Standing on Holy Ground

Sustaining Hope
Visions of Grandeur

God's Divine Glory Returns

Exodus 3:1-6  The Message

3 ^1-2 Moses was shepherding the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the west end of the wilderness and came to the mountain of God, Horeb. The angel of God appeared to him in flames of fire blazing out of the middle of a bush. He looked. The bush was blazing away but it didn’t burn up.

³ Moses said, “What’s going on here? I can’t believe this! Amazing! Why doesn’t the bush burn up?”
⁴ God saw that he had stopped to look. God called to him from out of the bush, “Moses! Moses!”
He said, “Yes? I’m right here!”
⁵ God said, “Don’t come any closer. Remove your sandals from your feet. You’re standing on holy ground.”
⁶ Then he said, “I am the God of your father: The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.”
Moses hid his face, afraid to look at God.

 
For Reflection
"Mine eyes have seen the coming of the Lord," is the first line of Julia Ward Howe's familiar hymn, The Battle Hymn of  the Republic.  Another familiar hymn to an 8th century Irish tune reads:

     Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
     Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
    Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
    Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Moses was in the presence of a vision of grandeur, incredulous and mysterious and transformational.  It was a vision of the coming of God's transformational power, a power codified in the commandments, a set of laws intended to give hope to a desperate people.

To give hope in desperate times is our sacred vision as well. We live and work for the restoration of the world in the image of the Kingdom of God.

Pray
that you will never lose your vision of God's intention for human kind.  Pray that you will work for righteousness.  Pray for those who embrace the vision of the Holy Spirit.  Pray for the coming of the Kingdom of God.