The Fourth Sunday in Lent
March 6, 2016
Exodus 3:1-8b, 10-15
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. 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. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” 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.” “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. 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. 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. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 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.” 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?” 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.'” 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.'” (NIV1984)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
The oldest and the dearest guy friend I have on the face of this earth is a man named Greg Ewald. Greg and I have been very good friends ever since we were freshmen at Northwestern College in Watertown, Wisconsin. That was 1976. Greg is now serving the Lord by serving the Lord’s people as the pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Burton, Michigan— which is on the south side of Flint. For a number of years Pastor Ewald and I made it a priority to attend the Symposium at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, our alma mater. While the main purpose of attending the Symposium was to learn from the papers that were being presented, we also looked forward to the opportunity to be back on the Seminary grounds. If you ever get a chance to visit the Seminary, my friends, do it. The Seminary is modeled after the Wartburg Castle in Germany. On top of the archway that leads into the central courtyard is a room that used to be called “The Holy Ghost Room.” This is where the District Presidents would gather to assign the Seminary graduates to their very first congregation. As you pass through the archway the classrooms and the library are on your right. The dormitories and the cafeteria are on your left. Every time we attended the Symposium Pastor Ewald and I would always walk through the buildings, we would always walk around the campus and we would always come the same conclusion: This is Holy Ground.
Holy Ground. Those are the words that you and I will focus on this morning as we study this familiar portion of Scripture. There are two points we want to emphasize. First, let’s see what makes a place Holy Ground. Then, let’s see what gives us both the ability and the right to stand on Holy Ground.
Most of us I’m sure are quite familiar with the larger setting of our text for today. God’s people had been slaves in the land of Egypt for over 400 years. Pharaoh had become concerned that the Israelites were becoming too numerous and too powerful so he ordered that the midwives helped a Jewish woman give birth that all the male babies be killed as soon as they were born. Moses’ parents refused to obey that order. Instead, Moses’ parents hid him for three months and then placed him in the Nile River where he was found and adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter. Pharaoh’s daughter treated Moses as if he was her own son, but Moses identified himself with his Hebrew brethren rather than his adopted Egyptian family. Purely on his own initiative Moses tried to assert himself as a leader among the Hebrews. He ended up killing an Egyptian and hiding his body in the sand. When Moses found out that other people knew what he had done Moses fled to the land of Midian, settled down, got married and worked as a shepherd, “tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law” as we heard in the opening words of our text for today.
For the first forty years of his life Moses enjoyed all the luxuries and all the education and all the advantages of being the adopted grandson of Pharaoh, the most powerful man on earth. (See Acts 7:20-23) For the next forty years of his life Moses lived the rather lowly and lonely life of a shepherd. (See Acts 7:30) Then one day Moses suddenly sees a rather strange sight. He sees a thorn bush that is on fire— but it doesn’t burn up! So, purely out of curiosity Moses goes over to see this “strange sight.” From that moment on Moses’ life would never be the same! As Moses approached the burning bush the “angel of the LORD” (a term which refers to Jesus before He was born in Bethlehem) called out Moses’ name and said, “Do not come any closer. Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”
What made that ground “holy,” my friends? Was it “holy” because it was such great ground for grazing flocks? Was it “holy” because it was spacious and beautiful beyond belief? Hardly. The only reason this particular place was considered to be Holy Ground was because this was where Moses came into direct contact with the one true God! And who is the one true God? Look at verse six of our text, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” Abraham lived some six hundred years before Moses was born! Therefore, by identifying Himself as the “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” God is emphasizing to Moses that He is the eternal living God! At the end of our text for today the Lord once again emphasizes both His eternity as well as His unique independence when He tells Moses that His Name is, “ I AM WHO I AM.” The one true God is the LORD God Jehovah. Whenever and wherever a person comes into contact with the one true God that place can rightly be called Holy Ground!
Now look at verses 7 and 8 of our text. There we hear the LORD say, “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. 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.”
There are those who believe that God is a very remote impersonal Being. They think He sits up in heaven and simply “observes” how things “unfold” here on this earth. And while He may know the difficulties we human beings are enduring they say that He doesn’t actually “get involved” in our lives. Nothing could be further from the truth, my friends! Not only does God know the difficulties we are enduring but He personally “comes down” to “rescue” us! And wherever that “rescuing” takes place we can consider that place to be Holy Ground.
