Just a Thought
The scene reported in the passage from the Book of Exodus read on this Sunday is among the most famous in the Bible. It tells of an important phase in salvation history, Moses’ call, to which the revelation of the divine name was associated. Born in Egypt, raised by Pharaoh’s daughter, Moses had received a well-rounded education and did not share the conditions of his Hebrew brothers and sisters, subjected to heavy labours. But in his heart, he had remained one of them and did not hesitate to kill an Egyptian who mistreated a Hebrew. As word of this spread, he was forced to flee and take refuge ‘in the land of Midian’, where he resumed the nomadic existence of his ancestors and renewed contact with the traditions of the patriarchs. While he was leading the flock of his father-in-law across the desert, Moses received the gift of a theophany (vision of God):
‘He came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in fire flaming out of a bush….the bush, though on fire, was not consumed.’
The ‘angel of the Lord’ designates God himself when he manifests himself. The ‘Mountain of God’designated here under the name of ‘Mount Horeb’, is called Sinai in Deuteronomy and in other sources of the Book of Exodus. In religious traditions of the Near East, trees, springs and mountains were the privileged places for theophanies. Abraham had a vision in Shechem — an established place of worship. Moses encounters the same God in a traditional holy place of the desert. Interestingly, the Hebrew word for ‘bush’ is ‘Sineh’. Not unlike ‘Sinai’, there is an assonance between the two words which allows the reader to associate the fire of the bush (‘sineh’) and that of ‘Sinai’. (Exod 19:18).
‘This remarkable sight’ — a bush on fire yet not consumed — aroused Moses’ curiosity and can still capture our own imagination. But the Bible does not describe a theophany for its own sake. What counts, what we must remember, is the word pronounced. He ‘who dwells in the bush’ styles himself ‘The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.’ This is no mere way of speaking. At the time of his appearance at Shechem, God said to Abraham, ‘To your descendants I will give this land’ (Gen 12:7). Later on, during a night vision, God told him: ‘Know for certain that your descendants shall be aliens in a land not their own, where they shall be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years. But I will bring judgement on the nation they must serve, and in the end they will depart with great wealth.’ (Gen 15:13-14). Isaac, too, had a vision during a time of famine: ‘Do not go down to Egypt, but continue to camp wherever in this land I tell you. Stay in this land and I will be with you and bless you; for to you and your descendants I will give all these lands, in fulfilment of an oath that I swore to your father Abraham.’ Gen 26:2-3)
During his famous dream in which he saw ‘a stairway [resting] on the ground, with its top reaching to the heavens,’ Jacob heard the Lord say to him, ‘I, the Lord, am the God of your forefather Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you are lying I will give to you and your descendants’. (Gen 28:13) Then in another night vision in Beer-sheba, God said: ‘I am God, the God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you a great nation’.
Now, God is saying to Moses: ‘I am the God of your father….the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob…Come, now! I will send you to Pharaoh to lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.’ Now comes one of God’s greatest revelations to mankind, his name! And with his name his being; ‘But if they ask me what is his name, what am I to tell them?’ God replied [to] Moses:
‘I AM Who I AM….’ this is what you tell the Israelites: ‘I AM sent me to you…the Lord…God….This is my name forever.’ It is true that God reveals himself gradually as salvation history unfolds. Faithful, merciful, and finally Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who sends his Spirit. But we cannot be content with this interpretation, although it is pertinent and deserves to be remembered. By saying, ‘I AM WHO I AM,’ God answers an age old question; who is God? Does God exist? ‘I AM WHO I AM’ Existence itself! Lord, Creator of all things. ‘I AM WHO I AM’. Who was, who is and always will be; The Lord who sets himself over and against the so called gods who are not gods at all. ‘Father, and Lord of all.’
