Meeting Moses

Moses Breaking the Tablets by John Martin (1833)

Lent reminds me of seasons of life that are lived in the desert. There are times in life when we must change, must adjust to unexpected difficulties, struggles in workplace, and loss in health or relations or even in spiritual vitality. The Lord does not abandon us in times of great challenge but is often calling us into a newness of life.

This calling may feel more like desert than oasis. In the desert, distractions magnify under the burning sun. Visions of Egyptian food and Egyptian ways beckon. Old idols sing siren songs. If not for the grace of God, the demons in St. Anthony’s cave would overcome us.

The desert provokes crisis. What I thought was my talent may be stripped away in the struggle. Those successes I hid behind or long desired vanish like a noonday mirage. What is it that I thought I needed to make me who I am? Income? Job? Accolades? Successes? or even Defeats? What happens when I lose those things I think are vital to my identity? What about my dreams or my story? I may have envisioned myself on a particular path, and I may have even told the story of my life in a particular way. Then suddenly I meet God on the path.

Maybe he knocks me on the ground like Saul. Maybe he wrestles me and cripples me like Jacob. Maybe like Jeremiah, he calls me to a place where the world seems to be falling apart. The desert is a place for dying and for being born again.

As I am wrestling with God to preserve some sense of my own importance, Moses appears. I see a fading glimpse of my calling. At first, Moses seems like fire streaming down the mountain.

He knows the desert. Like a dead man walking, he left a world behind and vanished into the wild. Stark living stripped him, unmade him. At the edge of nowhere, the fiery Voice of the Lord drew him up from the dust: recalled to life.

This burning man consumed the powers of Egypt and lead a band of slaves into the Holy Fear. He stands in the fire on the mountain. His people tremble before the Voice that creates and destroys.  Call it the horror of the holy. Standing naked before the face of Love is like facing the flaming sword of Eden.

Moses reminds me that we are called to a blazing fire of love. The Spirit beckons. We face the Lord. He wounds and heals. We hear the Word of Love resounding like rushing waters in the midst of flames.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12).

This call, this wound of love may be as dramatic as a desert journey that leads to the end of one life and the beginning of the another. It may also seem much smaller like the daily renunciations of self importance, self identity, self focus. It may be the little challenges of work and family and life. It may be the long letting go into the hands of God as he forms me into a flame of love.