You have been eyewitnesses of just such “rescuing”— probably on more than one occasion! Every time you have seen someone baptized with water in the Name of the Triune God you have seen the Lord God Himself “came down” from heaven and “rescue” them from the power of sin, death and the devil. Yes, for all of us who are baptized children of God the baptismal font is indeed Holy Ground. On the third Sunday of every month we have the privilege of approaching the altar of the one and only true God to receive the Sacrament of Holy Communion. Through His real presence in this holy Supper the Lord God Himself “comes down” to “rescue” us from both the guilt of our sins as well as from the punishment of our sins. Therefore we can rightfully consider this to be Holy Ground. Does the Lord God come to us whenever we are reading and studying His holy inspired Word— no matter whether it is here in church or at home? Then that is Holy Ground! When we go out to a restaurant and join together to say our table prayers, “Come Lord Jesus, be our guest…” does the Son of God come and dine with us? Then that is Holy Ground! Wherever and whenever we have the opportunity to come into contact with the one true God, wherever and whenever the one true God comes down to “rescue” us that is indeed Holy Ground.
That truth then brings us to the second point we need to address today. What gives us the right, what gives us the ability to stand on Holy Ground? Moses understood very well that he was a sinner. Therefore, when Moses realized that he was in the presence of the holy Lord God how did Moses react? We’re told in our text, “At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.” By nature we don’t have the right nor do we have the ability to stand on Holy Ground and to be in the presence of a holy God. God’s holiness simply will not tolerate the presence of sin. God’s perfection and God’s glory consumes imperfect mortals like us. (See Exodus 33:18-23) Therefore, the only way we can stand on Holy Ground, the only way we can be in the presence of our holy God is when all of our sins have been completely taken away and we have been covered in a robe of righteousness, holiness and perfection.
Where does all of that come true for us, my friends? Where are all of our sins completely taken away? Where do we receive the holiness, the righteousness, the perfection that is acceptable to God Himself? All of this came true for us in the most unlikely of places, didn’t it. All of this came true for us on what might be considered the most holy ground of all— the hill called Calvary! Because of the sacrifice that the Lord made for us on the cross of Calvary’s hill we now have the right, we now have the privilege; we now have the ability to stand in the very presence of God Himself unashamed and uncondemned! Because the “angel of the LORD” who spoke to Moses in the burning bush was willing to be born as “Christ the LORD” in the little town of Bethlehem (Luke 2:11), because the compassionate LORD who heard the suffering of His people and came down to rescue them from the land of slavery was willing to come into our world and endure the passion of the cross so that we could be rescued from our spiritual slavery to sin, because of the amazing grace of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob we have been given the righteousness, the holiness and the perfection that we so desperately need!
This glorious truth has an impact on the way that we live our daily life. It has an impact on the way that we treat each other. And it has an impact on the way that we worship.
The fact that this cross (Pointing) is our only source of holiness, our only source of righteousness, our only source of perfection means that we will strive to live our life in a way that always keeps the cross of Jesus Christ clearly before our eyes. Are there places we won’t go because they are offensive to our Savior? Are there words we won’t use because they would cause the Lord’s Christ to cringe? Are there people we may not want to hang around with because they would want us to leave our Brother Jesus at home so that we can all go out and have some “fun”? I’m sure we all know the answer to those questions.
The fact that this cross (Pointing) is our only source of holiness, our only source of righteousness, our only source of perfection means that we will strive to see each other and to treat each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, as fellow saints of God. No matter how old or how young we are, no matter whether we are a man, a woman or a child, no matter whether we have been blessed with many material blessings or are blessed with not much more than our “daily bread” we are equals in the eyes of our Savior God! We need to see each other and to treat each other the same way the Lord God Jehovah sees and treats us!
And yes, the fact that this cross (Pointing) is the only reason that we have the right and the ability to stand on Holy Ground in the presence of our holy God does indeed have an impact on the way that we worship. This is God’s house. This is where we come to thank and to praise Him (Pointing to the cross) for all that He has so graciously done for us. This is where we humbly and obediently listen and learn as the God of heaven speaks to us through His holy Word. This is where we humbly and gratefully receive His holy Supper to comfort our soul and to strengthen our faith. All of this needs to be reflected in the fact that when we gather together here for worship we are indeed on Holy Ground.
Ah, Holy Ground. The Symposium at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary is usually toward the end of September. I did check on the price of a ticket. It would cost about $330 to fly round trip from San Francisco to Flint— just so you know; attending the Symposium just wouldn’t be the same if Pastor Ewald and I didn’t ride together from Flint to Mequon! While I would love the opportunity to attend the Symposium this September, while I would love the opportunity to drive onto the campus and walk through the archway of what in my heart truly is Holy Ground I pray that each and every day each and every one of us will remember the two truths emphasized here in our text for today: wherever we come into contact with the one and only Living God and wherever our God comes to “rescue” us is indeed Holy Ground; and, the only reason we have the right, the only reason we have the ability to stand on Holy Ground in the presence of our holy God is because of what He has done for us! (Pointing to the cross)
To God be the glory!
Amen