put the baby inside, and tossed him into the river, praying that somewhere, someone would take pity on him.

    As fate or luck or providence would have it, that is precisely what happened. The reed basket bore its precious cargo through the perils of the Nile to the place where one of the princesses of Egypt bathed. Picking it up and looking inside, she discovered, much to her shock I imagine, a baby.

    Taking it as a religious sign (the Nile, like literally everything else, was considered holy) she decided to adopt the baby, naming him Moses. Actually, Moses real name was probably longer than that, as Pharaohs during that time were fond of using "Moses" as a suffix to their royal name (Ah-mose, Thut-mose I-IV, and a couple of others). Whatever his full name was, Moses became a prince of Egypt.

    But this is only the beginning of our story. Moses spent his first 12 years or so living with his mother, learning about the Hebrew God El-Shaddai and his promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He saw firsthand the oppression of his people. After this, Moses went to the Egyptian schools where he learned Egyptian theology, philosophy, diplomacy, strategy, reading, and writing, as well as much more. According to the book of Acts, Moses spent 40 years as the prince of Egypt, leading their armies and ruling their people.

    Two things were happening simultaneously. First, Moses began to believe that it was his mission to deliver his people. He saw how they suffered and knew that it was a stroke of fate that prevented him from being where they were. To see his people suffer burned him.

    The second thing was that resentment was building against him from among the Israelites. This was only natural; after all Moses was living the life of ease and luxury while they suffered horribly and all that separated them from him was luck. They saw Moses as a sellout, a traitor.

    One day Moses came down to see his people. When he did, he saw an Egyptian mercilessly beating an Israelite. Anger surged through him and Moses decided that enough was enough. Making sure that no one was watching, Moses put all that military training to use and killed the man, burying his body in the sand.

    Going back the next day, Moses came across two Israelites who were fighting. Trying to break up the fight, he demanded why they, brothers, were attacking each other. The stronger and more powerful of the combatants looked and Moses and retorted, "Who made you ruler over us? Are you going to kill me like you killed the Egyptian?"

    Moses knew he was in deep do-do. Prince though he might be, Moses was still an Israelite which had to have put him on thin ice with Pharaoh. Killing an Egyptian would be just the excuse Pharaoh needed to get rid of this potential foreign pest. Knowing that to stay would be suicide, Moses ran and didn't stop running until he came to the land of Midian on the far side of the Sinai Peninsula.

    He had to have been discouraged. He had screwed up big time, betrayed by his people and losing everything he had. But here in the desert, Moses learned that life does not stop just because things go wrong.

    Sitting by the well, he saw a group of women bringing their sheep to get some water. Suddenly, a group of other shepherds appeared and tried to drive the women away. Once again Moses put his military training to use and rescued the women (without killing anyone this time, we presume).

    After initially leaving him alone at the well, the girls brought Moses to meet their father, Jethro (here called Reuel for some unknown reason), who gave Moses a home, a job, and a family (he married Jethro's daughter Zipporah who gave him two sons). Maybe Moses wasn't the deliverer he had thought himself to be and maybe he wasn't the prince of Egypt anymore, but he had a life that anyone would envy: a life of peace and quiet. But the Israelites continued to suffer.

    A question that I had while reading all of this, a question that surely must have come to you as well, is where is God in all of this? Repeatedly in the book of Genesis, God promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that he would make their descendants into a mighty nation. Yet for a long time (we don't know how long exactly, but most likely over a hundred years) the Israelites are suffering as slaves in Egypt. And God does nothing. What gives?

    Indeed, God doesn't show up until the last couple of verses in chapter two, where it says that the Israelites "groaning" and "cries for help" reached God's ears and he "remembered" his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What does that mean? Did God forget? Was he busy with some other disaster in the galaxy? No, of course not. God had told Abraham that this would happen (Genesis 15:14). But why did God just let it happen?

    One of the great philosophical and theological questions that comes up is why does a God of love allow such awful things to happen. It's a question I'm certain the Israelites were asking. What have we done to deserve this?

