I Am Who I Am

Dear friends,

Although this upcoming Sunday only marks our halfway point through the Lenten Season, this week’s OT lectionary reading (Exodus 3:1-15) made me think of Holy Week. It’s the familiar story of "Moses and the Burning Bush." I have memories of the scene from Cecil B. DeMille’s classic film, The Ten Commandments, with Charleston Heston timidly approaching an ember, glowing “burning bush” (laden with special-effects).

God charges Moses to deliver his people from Egypt, and then Moses inquires, “When people ask, ‘Who sent me’ what name should I give them?” God responds, “I Am Who I Am.”

It’s a bit of a peculiar response. “I Am,” translates from the Hebrew word hāyâ (Yahweh) and means: to be, become, come to pass, exist, happen, fall out. Pretty confusing stuff.

The truth is we say confusing stuff all the time in church, such as the Gloria Patria. "Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end." It’s a doxology confessing a God who is one-in-three and three-in-one, who abides in-and-out of a timeless cycle. (Insert head-scratching emoji)

Aside from all this theological pondering, is the simple question, “Who is God?” And the honest answer is nobody knows. Our faith in a triune God is exactly that…faith, not deductive reasoning or scientific certitude.

During Lent we are invited not only to fast, but also to reflect on divinity. We might ponder, “Who is God, to me? How do I understand God?” If we are able to find moments of solitude to get in tune with this meditation, then we too, like Moses, might remove our “sandals” (whatever those might be in our lives) as we encounter the Holy.

In Christ,

Anthony+