When the voice commanded Moses to take off his shoes for
this was holy ground he could never have imagined what he would see and hear
the next time he came to this mountain, the fearsome presence of God. Moses was no longer a young man with a young
man's dreams and passions. His impetuousness
had been tempered in all these years of tending the flocks of his
father-in-law. The last time he was in
Egypt he was prepared to step in and become deliverer of the people but now his
only question is, "Who am I?"
That question had surely been ringing in his ears since he heard it so
long ago from a fellow countryman, " “Who made you a prince and a judge
over us?" Before that moment Moses
surely thought he knew the answer to that question, that the Lord had done
it. Had he not been saved as a baby from
Pharaoh's wrath? How many times had he
questioned himself and the Lord in all these years of shepherding? Now, suddenly and without warning, God was
calling him to be the agent of deliverance.
He was a bit gun-shy about going back.
Who could blame him?
Jesus points to His works as proof of who has sent Him. Moses came to the people in Egypt and
performed works, signs, to authenticate himself as sent by God. Jesus had done the same but goes further,
"I am the way, the truth and the life." He indeed claims equality with God, that He
is, as the writer of Hebrews said, "the radiance of the glory of God and
the exact imprint of his nature."
He is, as Paul wrote, "the image of the invisible God, the
firstborn of all creation." John
began his Gospel by telling us of Jesus, "In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Jesus tells Philip, "Whoever has seen me
has seen the Father." Moses was
God's chosen representative to the people of Israel, Jesus was God Himself,
taking on human flesh to be the savior and deliverer of mankind.
What does the writer mean that Moses preferred the reproach
of Christ as greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt? He chose to walk away from those riches that
could have been his had he simply remained in Pharaoh's household but he chose
to identify with the slaves, the Israelites, his own people. In doing so, he became an enemy to the
world. Jesus was perceived as an enemy
but was actually the greatest friend we have ever known. We are enemies of God so long as we identify
with the world, but identification with Him does not make us enemies of the
world, it makes us, like Him, lovers of the world, we have compassion on those
enslaved to sin and our desire is to see them set free.
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