    The answer of course is nothing. This wasn't about the Israelites getting what they deserved; it was about the Egyptian Pharaohs being evil. A question that will come up again and again over the next few stories is the question of free will. Are we free to choose or does God control everything we do? The answer, of course, is the former. But with that freedom comes consequences and one of those consequences is that people are free to do horrible things to other people. And they do, every day. For there to be true freedom, there must be freedom for evil to have its day.

    Now this would be awful and horrible if it stopped there. We would find ourselves in a never-ending cycle of oppression and persecution. But it doesn't stop there. The last verse of chapter two tells us that God was "concerned about them."

    He was "concerned"? What does that mean? It is the Bible's subtle way of saying that God was paying attention and was going to do something about the evil that was going on. You see, this is where the hope comes in. Yes, God does allow evil to reign for a day but only for a day. God will hear the cries of the oppressed and there will be a reckoning. He will come to their aide and evil will be punished, as we will see in later chapters.

    Maybe you're suffering from oppression right now. Maybe you're crying out to God but feel like you're only talking to the walls. Maybe you're about to give up. Don't. There is light at the end of the tunnel. God does hear you and he is "concerned" and one day, sooner or later, he will come to your rescue. Evil reigns for a day, but only a day.

Acceptance, Tolerance, and Christian Love (Sin, Homosexuality, and Love part 3)

    At this point you may be asking where love and acceptance fit into all of this. Actually you're probably asking where I've been I haven't finished this series in about six months. The answer to the latter is a combination of laziness and busyness. But that is not important.

    In the first part of this series, I described how sin is, at its core, a rebellion against the sovereignty of Yahveh, the Almighty Creator and God of the universe. We are born in this state of rebellion and it is only through the sacrifice of Christ and swearing allegiance to him that we can switch sides back to God. In a metaphorical sense, Christ's death on the Cross puts us back in the Garden where we have the same choice as Adam and Eve between the two trees.

    The second part of the series dealt specifically with the question of homosexuality and how it relates to the way of the Kingdom of Heaven. According to what the Bible says, the homosexual lifestyle (key word: "lifestyle") is not compatible with the Kingdom of Heaven.

    This brings us back to the question posed at the beginning: where does the love and acceptance of Christ fit into all of this? How do we, as Christians deal, with the question of homosexuality?

    Admittedly it is a bit of a sticky question. On the one hand, people remind me that Jesus hung out with tax collectors and prostitutes and that I am called to love people like Christ did. But on the other hand I know that homosexuality is not an acceptable lifestyle for the members of the Kingdom of Heaven. So how can these be reconciled?

    I think the root of the issue is a misunderstanding about the difference between "acceptance" and "tolerance." Often, as with like and love, we think of acceptance and tolerance as the same thing. They are not. So what then is the difference?

    Acceptance is what we allow to come in. Think of it like university acceptance standards for admissions. Some have very high acceptance standards where to get in you need good recommendations, high grades, excellent test scores, and a long list of other things for admissions, Harvard for example. Others will take you if you have a pulse, like most community colleges.

    Tolerance is what we allow to stay in. Continuing the university example, most universities have an academic standard that must be maintained. If you don't maintain that standard, you're out. Again some are stricter than others but even community colleges aren't particularly pleased with poor grades. And, no matter what school you attend, if you fail your core classes, you cannot receive your degree.

    Christianity is a very accepting religion. As said in the last post, salvation is no respecter of persons. All are welcome to the Kingdom of Heaven, regardless of past or history. In the last post, I quoted Paul from 1^st Corinthians giving a long list of sins that will exclude people from being saved. Then Paul immediately points out the Corinthians all did these things but Christ had sanctified them. John 3:16 reminds us that Christ died for the whole world. Jesus spent much of his time seeking out sinners and the lowest of the low because, as he put it, "It is the sick that need a doctor, not the healthy." A thief was promised salvation as he was dying on the cross next to Jesus. Paul writes in Romans that the gift of eternal life is free to all who accept it. Reading the New Testament from beginning to end, it is perfectly clear that there is no standard one must have lived up to be accepted into the Kingdom of Heaven; no "you must be at least this high to ride." All are welcome.