‘HE IS’ the one true God and therefore he can name himself ‘I AM’ in the absolute sense, that is ‘Yahweh’ or ‘Lord’. Henceforth, we shall speak of him by saying ‘HE IS’. To invoke him is to remember the marvels he has worked for his people by delivering them from slavery and, at the same time, it is to ask him with confidence to renew these marvellous deeds for us today. This is why he says, ‘This is my name forever; for all generations.’ Such is our God and Father: the All-Other, the All-Powerful, who possesses being to the point of being designated by it —’I AM’ is his name. Hence, the steadfastness of his attributes —faithfulness, tenderness, justice, love etc, which we use to invoke him.
‘And the Lord said, ‘I have seen the miserable state of my people in Egypt. I have heard their appeal to be free……I mean to deliver them out of the hands of the Egyptians and bring them up out of that land to a land rich and broad, a land where milk and honey flow.’
Lenten liturgy commemorates with particular insistence the main steps of salvation history, especially that of the Exodus. This recalling is not meant simply to place before the assembled Christians some memorable facts of the past enshrined in the Bible. Neither is it meant to evoke earlier experiences in order to buttress or illustrate a moral discourse. The steps of salvation history selected by the liturgy are, above all, revelations of God’s actions and initiatives, of the way in which the faithfulness of him who names himself ‘I AM’ pursues his saving plan and fulfils it, of his patience, of his mercy. They convey to us the calls that God unceasingly addresses to his people. They project their light on Christ and his mission, on the Church, God’s people walking towards the Jerusalem on high. Salvation history unfolds without interruption. The faithful of every age must enter into it by making a response to God’s call, basically a similar commitment made throughout the centuries; and by not stumbling upon obstacles that in one way or another seem to be similar throughout history.
Jesus himself used the term ‘I AM’ to describe himself. Yes, he was Messiah, Yes he was man, but he was also God Incarnate, the second person of the Holy Trinity and so quite entitled to use the name that God gave himself. This Son, who had a human name [Jesus], spoke like God, saying like him, ‘I AM’: the bread of life, come down from heaven. ‘I AM’: the Light of the world. ‘I AM’: the door. ‘I AM’ the Good Shepherd. ‘I AM’: the Resurrection. ‘I AM’: the way, the truth, the life. And even, ‘If you do not believe that ‘I AM’, you will die in your sins…… When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realise that I AM.’ —— ‘Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.
Continuing what the prophets and John the Baptist had to say, Jesus today voices an urgent appeal with a new authority. It is the call of the Church at all times, and with renewed force during Lent. — ‘Repent.’ God is patient; he cannot bring himself to cut down the barren tree, he does not stop hoping that it might show signs of bearing fruit after receiving special care. It is God’s patience that grants a delay to give the sinner a last chance to be converted and bear fruit. It is God’s patience that far from justifying negligence, must make the sinner conscious of the urgency of conversion. God does not tire, does not lose patience….ever For ‘It may bear fruit in the future.’ But it is man’s free choice, and those who refuse to yield to the unceasing calls of his kind solicitude and grace, may one day find it too late..
The more we enter the mystery of God by the light of his revelation, the more its height, breadth, and unfathomable depth appear. He told his name to Moses: ‘I AM’ and by doing so revealed so much more to us. We too, use the verb ‘To be’ to identify ourselves, but never alone in the absolute sense; we must always have it followed by something that will complete it.
When I hear God say, ‘I AM’ God not only says his name which illuminates his mystery while veiling it from our eyes, incapable of bearing his light; he has also revealed himself by what he did and what he never ceases to do. He shows himself — as our experience verifies — faithful and reliable, slow to anger, and full of mercy, patient and always ready to trust, to trust again. We have here a beginning of the unending litany of God’s attributes, of the visible manifestation of what he is. Throughout history, God has manifested himself in order to reveal to human beings the way of salvation and, when they have strayed, to urge them to return to his way of life. Far from ever despairing of humankind God sent his own Son and told us to ‘Listen to him’He preached conversion one last time and poured out into the world the Spirit, source of all fruitfulness.
This is our Lenten journey, our joyful walk toward the great feast of Easter. Let us pray for the grace to listen, to repent, and be reconciled.
‘Repent says the Lord, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.’
