Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost: Old Testament, Exodus 3:1-15                        

Exodus 3:1-15

God is with his people. God is for his people. And we have that truth put on display for us in our Old Testament lesson for the week. Moses has escaped Egypt and its king, for now. He has gone where many of God’s men go when challenged: the wilderness. And he is taught and trained under the hand of God over a stretch of time. Our reading today gives us Moses’ introduction to his God. And I love how it is portrayed. In the midst of our reading, almost dead-center, we read, “And the LORD said: ‘I have seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land …’” (Ex. 3:7-8a). Do you see it? A picture of our redemption in God’s first words to Moses at the bush. 

“I have come down to deliver them ….to bring them up from that land.” God’s redeeming love in action is always marked by his descent and the result is that his people are lifted up. God appears in varying guises in the Old Testament, and then comes to us as one of us in his Son. The Holy Spirit descends upon us and our eyes are lifted to Christ. And then, even at the very end of the Bible, God descends to take up permanent residence with his own as they ascend his throne for eternity. Down and up. It is always that direction. Our God always comes to us and in his lifting of us he is always for us. God be praised!