The Bush

One of my favorite stories in the Old Testament is the account of Moses’ conversation with a bush, a story Jesus entitled simply, “The Bush” (Luke 20:37). 

This is the way Moses tells the story (Exodus 3). 

He was trudging through the desert trailing his father-in-law’s little band of sheep when he spied a bush. On fire. 

That in itself was not unusual for dry lightning often set fires in the desert. Nor was there anything special about the bush. It was a scraggly, old desert sage or creosote bush, one of millions, barely subsisting in the wilderness. But extraordinarily, the bush was not consumed by the flames. 

So Moses turned aside to see the sight, whereupon, he encountered a talking bush (or rather God talking in a bush) and entered into one of history’s most remarkable conversations.

God (in the Bush): “Moses, Moses!”

Moses: “Here I am”

God (in the Bush): “ I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians have oppressed my people… I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my children, out of Egypt.”

Moses: “Who me? WHO AM I?” 

(I think, had God called Moses forty years before he might have answered. “I’m your man!” for he was then a young man, a mighty warrior, full of self-confidence. But there’s nothing like trailing a band of moronic. malodorous sheep for forty years to draw down one’s sense of worth and well-being.)

God (in the Bush): “It doesn’t matter who you are. I will be with you.”

Moses: “Well then, WHO ARE YOU?

God (in the Bush): “‘I AM’^[1] is who I am. ’I AM' is the name I have given myself. What do you need, Moses: wisdom, love, courage, righteousness, power, patience?  ‘I AM’ all you need! … And that’s all you and I need to know. 

But, I ask you, why this indirection? Why speak to Moses in a shrub and not “face to face” as was God's custom. 

Because, you see, the medium (the bush) is the message: "If God is in it, any old bush will do.” 

David Roper
2.21.22

^[1] God’s name, probably pronounced Yahweh, is based on the Hebrewverb "I am."

"Winter into Winter"

Is that a deathbed where a Christian lies?  

Yes, but not his—’tis Death itself that dies.  

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge

***

I’m fascinated by stories of "unreached people groups” and the means by which the gospel finds its way into these cultures. This week, while reading a history of England, I came across this report:

In 731, a British abbot, known to later generations as the Venerable Bede, wrote the first history of England: The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. (The world also owes to Bede the practice of reckoning years from the birth of Christ.) 

Bede tells us that King Edwin, a 7th century king of North Umbria, called a council of his wisest retainers to consider their response to the evangel. Bede reports that one of the king's chief men gave the following speech, in which he compared our life to that of a sparrow flying through a hall in winter:         

The present life of man upon earth, O King, seems to me, in comparison with that time which is unknown to us, is like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the house wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your eldermen and theons, while the fire blazes in the midst, and the hall is warmed, but the wintry storms of rain or snow are raging abroad. The sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry tempest; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, passing from winter into winter again. So this life of man appears for a little while, but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all. If, therefore, this new doctrine tells us something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.  

How dark and bleak. And how tragic. One brief moment of existence, “but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all.” Why go on when every breath we draw is taking us into an uncertain, terrifying future? 

I think of friends and neighbors around me, living “without hope” (Ephesians  2:12), “passing from winter into winter again,” not knowing what is to follow. But, thank God, by His mercy we can be "born again into a life full of hope. through Christ’s rising again from the dead! We can now hope for a perfect inheritance beyond the reach of change and decay, kept in Heaven for us. In the meantime we will be kept by the power of God operating through our faith, till we enter fully into the salvation which is being held in trust for us at last” (1 Peter 1:3-5).

This is indeed “the doctrine that tells us something more certain” that “seems justly to deserve to be followed.” Heaven is “kept” for us and we are “kept" for heaven. It’s an open invitation; the door is wide open. Bede tells us that King Edwin entered in and many of the people of North Umbria with him.

Jesus said,, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25,26). This is the unshakable guarantee, the rock-solid assurance, the blood-bought promise. “Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” 

Do you believe this? There is nothing “more certain.”

David Roper
2.13.22

Staying Put

I’ll stay where you put me; 
I will dear Lord
Though I want so badly to go.
I’m eager to march with the rank and file, 
For I want to lead them, you know.
I long to keep step to the music loud,
To cheer when the banner’s unfurled,
To stand in the midst of the fight straight and proud,
But I’ll stay where you put me, dear Lord.

In Homer’s version of the Odyssey, battle weary Odysseus sets sail for Ithaca after long years fighting in the Trojan War. He forsakes the voluptuous sea nymph, Calypso to go home to his wife Penelope and her needlepoint.

In a modern sequel to The Odyssey, Nikos Kazantzakis has Odysseus returning home and staying long enough to slay Penelope’s suitors, but he cannot cure his restlessness, and soon sets sail again for parts unknown. 

Kazantzakis echoes our nagging yen to move on.

 Certainly there may be good reasons to move to another place, but simple restlessness—“looking for a greater challenge”—is not one of them. Long ago I recognized my discontent for what it is: a longing for that elusive “something more”—that hunger for God himself that will not be satisfied until I reach my final home.

I met an old fellow some years back—Ralph was his name—who managed a backcountry ranch. I asked him if he ever thought of moving to a less remote place. “Why would I do that,” he drawled, “when I’m already where I want to be.”  

There’s a good deal of wisdom in those words, especially when we know that our present place is the place God has put us and thus is the place we want to be. We can "stay put” until he tells us it’s time to move on. 

"Oh restless heart, that beats against your prison bars of circumstances, yearning for a wider sphere of usefulness, leave God to order all your days. Patience and trust, in the dullness of the routine of life, will be the best preparation for a courageous bearing of the tug and strain of the larger opportunity which God may some time send you" —L.B. Cowman

David Roper