    However, while Christianity is a very accepting religion, it is a very intolerant religion. If you choose to follow Christ, that means you accept his lordship over you (Romans 10:9), which in turn means that you accept to live by his rules. Jesus does not make any accommodations for anyone. When he said in his Sermon on the Mount "Be perfect therefore, as your Father in Heaven is perfect," he wasn't kidding.

    There is a story that illustrates this perfectly in Matthew 19. Most people know it as the story of the Rich Young Man or Rich Young Ruler. The gist of the story is that this young man who is quite wealthy comes up to Christ, asking what he needs to do to obtain eternal life. At first Jesus tells the man that he needs to keep the commandments, to which the young man replies that he had. Though his claim is suspicious, Jesus accepts this and adds that the young man needs to sell everything has, give the proceeds to the poor and follow him.

    At this, the man balks because, as Matthew writes, "he had great wealth" (verse 19). What does Jesus? Nothing. He just lets him go. No compromising, no "hold on, let's talk about this." Christ was willing to let this guy walk away from eternal life rather than compromise. That is textbook intolerance. And you know what? I'm okay with that.

    That is because Christianity is about going somewhere. We aren't just a club to sit around sipping drinks and discussing politics. If it was, then intolerance would make no sense. But we aren't a club; we're a movement. We are moving toward building the world that Christ will one day recreate and rule his way. This world will be the world as it should have been with no pain, no sickness, no death, and no sin period.

    This is the world that we as Christians are working towards which means eliminating character traits, habits, thoughts, lifestyles and such that will have no place in the New Earth. One of those, one of many, is homosexuality. As Christians, we are to be focused solely on following Yahveh and emulating him to the best of our ability, as we were created to do in the beginning. Those who want to join us are more than welcome, regardless of background or past or anything. And those who don't, don't have to; just as Christ didn't force the Rich Young Ruler to follow him, neither do we force anyone to follow Christ.

    If you're still confused, think of Christianity like a bus and the people on the bus as Christians. We are all going to a specific destination on a very specific route, say New York on I-80. Anyone who is going where we're going the way we're going is welcome, no matter how gross he or she might be. We'll take kings and beggars equally. That is the accepting part of Christianity.

    But what if someone comes along that wants to get on, but instead of going to New York decides he wants to go to LA? Or wants to go along I-10? That person, no matter how good or bad, is frankly not welcome. It has nothing to do with them personally; it is simply that they are not going where we're going and the bus driver (Christ) is not going to change for him or her. He or she must be willing to change for the bus driver.

    Someone who wants to be a Christian but wants to keep living their life their own way is like that person. They are not going to the same destination or the same way that Christ is and such are not welcomed.

    This is true for so much more than just homosexuality. This is true for anything that is sin, which is why there are so many lists of what is not in the Kingdom of Heaven in the New Testament. Sin is ultimately setting yourself up as your own God and dictator of your own reality. That rebellion against the sovereignty of Yahveh is what started this whole mess in the first place and it will ultimately be wiped out.

    As members of the Christian movement, we are obligated to accept with open arms all those who are serious about following Christ as their lord and savior, no matter how sordid their past might be. But equally so we are obligated to not bend or compromise the way of Christ for anyone, no matter how appealing they might be. The Rich Young Ruler was just that, rich, young, and influential. I am sure there were many disciples who were furious that Christ let him walk away rather than compromise. But that is not his way. And that is what this is all really about: living life Christ's way. It is not easy and demands sacrifice of all of us. After all, Jesus himself said that the way is narrow there are few that find it.

    Now this does not mean that those who slip up are automatically kicked off the bus. Hardly because we are still heading in the same direction. But those who try to change the bus's directions or want to go a different route are. Christ had infinite patience for those who truly desired to follow him, but none for those who did not. The same is true with us. Those who truly are seeking Christ are accepted unilaterally and with no hesitation. But those who want to live their own way as Christians we are to have no tolerance towards.