The LORD

            Moses enters the desert to find food for his father-in-law’s sheep. Instead, he comes face to face with the Living God, the Lord. A flame catches Moses’ eye, a bush on fire but not consumed. Moses alters his path, turns aside to see this bush, this fire. Moses is willing to let God interrupt his plans. And God does not remain silent; he speaks to Moses. God reveals himself to Moses and tells Moses he knows what’s going on in Egypt. “I have observed the misery of my people.” Even more: “I have heard their cry.” More still: “I have come down to deliver them.” And then: “You, Moses, I’m sending you.”

            Moses is face to face with the Living God, the Lord. Before his eyes is a bush engulfed in flames yet not consumed. A bush, as the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins would say, “charged with the grandeur of God.” This is it, isn’t it: terrifying and amazing, wonderful and fearful. Standing in the presence of God—but who shall abide the day of his coming? Receiving an awesome calling to deliver his own people. Moses—who wouldn’t want to stand where he stands. Moses finds himself at the center of the universe, at the very heart of the cosmos, at the foundations of creation. Face to face with the Living God, the Lord, Moses could say anything, ask anything, offer every praise, fall on his face in worship and prayer. And of all the things he could have come up with, Moses asks, “What’s your name?”

            At first, the question sounds impertinent. Hasn’t God just told Moses everything he needs to know: “I am the God of your father, the God Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Why should Moses need further identification? But let the question sit with you a bit. Let it sink into your soul. Ponder it. “What is your name, o God? How shall I call you?”

            For centuries faithful Christians have asked Moses’ question: What is God’s name? Can human beings really even name God? After all, God is not a creature. All of our language, whether about God or anything else, is creaturely language. All of our names fall short of who God is. Some Christians have gone so far as to argue that we shouldn’t name God at all, that our best option is silence and darkness. But even our silence and our darkness are still part of creation; they bring us no closer to God than the babbling nonsense of people who think they’ve got God under their thumb by piling on his names.

            Most names for God, however much they fail to do justice to God, come from God’s acts of creation and salvation: Rock, Fortress, Deliverer, Creator, Redeemer, Shepherd, Shelter, Help, Savior, Strength, Shield, Jesus. Other names come from our awe of God: Holy One, Immortal One, Almighty, Glorious One, Omnipotent One, Love, Holy Spirit. Still other names take something that is familiar and amplify it to apply it to God. Soup is good; God is good—but God is not good in the same way that soup is good. Such names include: King, Sovereign, Ruler, Father.

            All of these are names for God. But the name God gives at Mount Horeb, the name he speaks to Moses, this name is different. This name is so significant, so holy that the Jewish people eventually decided the name was too holy to pronounce or even to spell out. I myself have learned from the Jewish respect for this name, and I also refuse to say the name aloud. We sometimes see the name spelled out YHWH, which transliterates the Hebrew letters yod, he, waw, yod. When readers of Hebrew came across these letters in the Scriptures, they simply replaced them with Adonai—the Lord. And in some English translations you will see this practice continued whenever you see “the Lord” in small caps. “I am who I am”—this is the name of the Lord. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the Living God, the God of the living: I am who I am.

            We must not think for a moment that because we are Christians we have been released from honoring and glorifying the name of the Lord. In fact, Christians have developed our own way of showing ultimate respect for God’s name, our own vocabulary for obeying the second commandment. We do not just say the Lord, as Jews do, though we do say it and we do mean, as the Jews mean, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, and of Moses. We also say: Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We baptize in the name of the Trinity. We make our Communion prayer in the name of the Trinity. The foundation of all Christian worship is the name of the Trinity, for we believe in the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of Moses, and of Jesus Christ. The Lord is Triune, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is the Lord.

            This is the name, the name that is above all names, the name that is given to Jesus Christ, Paul tells us in Philippians 2, the name… that will set the captives free. Moses wants to give the Israelites the name of their deliverer. God’s response to Moses is not an answer at all—I am sent me—and at the same time it is the answer, the only answer Moses could ever give. The name of Israel’s deliver is the Lord. And this is vital to catch. God does not give this name to Moses in a vacuum. God does not reveal this great name to Moses in a dream. God gives Moses this name that is above all names because God is going to save his people. The name of the Lord is given to Moses because the Lord is on the move. God’s self-revelation is inseparable from God’s mighty acts of salvation. The name of the Lord is given so that the people of the Lord might be saved.

            So it is that the burning bush is not just a fascinating spectacle on Mt. Horeb. Mary, the mother of God, the mother of Jesus, Mary also is the burning bush. Pregnant with the Son of God, she radiates the divine light brighter than any star, and yet she survives. She, too, is not consumed by God’s close presence. She gives birth to her child and gives him the name “the Lord saves”: Jesus. And like Moses, we are invited to alter our paths, to turn aside and face Emmanuel, God With Us, the Living God, the God of the Living, Jesus Christ.

            God speaks a word at Mt. Horeb, and the course of Israel’s history changes forever. God’s Word becomes flesh at Bethlehem, crucified flesh at Calvary, and resurrected flesh at the tomb, and the course of human history changes forever. All praise be to the Lord, the great I am. All praise be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. Amen.