Download - Ascension Evangelical Lutheran

Sermon by Pastor Robert Green, 3rd Sunday in Lent, 2/28/16, No. 1176, Ascension Evangelical Lutheran Church,
Harrisburg, W.E.L.S., based on Exodus 3:1-15
Take off your sandals for you are on holy ground-God’s call to repentance!
God caused his Word to be written so that we would know what we are to believe about him. One of the key
thoughts God wants us to know is that he is holy, but we are sinners. That presents an unsurmountable problem
for us, for our sins make us unholy, unclean, and therefore unable to approach him or be in his presence, both
now and in eternity. Indeed, God tells us no sinner can see his face, that is, to be in his presence, and live. That is
why his judgment for sin is eternal death in hell. That our sins separate us from God is not an unsurmountable
problem for God. That is why God told Moses as he approached the Lord at the Burning Bush, in the reading,
“Take off your sandals for you are on holy ground!” - God’s call to Moses to repent of all his sins.
Before the sinner Moses could approach God at the Burning Bush, God had to do take care of the
unsurmountable problem of sin. God solved this unsurmountable problem in sending us our Savior, who washes
away our uncleanness in his sacred blood once shed to remove all our sins. In shedding his blood Jesus paid full
penalty for all sins. Through faith God makes all who believe in Jesus pure and holy by crediting each believer
with the perfect righteousness of Christ. In this way, God makes all who believe, including Moses, pure and holy
enabling to come to him now through faith and to live in his divine presence forever in heaven. It was only
through faith in the coming Savior that Moses treated the command “Take off your sandals for you are on holy
ground!” as God’s call to repent of all his sins.
All this is played out in the reading for today about God’s call to Moses at the Burning Bush to become the
leader of Israel. Israel had existed in Egypt for 430 years and by the time of Moses it had grown into a large
nation. Eventually, Egypt enslaved the people, but grew to fear their large numbers. Out of that fear the pharaoh
or king of Egypt issued a wicked decree that every Hebrew male child was to be killed at birth. Moses’ mother
rescued him from this death by leaving him in a basket near where Pharaoh’s daughter bathed. Pharaoh’s
daughter found and adopted Moses and he lived in the household of Pharaoh until he was forty, where he was
trained and educated in all the ways of the Egyptian rulers. One day in his fortieth year Moses saw an Egyptian
guard beating a Hebrew slave and Moses killed the guard. This was an act of murder. Moses knew his guilt for he
buried the body to hide what he had done. The next day, he tried to stop two Hebrews from fighting when one of
them ask Moses if he was going to kill him too. Realizing his crime was known and fearing he would be put to
death, Moses fled to Midian.
Just before the reading we are told, that God heard the Israelites groaning about their slavery and so was
concerned about them. The reading picks up with God’s call to Moses to go and lead the people to the Promised
Land. Moses, the author of Exodus, tells us, “Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the
priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2
There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the
bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush
does not burn up.” Horeb is also called Mt. Sinai where God later gave Moses the Ten Commandments.
One of the key terms used in the Old Testament is “the angel of the LORD.” Use of the definite article marks
this as the pre-incarnate Christ. Jesus is the eternal Second Person of the Trinity and as such there never was a
time when Jesus was not, although there was the time before his incarnation when he took on human flesh and
blood. Before his birth, Jesus often appeared to various persons in the Old Testament in various ways. Here he
appears in the Burning Bush as the angel of the LORD. It is worthy to note that the word “LORD” is in all capital
letters represents the name “I AM” which our Triune God gives to himself in this reading.
At first Moses had no idea what was going on with this strange sight, so he went over to investigate. Moses
then tells us, “When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush,
“Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” One thing we learn from this encounter is that our Triune God
is a personal God. He called Moses by name to specifically speak with him. God then said, “Do not come any
closer. Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” God does not explain, nor
did he need to, why the ground was holy. We get a sense of it being holy simply because God appeared there,
hidden in the Burning Bush. Here God is reminding Moses that while God is holy, Moses was not.
The LORD God then said “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God
of Jacob.” By these words God revealed to Moses and reminds us that he is the God of the living. Thus, in these
words we find the Gospel promise of the resurrection. Saying that he is the God of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, was God’s confirmation of the promise that the Savior would come and all who die in faith would be
resurrected to live with God forever.
Reflect that we are told that “At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.” Moses hid
his face out of fear of being in God’s presence for he knew he was a sinner. Moses understood the command to
“Take off your sandals for you are on holy ground!” was God was calling him to repentance, for how else could
a sinner come into the presence of the most Holy God! The very fact that the LORD invited and allowed sinful
Moses to come into his presence was a promise that the Christ would come to take away his sin and uncleanness
to make him pure and holy.
God revealed his divine love for his people as he then spoke of remembering his people and his promises to
them. God in his grace treated the physical nation of Israel as his people, because of his gracious promises to
Abraham, Isaac, and Judah to make them into a great nation and to give the Promised Land to them, but more
importantly because he promised the Savior would come from Israel. Yet, recall that later at Mt. Sinai God told
the Israelites they would be his Chosen People only if they obeyed all his commands. This obedience never
happened, therefore physical Israel never met the condition to be the Chosen Nation. After Jesus died for our sins,
God revealed that the “Chosen Nation” now consists of all who believe in Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior, for
through faith God credits each believer with the perfect obedience of Christ to all God commands.
We see God’s divine love put into action as then, “The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my
people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their
suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that
land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites,
Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen
the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the
Israelites out of Egypt.” The land flowing with milk and honey was the Promised Land of Israel. To understand
the Promised Land, keep in mind while in one sense it referred to a real piece of real estate, in the greater sense it
is the picture of heaven. Sinful Israel did not deserve this promise and no one deserves heaven, but God by his
grace promised Israel the Promised Land, so in his grace God sent the Savior to defeat sin, death, and the devil, in
order to win a place in heaven for all who believe.
Perhaps thinking of his failed attempt to rescue Israel by murdering the guard, which ended in his flight,
Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12 And God
said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought
the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” Take to heart God’s promise to Moses that as
he called him to lead Israel so he would be with him. God proved this for three months after leading the people
out of Egypt the people of Israel worshiped the LORD God at Mt. Horeb or Sinai.
Moses had been gone for forty years and so was certainly concerned that the people of Israel would question
who he was to claim the right to lead them. And so, “Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say
to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell
them?” Then “God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has
sent me to you.’” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name by
which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.” By giving the name God had already used would
give reason for the people to trust Moses was from the one true God.
This is one of the most revealing passages of Scripture of just who is the God we are to worship. The name “I
AM” describes God for he constantly is who he is, he does not change, for he is eternal with no beginning and no
end. Because he is timeless and changeless the writer of Hebrews 13:8 declares Jesus to be “the same yesterday
and today and forever” and in Malachi 3:6, God declares, “I the LORD do not change”. This is why we can trust
him to keep all his promises, including the promise of love, mercy, and complete forgiveness for all our sins!
Dear believer in those times you face your sins, fall not into despair, but remember God told Moses, a sinner
with murder on his soul, to “Take off your sandals for you are on holy ground” - God’s call to repent, and his
promise of making Moses pure and holy so that he could come before him, an invitation he gives to all who
believe! To God be all glory, amen!