Exodus 3:1-8, 13-15; Psalm 103:1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8, 11; 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12; Luke 13:1-9

This Sunday I'll focus on the first reading, from the Book of Exodus. In this first reading we hear the story of the call of Moses, with the famous scene of the burning bush, and God revealing His name to Moses. Needless to say, there are a lot of points that could be developed out of this story. Indeed, this is one of the most pivotal moments in Scripture, the beginning of the Exodus, a set of events that is key to an understanding of the whole story of salvation history. After what seemed to be a long period of silence and inaction, God is finally moving to rescue His people. This is truly a dramatic moment.

In the midst of all this drama, however, it is instructive to stop and think about the circumstances here. Moses was tending sheep when he heard the historic call of God. Presumably, up until the point when God called him, this was a day like most of the other days in his life. For that matter, life for the whole Jewish people at the time of Moses was more or less as it had been for a very, very long time, and that means it was miserable. For about four centuries the Israelites had been in captivity in Egypt, where they were forced to do the hardest labor, and the Egyptians had made repeated attempts to slow or stop the growth of the Israelites as a people by killing their infants. Up until the moment when God intervened, there was no reason to think that tomorrow would be any different from yesterday, or next year different from this year. If anything, things might have seemed likely to get worse, as had consistently happened for the Israelites in Egypt for a long time. Then, suddenly, seemingly out of the blue, everything is changed.

Of course the troubles of the Israelites do not end with the call of Moses. There will be other difficulties in the Exodus itself, and after the Exodus, as is mentioned in the second reading this Sunday. However, the whole perspective on life for Moses changes when he hears the message of God, and the perspective on life of all the Israelites would change when they listened to the message of Moses. In retrospect we know that God planned to rescue the Israelites at that moment all along, but they could not possibly have known that. By reading just slightly past today's reading in the Book of Exodus, it can be seen that many found it difficult to believe that God was finally going to save them even after Moses spoke to them, and in a way it is hard to blame them. Neither the Israelites nor the Egyptians could believe what was happening, so amazing was the sudden and complete reversal of events brought about by God.

There are a couple of things we can take from reflecting on the stunning nature of this scene between God and Moses that we have seen in the Book of Exodus. First of all, regardless of how dark things may seem, God is never ignoring us. If it His will, when the time is right, He can and will deliver us from evil, sometimes resurrecting lives that seem devastated by suffering and even sin beyond hope of recovery. However, even God can only save us if we let Him. In bad times we may feel depression and despair and even anger with God, as the people of Israel surely did, but it is always still important that we continually repent of our sins, and remain ready to respond to God in faith when He offers His help to us. The people of Israel were in Egypt for approximately four hundred years, but in the end God came to deliver them, and in this reading He says to Moses, and in a sense to all those in trouble: "I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt and have heard their cry of complaint against their slave drivers, so I know well what they are suffering. Therefore I have come down to rescue them from the hands of the Egyptians and lead them out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey."