Today we’re writing Deuteronomy 5, and after yesterday’s transcription of Moses’ own words — that he’d be dying soon before arriving at the promised land — I have to say I’m heading into these next chapters with shades of trepidation. I know he’ll die, but for months I’ve copied the Bible, chapter by chapter, following Moses’ life and his story. And now at the culmination, in Israel’s penultimate step, he’s going to die.
I’m sure there’s much to learn from this, but for now, I want to grieve.

From today’s chapter, Exodus 3:

The angel of God appeared to him in flames of fire blazing out of the middle of a bush. He looked. The bush was blazing away but it didn’t burn up.
Moses said, “What’s going on here? I can’t believe this! Amazing! Why doesn’t the bush burn up?”
God saw that he had stopped to look. God called to him from out of the bush, “Moses! Moses!”
He said, “Yes? I’m right here!”
God said, “Don’t come any closer. Remove your sandals from your feet. You’re standing on holy ground.”
Then he said, “I am the God of your father: The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.”
Moses hid his face, afraid to look at God.

It’s fascinating that God didn’t simply speak to Moses. For Moses’ ancestors he generally just talked to them, though a few times he appeared to them. But Moses needed something particular to get his attention and apparently the voice of God alone wouldn’t do the trick. So God sends an angel to create a bush that burns without being consumed. Moses is drawn to the enigmatic and seemingly-impossible flame, and then when his attention is fixed, God spoke to him.

As remarkable as grace is in the big sense - that God would offer redemption to such fatally flawed people, as we’ve seen throughout Genesis and life in general - it’s so much more intimate in stories such as this. God was prepared to redeem Moses, we see that in his charge that Moses go liberate the Israelites But God also had a such a knowledge of Moses’ person that he new what it would take to get the message across, and God had such a care for Moses that he was willing to employ such a finesse technique to speak that word. I think it would have been reasonable for God to have thundered his commands to Moses and expected compliance; but God is unreasonable… unfathomable. And so instead of commanding through a booming voice, he lures Moses through a burning bush, then lays out the path for Moses’ redemption.

For some reason - and I’m hoping it’s more than just the animated film’s influence - I thought Moses accidentally killed the Egyptian, then immediately fled out of guilt and fear. Writing the real story, of Moses’ cold-blooded and calculated murder, then his flight after Pharaoh’s attempted hit, gives me a slightly different context for our story’s upcoming hero.
I think this just continues to illustrate how so often I’ve misconstrued so many of the Bible’s major figures in overly positive lights. I think I do this in everyday life too, exaggerating some people’s positive traits and even rewriting what happen to flatter them. I don’t think it’s just me, either. I think we all do this - I’ve certainly seen it during this election cycle in political coverage. Favored candidates have their lies treated as misstatements, or terrible policy positions considered only for their few strong points. Prior to this writing, I thought Moses fled chiefly out of guilt after accidentally killing a bad person. But the truth is that our exalted politicians are prone to the same moral failures as the rest of us, and Moses was every bit as evil as the violent Egyptian.
But the real truth - the enduring reality of Scripture - is that God sees. He understands. He listens. He remembers.
And most importantly for us, He redeems those which are otherwise worthless.