“What's in a Name?” Exodus 3:1-15
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1 Jared Alcántara 28 February 2016 “What’s In a Name?” Exodus 3:1-15 What’s in a name? This is a question too few of us ask. Many of us don’t know much about our names: what they mean and why they matter. Some of us may know a lot about our names. Maybe there’s someone in your family who knows about family trees, genealogies, and names. What’s in a name? I would guess that there’s a subset of us who know enough about our names not to want to answer that question. Some of us want to run from our names because they’re connected to stories from the past: stories of pain or familial strife. When I think of running from a name, I think of Juliet’s dialogue with Romeo in Romeo and Juliet. “What’s in a name?,” she asks. “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called.” The two star-crossed lovers want to denounce their names. My name is a curious one, a strange juxtaposition. My first name “Jared” is Hebrew, and is found in Genesis 5. My last name “Alcántara,” is Arabic, it’s Moorish actually, and it traces back to Spain. My father was born and raised in Honduras. The Moors immigrated there eventually after fleeing Spain to North Africa during the Spanish Inquisition. A strange factoid, my uncle Jesus, almost every Hispanic family has an uncle named Jesus, he married a woman named Francisca Matamoros. You may know this, but in Latin America, people keep both last names. So, that side of the family is the Alcántara Matamaros family. But, there’s one catch. The name “Matamoros” literally means “Kill the Moors” in Spanish. Somehow, the Montagues and Capulets got together! 2 Transition: Names are more significant than we realize. Especially when we read and study the Bible, the answer to the question, “What’s in a name?” is: “Everything!” When God reveals His name, God reveals something extremely important about who He is, what He’s like, and how He’d like to relate to us. We see this throughout the Bible, and we see it in our Scripture passage for this weekend. READ EXODUS 3:1-15. Moses is hiding in Midian. You figured out from our Scripture reading that this text has two main characters: God and Moses. God does most of the talking, and Moses does most of the listening. This is a good thing, by the way. We learn so many things about God here: His name, His plan, and His call, and we’ll get to that. But, it’s also important to think about Moses’ role in this story. So, that’s where we’ll begin. Let me try to frame Moses’ backstory with a question. Have you ever made a mistake so embarrassing, indicting, and downright idiotic – perhaps you did this when you were younger – that were your slip-up or mistake broadcast before all your family and friends, you would consider moving to another state? What was it? What did it feel like to be in that place emotionally? Knowing what you know now, my guess is that you’d go back to that 13, 18, 22, or 40 year-old version of yourself, and you’d try to talk some sense into that person. If this describes you, then you have a small window into Moses’ soul. What we know about Moses from Exodus 2 is that Moses made a big mistake when he was young. As a side note, if you ever think that making a mistake as a young person disqualifies you from being used by God now and in the future, just look at Moses, and you’ll see a different story. The primary reason Moses lives in Midian rather than Egypt is that he 3 made a foolish mistake. We read in Ex. 2:12 that Moses actually killed somebody, tried to cover it up and, when Pharaoh found out about it, he wanted to subject Moses to the death penalty. Moses had been the prince of Egypt. He had been living in the sumptuousness of the palace instead of the squalor of the desert. He had been a mighty man in Pharaoh’s palace, but all of that is gone now. He once had been, and now he’s a has-been. At this stage of his life, Moses is hiding in a region called Midian, he’s gotten married to a woman named Zipporah, Jethro’s daughter, and they’ve even had a son named Gershom. The one who was once the prince of Egypt is now, according to verse 1, a shepherd on the far side of the wilderness. He’s been out there for years now. New life, new family, probably trying to forget the past, perhaps wondering aloud whether God can still use him after the mistakes he’s made. We read in verse 1 that Moses is shepherding the flocks on the “far side of the wilderness.” I wonder if that detail’s in the text to help us see that Moses is about as far away as possible from God’s purposes for him. He’s not just in the wilderness. He’s on the far side of the wilderness. It’s been said that one of the most painful gaps in human existence is the gap between the person that we want to be and the person that we are. It’s in this the gap, I think, where Moses has pitched his tent at the beginning of Exodus 3. My guess is that, in a congregation this size, there are many of you who know what it’s like to pitch your tent in this gap, the gap between the person that you want to be and the person that you are. You know what it’s like to experience the loneliness associated with the far side of the wilderness. Perhaps you live in constant fear that your past sins and past mistakes will return to visit you. Or, maybe you question whether you 4 will ever have what it takes to be the person God has called you to be. Or, maybe you worry that if people ever really knew you, the real person and not the facade, then they’d reject you and protect themselves from you. In a lot of ways, our worries, our fears, and our regrets bully us into forgetting the truth about the gospel. We forget about the promises God has made to us, what Christ has done for us at the cross. Sometimes, we let lies bully us into submission. I’ll never forget something that Jack Handey wrote in his book Fuzzy Memories. Handey is a humorist who’s better known for his book Deep Thoughts. “There used to be this bully who would demand my lunch money every day. Since I was smaller, I would give it to him. Then I decided to fight back. I started taking karate lessons. But then the karate lesson guy said I had to start paying him five dollars a lesson. So I just went back to paying the bully.” The truth about us is that most of us, when give the opportunity for God redirect our steps toward a new direction, just keep on paying the bully. Transition: But, there’s hope for Moses and, I would argue, there’s hope for us. God does not give up on us. Intro- We can’t say with certainty that Moses gave up on God, but here’s what we can say: God did not give up on Moses. While Moses might be in danger of forgetting about God, God has not forgotten about him. We spent the first few minutes talking about Moses, now I’d like to spend the remainder of our time talking about what this text teaches us about God. So, if you’d let me, I’d like to make a few observations. 5 1. Even in your wandering, God still cares for you. (vv. 1-6a) Where do we see God’s care for Moses? Look at verse 2. First, it’s the angel of the Lord who appears to Moses in a burning bush. Lots of fire in the first few verses: flames of fire, a bush that’s burning but not consumed, not burning up, but still on fire – five times we hear about fire in just a few verses. God suspends the laws of nature in order to get Moses’ attention so that, in verse 3, Moses says, “I will go over and see this strange sight,” literally “great sight.” Then, in verse 4, it’s the LORD himself who calls to Moses from within the bush. How do we know that God really cares? We have a few clues. Look at verses 4-5. 1) God calls Moses’ name twice: “Moses! Moses!” He’s not just calling his name; he’s also demonstrating his benevolent care. Doug Stuart: “In ancient Semitic culture, addressing someone by saying his or her name twice was a way of expressing endearment, that is, affection and friendship. Moses would have understood immediately that he was being addressed by someone who loved him and was concerned about him.” 2) Even though God communicates to Moses that he must show appropriate reverence on account of His holiness, it’s reverence in the context of relationship. Although God is set apart, Moses is not struck down here.