God of the Unnamed
What do you know about Moses? He’s one of those names that people have often heard even if they’re not particularly churchy or into the Bible… They’ve seen the Disney movie about him or perhaps the old Charlton Heston version. Maybe they know he’s mentioned along with Isaac and a few other “greats” over and over as fathers of Israel. Moses often seems like a figure of towering importance in Scripture, far above us mere mortals.
Why is that? And is it helpful for us as we come to the Bible, to the story of faith as shared in the book of Exodus, looking for help in following Jesus and being fully human?
Old Testament scholar Wil Gafney suggests this:
“The writers and editors of the scriptures saw hierarchy in everything and crafted portrayals of God that fit their understanding. But the God I know does not love the one whose name is called more than the one whose name is forgotten. The intimacy of God and Moses was special but God’s love is abundant, inexhaustible, ever-present and free to all without precondition.”
Do you hear what she’s saying? Though the text so often tempts us to focus on Moses as special, as far above us somehow spiritually, the way that he connects with God is available to all of us - to you and me normal people. God knows you, too, and loves you ferociously. We are all part of the family of God, Jesus our brother, God our eternal Parent.
Perhaps you could sit for a few minutes with this description from Romans 8 of that radically welcoming, family building, individually naming love of God. What might Jesus have to say to you through these words?
God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun. (vv. 29-30, MSG)