The Burning Bush

The daily office reading from the Old Testament today is Exodus 3, the story about Moses and the Burning Bush. I have read it many times, heard it many times, probably heard sermons preached about it many times. This morning I was struck by the wording, and I had to stop at the very beginning.

Moses, tending sheep for his father-in-law, Jethro, leads the sheep “beyond the wilderness.” And then he arrives at the “Mountain of God”.

Beyond the wilderness. That means he went into the wilderness and kept moving through it until he got beyond it and that is where God called him. The burning bush came beyond the wilderness.

Wilderness is such a beautiful word. I like the way it looks and the way it sounds and the way it feels to say it. But the meaning is painful. The wilderness is wild, and lonely. It is perilous, cold, dark and mysterious. The wilderness is deep and desolate. Moving through the wilderness requires faith and hope and perseverance. It requires the belief that the wilderness will eventually come to an end. And, unless it is a familiar wilderness, the one moving through it knows neither when it will end, nor what the end of the wilderness will bring.

At the end of this particular wilderness, Moses came to the “Mountain of God.” He took his father-in-law’s flock beyond the wilderness and it was there that God called him.

At the Mountain of God Moses saw the burning bush, noticed the oddity of it—a bush that was on fire, but not consumed. How is that? And he intentionally went to look at it. There is something in this as well. He turned himself and his attention to the burning bush, to the frightening, mysterious, impossible thing which was right in front of him at the Mountain of God at the end of the wilderness.

If I was to see a burning bush, or something equally mysterious, would I intentionally wonder at it, or would I run screaming in the other direction? Or, would I think of a million reasons why it couldn’t actually be what it seems to be? Moses paid attention.

I am not always sure what I am paying attention to, but I am trying to notice. I suppose the point of noticing is to then intend to pay attention to those things which are of greater importance than the things I tend to default my attention toward. Or, as in this case with Moses, to intentionally give my attention to that which is in front of me but beyond my understanding, and therefore something I would rather avoid.

Moses never did comprehend the burning bush, but God spoke to him because he turned his attention toward it. God called him when he did.

Wilderness and attention. Moses went beyond the wilderness to the Mountain of God and gave his attention to the incomprehensible mysterious, impossible he found there. And all of that prepared him to hear the call.