A Thought For The Week Of January 9, 2017

"There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush." (Exodus 3:2) The burning bush was not God. That's interesting because I think that many people have a tendency to equate the burning bush with God. Or at least to believe that God was in the burning bush - but the text doesn't even specifically say that. It says only that God spoke to Moses "from within the burning bush." That jumped out at me as I reflected on this passage. God was not the burning bush and God didn't even appear as a burning bush and God was not even specifically in the burning bush. Actually what the text tells us is that "an angel of the Lord" was "in flames of fire from within a bush." An angel is a messenger. The flames that didn't consume the bush were a message from God to Moses. That's what the story is telling us and, to me, that gives an entirely different feel to the story than what we usually sense. Whether the details of the conversation between Moses and God actually happened exactly as described - who knows? I expect that the words are more a description of how Moses' encounter impacted him than a verbatim account. And maybe it isn't the specific words that matter most anyway. Maybe the most important message we take from this story is to always keep our eyes open and to always be aware of what's happening around us. We have to do that because this story tells us that sometimes God appears and speaks in the strangest and most unexpected ways. We have to discern, of course. Just because something is strange and unexpected doesn't mean that it's of God. The test is surely conformity to what we as Christians believe is the perfect revelation of God - the life of Jesus Christ. But God does speak in and through the strange and unexpected: a burning bush, a baby in a manger, John the Baptist - and perhaps now and then even you and I! Meaning that we always have to be prepared for an encounter with God - even when and where and how we least expect it.